NEWARK, N.J. -- Less than a week into his presidency, the Trump administration Friday touted deportation efforts and published new rules making it easier to remove people -- part of a flurry of actions to make good on campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration. Amid officials' latest show of force, waves of worry reverberated in parts of the country, with officials in Newark, N.J., lashing out over what they called illegal arrests by immigration agents.
President Donald Trump's administration portrayed U.S. military planes carrying migrants that touched down in Central America as a start to deportations and announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 593 arrests on Friday and 538 arrests on Thursday. He also sent U.S. soldiers and Marines to the U.S.-Mexico border and lifted longtime rules restricting immigration enforcement near schools and churches.
Many of the ICE actions were not unusual. Similar deportation flights also took place under the Biden administration, though not using military planes. ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. President Joe Biden also sent active duty troops to the border in 2023, and numerous administrations have sent National Guard troops to assist Customs and Border Protection.
However, rumors of arrests and news reports or social media posts about the presence of agents sparked worries in communities around the country. Some rights groups launched plans to protect immigrants in the event of arrests at schools or workplaces. Chicago Public Schools officials on Friday mistakenly believed ICE agents had come to one of their elementary schools and put out statements to that effect before learning the agents were from the Secret Service. It heightened fears among immigrant communities in the country's third-largest city.
There is widespread support in America for beefing up security at the southern border and undertaking some targeted deportations, particularly of people who committed violent crimes, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That poll also found that most Americans think local police should cooperate with federal immigration authorities on deportations in at least some cases. But support falls considerably when it comes to deporting people in the country illegally who have not been convicted of a crime.
MAYOR DECRIES RAID
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said ICE agents showed up at a business Thursday for what he called a warrantless raid and detained three "undocumented residents" as well as some U.S. citizens. He said one person was questioned even after showing military identification.
The city is just across the Hudson River from New York where the 305,000 population is 50% Black and nearly 40% is Hispanic.
"When I got this information I was appalled, upset, angry that this would happen here, in this state, in this country," Baraka, a Democrat who is seeking the party's nomination for governor, said at a news conference. "We're going to fight for all of our residents in this city, no matter what that looks like for us."
ICE confirmed it had conducted a "targeted enforcement operation" at a Newark business and that some of the people agents encountered were U.S. citizens who were asked for identification. ICE said it could not comment further because the investigation is active.
While Trump has vowed a campaign of mass deportations, his White House border czar has repeatedly said that agents will carry out targeted operations focused initially on specific people who have committed crimes.
Amy Torres, executive director of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, disputed that what happened Thursday was a targeted approach, saying that type of language suggests "some deep intel and prior investigation." She said her organization got a call when ICE arrived.
"If this is such a sterile and targeted operation, why was a U.S. citizen interrogated?" Torres said.
She and other officials declined to identify the business, but the owner of Ocean Seafood Depot spoke to reporters, saying the government should go after "bad people, not working people."
'EXPEDITED REMOVAL'
The Trump administration said Friday that it was expanding the use of "expedited removal" authority so it can be used across the country starting right away.
"The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety -- while reducing government costs -- by facilitating prompt immigration determinations," the administration said in a notice in the Federal Register outlining the new rules.
"Expedited removal" gives enforcement agencies broad authority to deport people without requiring them to appear before an immigration judge. There are limited exceptions, including if they express fear of returning home and pass an initial screening interview for asylum.
Critics have said there's too much risk that people who have the right to be in the country will be mistakenly swept up by agents and officers and that not enough is done to protect migrants who have genuine reason to fear being sent home. Friday's notice said the person put into expedited removal "bears the affirmative burden to show to the satisfaction of an immigration officer" that they have the right to be in the U.S.
The powers were created under a 1996 law. But they weren't really widely used until 2004, when Homeland Security said it would use expedited removal authority for people arrested within two weeks of entering the U.S. by land and caught within 100 miles of the border. That meant it was used mostly against migrants who recently arrived.
ONE-WAY FLIGHTS
This week, the military flew two C-17 cargo jets, each carrying approximately 80 people, to Guatemala after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, according to a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operations.
The flights departed from Texas and Arizona, officials said. ICE Air is continuing to operate deportation flights alongside military planes, officials said.
Honduras received two deportation flights Friday carrying a total of 193 people, the Foreign Ministry confirmed.
However, officials underscored that this was normal. Antonio García, vice foreign minister of Honduras, said the government has an agreement with the U.S. to accept between eight and 10 flights a week.
"The big question is how many more flights they will ask us to take," he told the AP. "We will hear them out and we want them to hear our plans and concerns."
In Boston, a Fox News crew broadcast live as ICE officers knocked on doors. In cities where operations netted a handful of arrests, immigrant advocacy groups and Democratic representatives denounced "raids."
In the Washington, D.C., area, the volunteer group Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network launched a hotline Monday for area residents to call if they believe they see ICE officers in public. The group has not confirmed any wide-scale raids or enforcement actions this week, but the phones have kept ringing, said Amy Fischer, one of the group's organizers.
"What is really clear is that people are just terrified," Fischer said. "It really seems like any time there is an unmarked cop car or something that looks like a cop car, people call. ... It describes the overall moment or atmosphere that we are living in."
In Montgomery County, Md., county officials said ICE agents arrested a migrant with a felony in Gaithersburg on Thursday. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for information about the arrest, but it sparked fears of broader immigration sweeps at a local shopping center and high school. Similar rumors have swept across the county since Trump took office.
Some residents have confused local law enforcement for ICE agents, said Earl Stoddard, an assistant chief administrative officer in Montgomery County, a sign of locals' anxieties that their neighborhood could be the agency's next target.
"It's been every day this week," Stoddard said Thursday. "People calling in worrying about ICE. This was the first time it was real."
ARKANSAS RUMORS
Rumors swirled on social media about two reported ICE raids of restaurants Thursday in Conway and Hot Springs.
A spokesperson for the Garland County sheriff's office said no one had been placed in its jail by ICE.
"We haven't held someone for ICE in a loooong time," said Sgt. John Schroeder.
When informed of the rumors of an ICE operation having taken place in Hot Springs, Schroeder said a U.S. Marshals Service operation had occurred and he could see why someone would think it was ICE because the marshals had used six or seven unmarked Chevrolet Tahoes.
A spokesperson for the Hot Spring Police Department also confirmed there hadn't been any recent ICE activity.
A manager for Don Pepe's in Conway -- one of the restaurants named in the rumors -- confirmed that ICE did not visit the restaurant on Thursday.
"I know there's a bunch of rumors going around, but no law enforcement agencies stopped by yesterday," said the manager, who did not give his name.
Attorney General Tim Griffin was asked about ICE rumors during a news conference addressing multijurisdictional illicit massage parlor busts across the state.
"I don't know anything about the ICE raids," Griffin said. "I'm not saying they weren't doing something, but I have no knowledge of that. A lot of stuff on social media is not accurate, you may have heard that."
One of the people who posted about the rumored ICE raids on social media platform X was Cortney McKee, who lost her race last year to be state representative of District 85.
"The first time I heard about it was from somebody that works at Walmart, and he's just kind of always in (the know about) what's happening," McKee said. "He told me that it happened at La Bodeguita (in Hot Springs). I didn't even catch on first what he was saying, because he was talking about it 'getting icy.' I didn't even know what that meant. So then I just kind of verified with him. ...
"I didn't have any news sources or reporters, I just (saw) it on various pages. Then, of course, they were happening around the country. So it didn't seem like a coincidence that these things happened in Arkansas."
The Little Rock School District distributed information to parents this week as a reminder of what its policies are regarding immigration.
"LRSD does not collect, record, or share information about immigration status," the handout said. "Families can rest assured that their privacy is safeguarded in accordance with federal and state laws."
Also not aware of any ICE raids was Dennis Lee, the executive director of the Catholic Charities of Arkansas.
"We know people are afraid that they're going to happen," Lee said. "We're working on how we can help people prepare if they get in that situation where they are approached by somebody with ICE, (so they) know what their legal rights are."
Lee said the organization knows "there are people in our community who lack legal status, and we believe they have a reasonable fear of what could happen. So there are families that have mixed status, too."
Lee expected the diocese's messaging to be ready to pass out sometime next week.
On Thursday, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor issued a two-page statement appeal "to the heart on immigration."
In the message addressing "recent changes in the federal immigration and refugee programs," Taylor wrote "it is my hope that our elected officials will have the courage and wisdom to do what is right, to do what Jesus would do -- to do the loving thing."
Of America's immigration system, Taylor wrote that "anyone who's tried to navigate the system can tell you how bureaucratic, complex, inconsistent and expensive it really is -- and that's for people who have financial means and family or highly skilled employment-based connections. But all those arguments aside, what Jesus is challenging us to do here regarding immigration is to let him share his heart and mind with us. All that I've said in the past really boils down to Jesus' call for us to love as he loves, without fear, trusting in God's providence."
Information for this article was contributed by Mike Catalini and Rebecca Santana of The Associated Press; by Maria Sacchetti, Nick Miroff, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Teo Armus, Jacqueline Alemany, Arelis R. Hernández, Sarah Cahlan and Dan Lamothe of The Washington Post; and by Daniel McFadin of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.