Federal immigration officials launched their first high-profile raids in New York City under President Donald Trump, trumpeting their actions in a 7 a.m. video in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who personally oversaw the enforcement actions, proclaimed that agents were “getting the dirtbags off the streets in New York City this morning.”
A motorcade of heavily militarized federal agents converged at the parking lot of the Bronx Terminal Market in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday morning, before heading to at least three different locations in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many people had been detained by federal agents in raids at two Bronx locations and one in Washington Heights — or if other locations were hit. But tweets from several official government accounts on social media showed at least four people being taken into custody this morning.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — who all tweeted about the raids — didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
By midafternoon, details had emerged about only one of the arrests in the morning crackdown. The Trump-boosting New York Post quickly published an exclusive, sourced to “law-enforcement sources,” about the arrest of 25-year-old Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, an alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang that Trump designated as a “terrorist organization” in an executive order last week.
That was followed later in the day by a statement from Mayor Eric Adams – who has cleared most of his schedule this week for an unidentified ailment – confirming the city was coordinating with Homeland Security “on a federal criminal investigation involving a suspect hiding in New York City.”
“Beforehand, I directed the NYPD to coordinate with DHS’ Homeland Security Investigations and other federal law enforcement agencies — as allowed by law — to conduct a targeted operation to arrest an individual connected with multiple violent crimes, both here in New York and in Aurora, Colorado, including burglary, kidnapping, extortion, firearms possession, menacing with a firearm, crime of violence, and other charges,” he wrote.
“As I have repeatedly said, we will not hesitate to partner with federal authorities to bring violent criminals to justice — just as we have done for years. Our commitment to protecting our city’s law-abiding residents, both citizens and immigrants, remains unwavering.”
He did not comment on the raids that took place at other locations.
No More Grace
The Trump administration has directed senior ICE officials to ramp up arrests, and ordered a daily quota of 75 arrests for all local field offices, The Washington Post reported. Advocates warn that such a dragnet approach will invariably mean that even in operations intended to target violent criminals, non-violent criminals or even those without arrest records will be detained and deported. Families will also be separated by such tactics, advocates said.
As the number of arrests by ICE has surged to more than 1,200 a day, about half of those people had some underlying criminal charge, while the rest had nonviolent arrests or no other violation beyond being in the country without authorization, NBC reported.
In recent days immigrant communities have been on edge, with some New York City parents keeping their kids home after the Trump administration threw out policies limiting arrests in “sensitive locations” like churches and schools. Only private residences appeared to be targeted on Tuesday morning.
A group of migrant students wait for a bus across from the Stewart Hotel shelter in Midtown on the way to school, Jan. 24, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
In addition to the detention of the Zambrano-Pacheco, immigration attorney Benjamin Simpson said one of his clients had been arrested in Tuesday’s crackdown. Simpson said his client was undocumented and had a felony conviction from 2005, declining to provide more specifics.
Entirely separate from the highly-publicized raids, however, another one of his clients – a mother of three U.S. citizen children with a shoplifting arrest from the 1990s that was later dismissed — had been detained at a routine ICE check-in at 26 Federal Plaza, also on Tuesday.
“This check-in was the first one after the Trump Administration, where they decided to no longer exercise grace,” Simpson said, adding his client who was almost 50 hadn’t been to her home country since she was a young adult.
“A lot of people are getting picked up at these appointments. If they have not been able to make something happen, time is essentially up.”
‘Everyone Scared’
While the arrests Tuesday morning appeared to target only a handful of people, neighbors outside one apparent arrest site on Creston Avenue in University Heights were rattled in the hours after the raid.
“Donald Trump has everyone scared,” one neighbor who declined to give his name told THE CITY. He said he’s lived on the block for two decades.
52-year-old Yudelka Romano, who lived on the block and off for more than 20 years, said she’d noticed how quiet the block had been in recent days.
“No one sits outside,” she said. “It’s such a difference since Trump took office, everybody’s scared.”
Outside another site of arrests on Ogden Street, one passerby who works in the area said he saw dozens of federal law enforcement in vans that blocked the entire street, with dozens of officers around 6:30 a.m.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested an undocumented man at 1372 Ogden Ave. in The Bronx who was accused of committing several crimes, Jan. 28, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“There’s nothing to be surprised about,” he said, declining to share his name fearing employment issues. “[Trump] made everything clear.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Ritchie Torres (D – The Bronx), who represents the district that includes the Ogden Avenue arrest, declined to comment on the raid. Torres was the lone New York City Democrat to vote in favor of the Laken Riley Act, which requires federal officials to detain any unauthorized migrant accused of theft and violent crime, which critics say strips migrants of their due process rights.
An eyewitness at a third location on Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights said around two dozen federal agents showed up around 7:30 a.m.
A spokesperson for Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D – Manhattan), who represents Washington Heights, did not respond to requests for comment.
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