President Trump has ordered immigration agents to arrest migrant families with children in a new nationwide sweep. According to NBC News, citing three sources, the operation targets families who entered the country together and who already have deportation orders. The raids also target families who do not have criminal histories, while in a separate operation, agents are searching for children who entered the country unaccompanied. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lawyers are reportedly working to secure warrants to enter families' homes and conduct arrests, after which the families will be held in detention centers operated by private prison companies. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to NBC’s request for comment. Trump has recently resumed the detention of families after Biden ended the practice in 2021. It was unclear if mixed-status families, such as those with children permitted to stay in the U.S., would be separated in the operation. In his first term as president, Trump was condemned after his “zero tolerance” policy separated adults and children from over 5,000 migrant families, prompting him to reverse the policy. This has not deterred him from pledging to carry out “the largest deportation effort in U.S. history” in his second term.
Read it at NBC News
