After the first rather mediocre results achieved in the New York area by the mass deportation plan promoted by Donald Trump, the U.S. president is now preparing to launch new measures to make the planned operations more effective.
As revealed by the Washington Post, starting this week each of the 25 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices scattered across the country will be required to make no fewer than 75 arrests a day. If the agency succeeds in meeting that goal, the number of daily arrests nationwide will reach 1875, an unprecedented record.
Suffice it to say that through September 2024 ICE took no more than 282 people into custody every 24 hours, with an average of 5 arrests per day in New York City. The numbers had been slightly higher in 2023, with an average of 415 daily arrests.
The federal administration announced last week that it had made 2,681 arrests in the first five days of Trump’s new term, including nearly 1,000 on Sunday alone. However, officials said ICE operations in New York were somewhat limited. The same was true in neighboring New Jersey, where three people were taken into custody last Thursday at the end of a background check in Newark.
As of 2022, d New York State is home to some 672,000 illegal immigrants. Of these, 412,000 live near the Big Apple. More than half have been in the United States for more than a decade. According to a Fiscal Policy Institute report, with an estimated 51,200 employees, the personal services sector is one of the most dependent on the labor force made up of illegal immigrants.
This includes 20,900 domestic helpers, 16,800 home health aides and 7,000 babysitters. In the restaurant industry, on the other hand, there are 7,000 chefs, 17,000 cooks and 9,200 waiters without legal documents. In the construction sector, however, there are 29,500 laborers, 12,800 carpenters and 6,200 painters.
Now, all these people and more are at serious risk of having to leave the country and losing their current jobs. Then again, the mass deportation plan was one of the key themes of Trump’s election campaign, and he now plans to follow up his words with action.
As reported by the Post, the president was apparently disappointed with ICE’s early results, which is why the agency was allegedly ordered to make at least 75 arrests a day. According to early rumors, moreover, if the goal is not met, ICE executives will be held accountable for the “failure” of the plan so dear to the MAGA leader and his “border czar”, Tom Homan. The latter has promised to first target criminals and gang members during the promised mass deportation, then widen the net to include others.
