Before dawn, immigration officers sat in their vehicles near a two-story building in New York, while the rumble of a subway line echoed overhead. Then, a voice came over the radio.
After observing for about two hours, an officer said, “I think that’s Tango,” referring to their target. “Gray hoodie. Backpack. Walking quickly.”
The officers then moved in and apprehended a 23-year-old Ecuadorian man who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.
Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York, emphasized a common misconception about how immigration enforcement works.
“It’s called targeted enforcement,” Genalo explained. “We don’t just grab people and take them to JFK to put them on a plane.”
With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, there’s heightened attention on his immigration agenda, including a campaign promise of mass deportations. However, these goals may clash with the day-to-day realities faced by ICE officers, whose resources are already stretched thin. Units like the one in New York, which gave The Associated Press an inside look at their operations, are working with a backlog of targets that vastly outnumbers the personnel available to act.
Shifting Priorities
Under the Biden administration, deportation priorities focused on threats to public safety and recent border crossers. Trump’s new “border czar,” Tom Homan, has indicated a similar focus on high-risk individuals, such as criminals, but has also hinted at broader enforcement measures.
“If you’re in the country illegally, you’ve got a problem,” Homan said recently on Dr. Phil’s Merit TV.
A Resource Problem
Deportation orders currently far outstrip ICE’s staffing capacity. About 1.4 million people have final removal orders, with an additional 660,000 under ICE supervision who have either been convicted of crimes or are facing charges. However, ICE employs only 6,000 officers responsible for monitoring and removing noncitizens deemed ineligible to remain in the country.
Over the past decade, the workload for these officers has quadrupled, with cases ballooning to 7.6 million. Meanwhile, staffing levels have remained largely static. Approximately 10% of ICE officers were reassigned last year to the U.S.-Mexico border during immigration surges, further straining their resources.
Jason Houser, who served as ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration, noted the inherent conflict between prioritizing public safety threats and carrying out large-scale deportations.
“You can’t do both with the resources you have,” Houser said. “The sheer arithmetic and time-intensive nature of these arrests make large-scale deportations unfeasible.”
Genalo explained that officers must first gather intelligence, confirm they have legal grounds for an arrest, and then track their targets, often aiming to apprehend them outside their residences, as they are generally not permitted to enter homes.
Field Operations
In one recent operation, about a dozen officers convened before 5 a.m. in a Bronx parking lot. After gearing up with body armor and equipment, they held a briefing.
Their targets included a 23-year-old Ecuadorian man convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl, a 36-year-old Mexican man convicted of forcible touching of a young girl, and another Ecuadorian man convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.
The first target, the 23-year-old, was believed to leave his apartment building between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. Officers observed the building carefully, noting lights turning on and people exiting, until they spotted their target. They swiftly detained him and left the area.
Inside the apartment, the man’s 22-year-old wife was unaware of his arrest until he called her later from detention. In an interview, she described their life together, including their 3-year-old daughter and her pregnancy with their second child. Her husband worked construction while she was a manicurist. Although she acknowledged the reason for his arrest, she believed mitigating factors should be considered.
Deportation Statistics and Local Policies
According to a recent ICE report, the agency deported over 270,000 people within a 12-month period, marking the highest annual figure in a decade. However, fewer arrests were made due to staffing reassignments to the southern border. A larger proportion of those arrested had serious criminal histories.
ICE’s work often intersects with local law enforcement, but cooperation varies widely. Many progressive cities and states implement “sanctuary policies,” which limit collaboration with federal immigration authorities. For example, New York City previously allowed ICE an office in its jail facilities, but this was discontinued in 2014 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Current Mayor Eric Adams has shown a willingness to revisit these policies. He recently met with Homan and expressed support for targeting individuals who commit violent crimes.
Genalo argued that sanctuary policies undermine community safety. “How can you say sanctuary policies help when you’re releasing criminals back into the community?” he asked.
Despite such challenges, Genalo remains focused on specific criminal targets, with a backlog of around 58,000 cases involving convictions or pending charges.
“We’ll be busy for a while dealing with the criminal population,” he concluded.
Source: https://apnews.com/
