Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that 956 people were arrested as part of a nationwide immigration raid on Sunday, the most since Donald Trump took office.
The operations in Chicago, Newark, and Miami involved several federal agencies with substantially increased detention authorities.
Trump was elected after promising to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants.
According to ICE, his predecessor, Joe Biden, deported an average of 311 immigrants per day, the majority of them were criminals.
Since assuming office, Trump has issued 21 executive orders to alter the US immigration system.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, was in Chicago to oversee the operation, but his federal crackdown has upset Democratic lawmakers.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged the ICE enforcement effort, noting Chicago police were not participating and reminding citizens of their rights.
On Sunday, federal law enforcement agencies in Miami carried out many “immigration enforcement actions,” according to the city’s Homeland Security Investigation on social media.
This includes ICE’s local Miami office detaining unauthorized migrants for a variety of offenses.
An unnamed man informed CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, claimed ICE detained his wife during the Miami searches this weekend.
“It is despicable what they are doing right now,” he told CBS. “It’s very embarrassing.”
He claimed his wife was in the process of obtaining citizenship when ICE arrived: “They just came and snatched her.”
Last Monday, Newark Mayor Ras Barka announced that illegal residents and citizens, including one military veteran, were held without a warrant during an ICE raid on a local business.
“Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorised,” Baraka informed the crowd.
Immigration advocates have cautioned that during ICE raids, other people, including citizens, may become caught in the crossfire.
Meanwhile, Homan has frequently stated that undocumented immigrants caught up in raids on criminals who lack paperwork will be deported.
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Homan said he expected arrest and deportation numbers to “steadily increase,” and that the priority right now was “public safety threats, national security threats”.
The 956 reported arrests on Sunday come after 286 arrests on Saturday, 593 arrests on Friday, and 538 arrests on Thursday.
According to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute, Joe Biden deported 1.5 million people during his four years in government. These figures are consistent with Trump’s first-term deportation stats.