WASHINGTON — The acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said Wednesday that he would follow through with plans to send agents into communities to round up and deport families in the U.S. illegally, in the Trump administration’s latest attempt to deter large-scale migration of Central Americans to the southwest border.
The acting director, Mark Morgan, who has signaled for weeks that there would be a heightened focus on deporting families, told reporters that agents would target more than 2,000 immigrant family members who already have deportation orders.
“Do not come,” Morgan said in describing the message he wants to send to people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who think they will be able to remain in the United States once they get across the border. “Do not risk it. Do not pay the cartels an exorbitant amount of money because once you receive due process and get a final order, you will be removed.”
Morgan’s comments came after President Donald Trump tweeted Monday that the immigration agency would deport millions of people next week. The president’s tweet alarmed immigrant communities and blindsided immigration agents across the country who described such a massive operation as logistically impossible.
The agency has, however, taken steps in recent days to prepare for mass arrests, including requesting the help of Homeland Security investigative agents, who usually conduct long-term investigations into trafficking organizations as opposed to deportations.
“I don’t want to send ICE agents to their workplace,” Morgan said. “I don’t want to send ICE agents to their home. I don’t want to send ICE agents to try and track them down and apprehend them in their communities and town. But we’ve applied due process. We’ve tried to work with them.”
The targeted operation is expected to occur over the course of multiple days and is expected in the coming weeks, according to a Homeland Security Department official who was not authorized to speak specifically about the operation. Morgan did not reveal the full scope of the operation but said that agents would be rounding up undocumented immigrant families if they failed to report to an immigration agency field office for deportation.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.