Featured Image Credit: John Moore/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump
Gerrard Kaonga
Donald Trump’s immigration officers have been under pressure to increase their arrest numbers to ensure the President keeps his promise he made to the public.
Ahead of becoming US President for a second time, Donald Trump told his supporters that he would be tough on immigration.
Since taking office, he has seemingly been on job to ensure he keeps this promise, as immigration officers have so far made a staggering number of arrests.
Kush Desai, spokesman for the White House, praised the administration's quick movement on immigration, and said: “After four years of the Biden administration’s outright incompetence and negligence, the Trump administration has re-established a no-nonsense enforcement of and respect for the immigration laws of the United States."
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement partners have conducted raids and arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country since January 20.
This has resulted in a very high number of individuals being detained by authorities. So much so that, under Trump, officers could more than double the 113,000 arrests the agency made in Fiscal Year 2024 under Biden.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Tricia McLaughlin, said that in just one month the DHS has arrested more than 20,000 people who have a criminal background.
She added that of those arrested, 22 were known suspected terrorists and 640 were suspected gang members.
ICE initially broke down their daily arrest numbers by highlighting how many people had committed crimes, however, they have since stopped doing this.
On the highest day for arrests that ICE has disclosed, roughly half of those picked up by immigration officers had a criminal background.
Desai also said: “Hundreds of violent, predatory, and gang-affiliated criminal illegal aliens have already been rounded up and deported by ICE since President Trump took office — and the Trump administration is aligned on securing our borders and ensuring that mass deportations are conducted quickly and effectively to put Americans and America First."
But despite this seemingly unprecedent pace, Trump isn’t exactly happy about the speed of deportations.
A source says Trump is 'angry' with the progress being made to deport people, NBC News reports.
So much so, Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Caleb Vitello has since been transferred to a different role, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Politico, with an unannounced replacement set to take the reigns and double down further.