US President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal immigration officials to prioritise deportations from Democratic-run cities, following large protests in Los Angeles and other major cities against his administration’s immigration policies.
Trump called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History” in a social media posting.
He added that officials “must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside”.
Enforcement targets and industry pauses
Trump’s declaration follows weeks of increased enforcement, after Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said ICE officers would target at least 3,000 arrests daily, up from about 650 daily during the first five months of Trump’s second term.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration has directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels after Trump expressed alarm about aggressive enforcement’s impact on those industries, according to a US official familiar with the matter.
Tatum King, an official with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, wrote to regional leaders on Thursday instructing them to halt investigations of the agriculture industry, including meatpackers, as well as restaurants and hotels.
Protests and federal response
Protests over federal immigration enforcement raids have erupted nationwide. Opponents of Trump’s immigration policies took to the streets during “no kings” demonstrations on Saturday as Trump held a massive parade in Washington for the US Army’s 250th anniversary.
Saturday’s protests were mostly peaceful, though police in Los Angeles used tear gas and crowd-control munitions to clear protesters after events ended. Officers in Portland, Oregon, also fired tear gas and projectiles to disperse crowds protesting outside a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building.
Trump suggested to reporters as he departed for the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada, on Sunday evening that deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles ensured peaceful protests. “If we didn’t have the National Guard on call and ready, they would rip Los Angeles apart,” Trump said.
Industry concerns
The policy shift comes as Trump grapples with his mass deportation effort’s impact on key industries relying on workers in the country illegally.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday that hotel, agriculture and leisure industries told him his “very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them” and promised changes would be made.
(information from The Guardian)
