Donald Trump’s incoming presidential administration plans to launch a large immigration raid in Chicago the day after he takes office, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing four people familiar with planning.
The raid, expected to start on Tuesday, would last all week, the newspaper said, adding that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would send between 100 and 200 officers to carry out the operation.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. But a source with knowledge of the incoming administration’s plans said Ice would intensify enforcement across the country and there would not be a special focus on Chicago or surge of personnel there.
“We’re going to be doing operations all across the country,” the person said. “You’re going to see arrests in New York. You’re going to see arrests in Miami.”
Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, told an event in Chicago that the administration was “going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois”, the Journal reported.
“And if the Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside. But if he impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him,” he was quoted as saying.
Immigration was at the center of Trump’s campaign in the lead-up to the 5 November presidential election.
“Within moments of my inauguration, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said in January 2024.
Trump is expected to mobilize agencies across the US government to help him deport record numbers of immigrants, Reuters has reported, building on efforts in his first term to tap all available resources and pressure so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions to cooperate.
