Summary
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, admitted that finding undocumented immigrants with criminal records has been difficult, requiring full ICE teams for field raids.
Arrest numbers, around 14,000 in Trump’s first month, are below the administration’s 1,500-per-day goal.
Homan blamed sanctuary cities for not cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. He vowed to increase enforcement teams and denied mass school or church raids, though ICE may target specific criminals.
The administration has stopped publishing daily arrest figures, despite a drop in immigration arrests since November.
This reflects one of the many flaws with the logic of people who thought Trump was only going to go after the criminals.
The thing about criminals is, they don’t follow the law. It’s in their interest to not be easy to find.
So, ICE, whose job it is to make Trump look good to his base by deporting brown people, don’t go after murderers or rapists, because that is hard and they’re barely qualified to begin with. They go after the people who are abiding by the law, whose exact legal status is unclear because our whole fucking system works against its own interests. They go against the people who are legal who Trump has stripped some status from. Because it’s easy to find them and they’re less likely to put up a fight.