The new “Tsar of the US Border”, Tom Homan, traveled to Chicago to supervise reinforced actions against irregular immigration over the weekend, when about 1,240 people were arrested nationwide.
High -ranking officials of the federal government, including the “Tsar of the Border” Tom Homan and the Undersecretary of Interim Justice, traveled to Chicago on Sunday to witness the beginning of the reinforced measures against immigration in the third largest city in the country while Federal agencies announced the figures for arrests in different parts of the United States.
The number of agencies involved demonstrated the willingness of President Donald Trump to use federal authorities beyond the National Security Department to fulfill his promise of large -scale deportations.
The United States Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE for its initials in English) reported that it carried out 956 arrests nationwide on Sunday and 286 on Saturday.
The Undersecretary of Interim Justice Emil Bove said that he observed agents of the Department of National Security (DHS for his initials in English), FBI, the Anti -Drug Agency (DEA) and the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF). He gave no more details about the operations, which occurred days after the DHS expanded the authority in the field of immigration to the agencies belonging to the Department of Justice, such as the DEA and the ATF.
“We will support everyone at the federal, state and local levels that join this critical mission to recover our communities,” Bove said in a statement. “We will use all the available tools to address obstruction and other illegal impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland. The most important thing is that we will not rest until the work is finished. ”
“Dr. Phil ”McGraw, a psychologist who has a television program, interviewed Homan and broadcast live the Chicago operation on his multiplatform television network Merit TV, and several other reporters were also invited to witness Sunday's operation. The Associated Press plans to observe the operations this week.
The DEA's office in Chicago published photos on the social network X in which Bove and Homin appear with ATF agents and the US border customs office and protection (CBP, for its initials in English).
Since Trump assumed the position, similar operations have been promoted against illegal immigration in different parts of the country, which are continuous, ICE said. DEA and DHS offices reported on social networks of additional operations during the weekend in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska and Texas.
Operations against Venezuelan gang members in Colorado
The DEA published on Sunday in social networks photographs of an operation in a location of the Denver metropolitan area in which some 50 people were arrested.
Jonathan Pullen, a special agent in charge of the Camp Aragua Train, a criminal group of Venezuelan origin. He indicated that about 100 agents and officials, including elements of the DEA, the ICE, the ATF, as well as national security investigations, executed a federal registration order for drug trafficking around 5 in the morning on Sunday in a place where members of the Aragua train celebrated a party.
ICE arrested almost 50 people who were transferred by bus to one of their processing centers in the nearby city of Aurora, Pullen reported. Until Sunday night about 40 people remained in Custody of the ICE, he added.
“They verified all the information while they were in the place and determined, the ICE determined, that they were illegally or that they had some other violation in the immigration system, and arrested and arrested them,” said Pullen.
There was also a “handful” of American citizens, Pullen said.
The agents seized drugs, including cocaine, several guns and cash, said Pullen, who added that this investigation began during the Biden government and continues during Trump's presidency. The DEA and ICE have cooperated with each other for several decades and there was nothing new in the coordination between the two agencies, he explained.
Trump issued an executive order that paves the way for criminal organizations such as the Aragua train to be designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.” Armed members of the Venezuelan group were captured in a video while entering an Apartments complex in Aurora in the middle of last year, images that attracted Trump's attention during the presidential campaign.
Chicago residents on alert before Sunday's operation
ICE spokesman Jeff Carter said the agency “began to perform directed operations” on Sunday in Chicago, but refused to give more details. The FBI, ATF and the DEA spokesmen confirmed their participation, but did not provide more information.
Chicago residents, especially immigrant communities, have lived moments of tension for months in advance of large -scale arrests promised by the Trump government. The atmosphere has been particularly tense during the last week, after senior federal officials promised to start operations in Chicago one day after Trump's investiture, before retracting.
Bove issued a memorandum last week in which federal prosecutors are ordered to open investigations against state or local officials who believe they interfere in the application of the migratory measures of the federal government, an apparent warning to the dozens of calls sanctuary jurisdictions in everything USA.
Chicago prohibits cooperation with immigration agencies
Chicago has some of the strictest sanctuary protections throughout the country, which prohibit cooperation between the city police and immigration agents.
Immigrant rights groups have tried to prepare with campaigns so that immigrants know their rights in case of arrest. The city officials have done the same, publishing similar information in bus stations and public trains.
On Friday, officials of the Chicago public schools mistakenly believed that ICE agents had reached a primary school of the city and issued statements related to the incident, before learning that they were the secret service.
The news of immigration agents in a school, where immigration agents were prohibited from carrying out arrests until Trump ended that policy last week, soon unleashed criticism of the community groups and the governor, the Democrat Jb Pritzker .
Pritzker, a frequent critic of Trump, questioned the aggressive approach to the operations and the paralyzing effect that cause, particularly among immigrants who respect the law and have been in the country for years.
“We need to get rid of violent criminals. But we also need to protect people, at least the residents of Illinois and throughout the country, who are doing what we expect immigrants to do, ”Pritzker told the“ State of the Union ”program of CNN on Sunday.
Defensor groups seek orders from the Court to stop a certain type of raids
On Saturday, several immigrant rights groups based in Chicago filed a lawsuit against ICE, looking for a court order that prohibits certain types of raids in Chicago.
“Immigrant communities who have called Chicago home for decades are scared,” said Antonio Gutierrez of Organized Communities Against Deportation, one of the plaintiffs. “We refuse to live with fear and fight against any attempt to reverse the work we have done to keep families together.”