BBC News, White House
The sense of fear and discomfort goes through the American immigrant community because Trump’s administration enhances the arrests of unfathomable migrants, criminals and those without criminal history.
Federal officers have arrested thousands of unfathomable migrants since Donald Trump took office on January 20, increasing raids in cities across the country, including Chicago, New York, Denver and Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, Karolina Leavitt’s White House Secretary said that although the arrests of criminals would be a priority, no one in the country illegally “out of the table”.
In some communities, arrests have encouraged some migrants to skip their jobs or hold their children home from school.
More than 3,500 unfathomable migrants have been arrested since Trump returned to the White House, including just over 1,000 on Tuesday, 969 on Monday and 1,179 on Sunday, according to daily statistics published by Immigration and Customs League (ICE).
In comparison, an average of 310 was made during the Fiscal year in 2024, when Joe Biden was in power, according to the agency.
Immigration officials described these raids as “targeted implementation operations” that resulted in the arrest of violent gang members and dangerous suspects, and replaced agents of other federal agencies for law enforcement agencies to help enhance arrests.
“I have not seen anything like this, which is only the first few days of the Presidency,” said Gina Amato Lough, California director of a lawyer for immigrants, a group to advocate immigration. “None of this size
Mrs. Lough added that “the aforementioned intention was to create shock and awe.”
“That works,” she said. “It also creates a community terror.”
The White House and LED published some of these arrests, showing pictures of the suspects and providing details of their countries of origin and crimes, which included sexual crimes, attacks and violations of drug trafficking.
But the White House made it clear that any unfathomable migrant was caught in these raids – whether or not criminals are subject to arrest and deportation, although it is simply illegal to be in the US in a civil matter.
Earlier this week, the Karolina Leavitt White House secretary claimed that “all of them are” criminals.
“They illegally violated the laws of our country and, therefore, criminals are as much as this administration,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
The arrests have already had a cold effect on many communities of immigrants across the USA.
Mrs. Lough, for example, said that unfathomable clients expressed the fear of going to any government agency – even to get a driver’s license – or seek medical attention in hospitals.
“We hear that people are terrified and we receive calls to the left and right,” said Michael Lukens, the executive director of the amica of the Immigration Rights Center, an organization that provides free legal representation of unproven migrants that the authorities have detained.
“People are afraid to go to work or send their children to schools,” he said, adding that Trump’s administration blocked the efforts of his organization to enter detention institutions to meet with detainees.
“That’s exactly what the White House wants – to instill fear in people and make them go,” he said. “It’s not something we’ve ever seen.”
Among those who expressed the fear is Gabriel, a Bolivian migrant who entered the US more than 20 years ago, who hid under a bunch of corn stems in the boot boot on the road.
Now a housewife in Maryland, Gabriela was initially worried about Trump’s election victoryBelieving that they will only target criminals and that many migrants will benefit from an improved economy.
But for nine days in the administration, she says she became scared, along with many of her neighbors, after seeing that Ice had performed surgery in nearby communities.
“Many people in my building stopped sending their children to schools. Nobody neither go to church now,” she told the BBC. “We get involved in the net on the net.”
Gabriela said she started packing her things in the hope that if we were arrested and deported, acquaintances would be able to bring them back to Bolivia.
Another unfathomable migrant, a Mexican citizen named Carlos who lives in New York, said worries about the BBC because of possible arrests, have encouraged some underground.
“We heard the ice coming to the building not far from me,” said Carlos, whose son a American citizen was born in New York.
Like Gabriel, Carlos was at first cautiously optimistic about Trump’s election victory and thought he would indirectly benefit from Trump’s promises to increase economics and less inflation.
“It’s scary. I avoided being more on the street than I needed,” he added. “I have no problem arresting criminals. But we always hear other people – workers – also take away.”
Both Gabriela and Carlos have asked to be identified only by their names, fearing retaliation or attention of power.
It is unclear how many of the arrested has criminal history and how much the first Trump administration has called the “collateral” arrest.
The NBC reported that on January 26, only 52% were considered “criminal arrests”, citing administrative officials.
BBC contacted the White House for commenting on the figures.
Asked about the number of journalists on Tuesday, Mrs. Leavitt said only that anyone who “broke the laws of our state” criminal.
The attack by ICE is part of the greater effort of Trump’s administration to refrain from unproven migration to the United States, which also included an ambulance on the southern border and expanded the processes that enable fast expenses.
On Thursday, Trump signed the so -called Laken Riley Law in the Law, demanding unfathomable immigrants arrested for theft or violent crime that will be held in prison until the trial.
The proposal of the Law, named after Laken Riley – a nursing student in Georgia who killed a Venecuela’s man last week, has approved the Congress last week, which is an early legislative victory for administration.
On signing, Trump said that the government would move to the establishment of an object of 30,000 people for unfathomable detainees, doubled the Government’s ability to retain and take away now “a step further to remove a whip of migrant crime.”
