NEW YORK (AP)— Prior to dawn, the immigration officers sat in their vehicles near a two-story building. A New York subway line rumbled overhead, and an officer’s voice crackled through the radio.
After about two hours of watching, he said, “I think that’s Tango,” referring to the target. “Grey hoodie. Backpack. Walk quickly.”
Immigration officers surrounded and handcuffed a 23-year-old Ecuadorian man who had previously been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.
According to Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, a common misconception is that officers can sweep into a community and pick up a large number of people who are in the United States illegally and return them to their home countries.
“It’s called targeted enforcement,” Genalo explained. “We don’t grab people and then take them to JFK and put them on a plane.”
With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, there is great interest in how the Republican will carry out his immigration agenda, which includes a campaign promise of mass deportation. His priorities may clash with the realities faced by agents focused on enforcement and removals, such as the unit in New York that provided The Associated Press with an inside look at its operations: The number of people already on its list of targets outnumbers the number of officers available to do the job.
The Biden administration had focused deportation efforts on public safety threats and recent border crossers. Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming “border czar,” says the new administration will prioritize those who pose a risk, such as criminals, before moving on to immigrants who have been ordered removed from the United States.
However, Homan has hinted that enforcement may be expanded: “If you’re in the country illegally, you’ve got a problem,” he said recently on Dr. Phil’s Merit TV.
That’s a tall order.
Deportation orders far outnumber the staff.
Around 1.4 million people have final orders of removal, while approximately 660,000 people under immigration supervision have been convicted of crimes or are facing charges. However, only 6,000 officers from ICE are tasked with monitoring noncitizens in the country and then identifying and removing those who are not eligible to stay.
Those staffing levels have largely remained static as their caseload has roughly quadrupled over the last decade to 7.6 million. Last year, approximately 10% of that workforce was diverted from their regular duties to travel to the United States-Mexico border during periods of increased immigration.
Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration, stated that the number of officers required to pursue those deemed a public safety threat conflicts with the goal of deporting a large number of people.
“You’re not going to be able to do both of those with the resources you have, with the deportation officers you have,” Houser told the crowd. “Just the arithmetic, the time-intensive nature of those sort of arrests will overwhelm any ability to get to those large scale numbers.”
According to Genalo, officers in charge of individual cases must first obtain a lead, ensure they have the legal authority to arrest someone, and then track the person down. They are generally not permitted to enter a home, so they aim to catch people outside.
How does immigration removal work in the field?
During this recent operation, about a dozen officers gathered at a White Castle parking lot in the Bronx before 5 a.m. After putting on their body armor and inspecting their equipment, they gathered for a briefing.
Aside from the 23-year-old Ecuadorian man, they were looking for a 36-year-old Mexican man convicted of forcibly touching a young girl, as well as another Ecuadorian convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.
The first target, a 23-year-old man who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl, was known to leave the apartment building around 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. Sometimes he was with a woman and a child.
“Light came on on the first floor of the apartment,” an officer waiting outside said over the radio. Afterwards: “Someone came out of the basement, but it’s not our target.”
They eventually found him, dragged him into the back of a car, and fled the neighborhood.
Inside, the man’s 22-year-old wife had no idea what had happened until he called later from detention.
In an interview, she revealed that they met in Ecuador, had one child, a bubbly 3-year-old girl with braids, and were expecting their second. He worked in construction and she was a manicurist.
She stated that she understood why her husband had been arrested, but she believed there were significant mitigating factors. She said they were aware that her husband could be deported to Ecuador once his criminal case was resolved, but it still came as a surprise.
According to a recent report, ICE deported more than 270,000 people in the previous 12 months, the highest annual tally in ten years. However, it also stated that it made fewer arrests of noncitizens, in part due to the demand for sending staff to the border. The majority of those arrested had serious criminal histories.
Working with local law enforcement.
Some cities and states collaborate with ICE to turn over people in their custody who are not US citizens.
However, many left-leaning states and cities have so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In New York City, for example, ICE used to have an office inside the jail to easily detain noncitizens. In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation abolishing ICE and limiting police cooperation.
His successor, Eric Adams, has expressed a willingness to revisit some of those policies. He recently met with Homan and told reporters that they agreed to pursue those who commit violent crimes.
Genalo stated that agents spend time and resources picking up immigrants who few would argue have the right to remain in America.
“How can you state that sanctuary policies help the community when you’re releasing all these criminals right back into the community?” he demanded. “We’re safer when we collaborate.”
Staffing is also a concern. He stated that he is supposed to have approximately 325 officers, but in recent years, the number has been about 30% lower.
Many immigration advocates have long expressed concerns about ICE’s tactics, and those concerns have grown with Trump’s return to office in January.
According to advocates, the incoming administration’s policy of pursuing public safety threats is not new. They object to rhetoric that depicts immigrants as people to be feared. They say there can be nuances in some cases: perhaps someone committed a crime a long time ago and has been rehabilitated, or someone facing a final order of removal relocated and never received the notice.
During Trump’s first term, there were many “collateral arrests” in which immigration officers detained people other than those who were being targeted, according to Jehan Laner, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. This destabilizes communities, she explained, adding, “We saw them go after everyone.”
Genalo said he couldn’t comment on the incoming administration’s plans, but emphasized that officers are targeting specific individuals with criminal histories. He stated that he has a docket of approximately 58,000 people with either criminal convictions or pending charges.
“I’m pretty sure we’re going to be tied up for a while dealing with the criminal population,” Mr. Genalo said.
