Federal immigration officials have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, a major emergence that has stemmed from a push within Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase arrest rates.
Agency leaders in recent days ordered top ICE officials to focus more of their officers’ efforts on picking up immigrants they want to deport, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with federal officials. ICE officers have arrested people at check-ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street. The push has apparently yielded results, with recent arrest numbers roughly doubling from the 1,000 picked up each day earlier this year.
ICE officials were told that the White House wanted an increase in arrests, according to three officials with knowledge of the conversations. One of the officials said that it was unclear how long the peace could continue, but that ICE officials had been told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement.
The surge has occurred without the fanfare of highly visible operations last year, in which officials announced their intentions ahead of time to target cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, and sent officers pouring into the streets. Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, pledged to mount a quieter enforcement campaign following the chaos of a monthlong operation in Minnesota, where federal officers killed two U.S. citizens.
In recent days, ICE officers have launched an intense push to ramp up arrests. Arrests ended on Saturday when authorities detained over 2,400 people, according to documents obtained by The Times. The detention population inside ICE facilities has jumped nearly 4,000, to more than 63,000 in the agency’s custody as of Tuesday, according to internal documents.
“They’re getting people — be very careful,” her husband told her from ICE detention, she recalled through an interpreter. She said her 13-year-old son was traumatized by the arrest of his father, who had worked most days of the week building furniture before his arrest, she added.
