The Trump administration’s operation of mass deportations has been extended to Los Angeles on Saturday with pre-dawn arrests, part of a West Coast operation expected to last seven days a week, according to the New York Post.
Immigration agents avoided parts of the city that suffered the most damage from the devastating Southern California wildfires. The effort was part of a major crackdown in cities across America promised by Donald Trump on the campaign trail and has focused on driving out criminal immigrants, the U.S. media outlet reported.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal agencies involved in the raids are expected to put in a lot of overtime to speed up the efforts.
Details of the Los Angeles raids were scarce Saturday afternoon, but sources said immigrants apprehended there were being held in ICE detention centers in California pending deportation.
Officials expect the spaces to fill up quickly and federal agencies are looking for more space to hold the immigrants.
Executive orders issued by the new U.S. president dramatically loosened restrictions on how immigration officers can conduct deportation raids, removing prohibitions on searching courthouses, churches, and other “sensitive” places where illegal immigrants have historically been hiding to protect themselves from federal authorities.
The White House will use military planes daily to help carry out what Trump has called the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
ICE reported Friday that it arrested 593 immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally and filed 449 “detainer” requests with local authorities, asking them to turn over immigrants targeted for deportation.
It was unclear how many arrests were made at 4 p.m. Saturday, but the agency released the names of some who had been arrested days earlier. According to the Post, they include several pedophiles, drug dealers, gang members, and a suspected terrorist in New York City.
Ask me anything
Explore related questions