New York is now one of the U.S. cities being targeted by federal officials as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The local field office for the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement said in a post to X Tuesday morning that it “began conducting enhanced targeted operations in NYC to enforce US immigration law & preserve public safety & national security by removing criminal aliens from our communities.” That is similar language to what ICE used on Sunday when it made Chicago ground zero for the agency’s enforcement action. It was not immediately clear which other cities are being added to the list.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Marshals Service; and U.S. Customs & Border Protection are assisting in the immigration arrest efforts in New York, ICE announced on X.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in the Bronx Tuesday morning to survey the predawn immigration-related arrests. She also addressed federal agents from across agencies at a command post.
“Here in New York City this morning we are getting the dirtbags off these streets,” Noem said in a video posted to X. In another post, she wrote, “Arresting some criminal aliens this morning in NYC — thank you to the brave officers involved.”
Noem’s appearance here echoed that of Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan establishing a boots-on-the-ground presence this past weekend in Chicago.
Noem characterized an arrest she witnessed as targeting a “criminal alien with kidnapping, assault & burglary charges.” ICE has long made arrests targeting criminals. What’s new, however, is the help of other law enforcement agencies in making such arrests.
Arrests in New York will likely become more common in the coming days. The Washington Post is reporting that ICE has set quotas for each of its field offices to make 75 arrests per day. The agency has field offices in both New York and New Jersey. ICE has reported an increase in arrests nationwide since Trump took office, though it has not specified the number of arrests on a city-by-city basis. The agency reported 1,179 arrests yesterday. For comparison, that number averaged about 300 a day under the Biden administration last year.
ICE typically posts arrest statistics to its website quarterly, meaning it could be months until the public knows the scale of enforcement taking place now. The latest update is from Sept. 30, 2024, at which point there had been 2,857 year-to-date immigration-related arrests in New York City.
Homan has said the federal government’s primary targets are public safety threats, though agents will also make “collateral” arrests. NBC reported that about half of the recent arrestees did not have criminal records beyond crossing the border illegally.
While no reports have indicated that federal agents have targeted workplaces or swept neighborhoods broadly, the threat of the raids has sent fear rippling through New York. The escalation Tuesday will surely increase anxieties in the city’s immigrant-rich areas.
The Tuesday morning display in New York comes as Republican lawmakers set their sights on sanctuary cities, where local laws limit cooperation with ICE. Mayor Eric Adams and the mayors of Chicago, Denver and Boston have been called by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to testify about their sanctuary policies in a hearing in February.
Since his inauguration last week, Trump has made sweeping moves on immigration after promising to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. He declared a national emergency at the southern border, ordering thousands of additional troops to assist with enforcement. He has also cut off access to asylum.
The New York Police Department has told officers that its rules block them from participating in “immigration enforcement actions conducted by ICE” and that requests from federal immigration authorities must undergo legal review before the department provides assistance.
The law in New York allows the city to cooperate with ICE detainer requests in cases of individuals who have been convicted of certain violent or serious crimes or who are identified as a possible match in the terrorist screening database. The city does not help in the transfer of those people to ICE’s custody, however, and also doesn’t track the immigration status of people in its custody.
Adams has called on the city, which has tightened its sanctuary laws in recent years, to reform its policies to allow for more compliance with federal authorities when it comes to people accused of crimes.
Bloomberg contributed reporting.
