Top Trump administration officials, including “border czar” Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, visited Chicago on Sunday (January 27, 2025) to witness the start of ramped-up immigration enforcement in the nation’s third-largest city as federal agencies touted arrests around the country.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it made 956 arrests nationwide on Sunday and 286 on Saturday. While some of the operations may not have been unusual, ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
Federal law enforcement on immigration crackdown
Few details of the operation were immediately made public, including the number of arrests. But the sheer number of federal agencies involved showed President Donald Trump’s willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said he observed immigration agents from the DHS along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He didn’t offer details on the operation, which came days after DHS expanded immigration authority to agencies in the Department of Justice, including the DEA and ATF.
Operation targets members of Venezuelan gang in Colorado
The DEA posted pictures Sunday on social media of an operation at a location in the Denver area, where roughly 50 people were taken into custody.
Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge for the DEA Rocky Mountain field division, said the Colorado operation targeted drug trafficking by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. He said about 100 agents and officers, including from the DEA, ICE, ATF and Homeland Security Investigations, carried out a federal search warrant for drug trafficking around 5 am Sunday at a location where Tren de Aragua members were having a party.
ICE detained nearly 50 people and transported them on a bus to one of its processing centers in nearby Aurora, Pullen said. As of Sunday afternoon, about 40 people remained in ICE custody, he said.
“They ran all of the information while they were on scene and they determined, ICE determined, that they were here illegally or they had some other violation in the immigration system, and they detained and arrested them,” Pullen said.
Immigrant rights groups
Immigrant rights groups have tried to prepare for the aggressive crackdown with campaigns for immigrants to know their rights in case of an arrest. City officials have done the same, publishing similar information at public bus and train stations.
On Friday, Chicago Public Schools officials mistakenly believed ICE agents had come to a city elementary school and put out statements to that effect before learning the agents were from the Secret Service. Word of immigration agents at a school — which have long been off limits to immigration agents until Trump ended the policy last week — drew swift criticism from community groups and Gov. JB Pritzker.
The Democratic governor, a frequent Trump critic, questioned the aggressive approach of the operations and the chilling effect for others, particularly for law-abiding immigrants who have been in the country for years.
Published – January 27, 2025 07:34 pm IST
