The government of the elected president donald trump is reconsidering plans for immigration raids in Chicago next week after details leaked, ‘border czar’ said Tom Homan to the Washington Post in an interview this Saturday.
The new administration “has not made a decision yet,” said Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the report. “We are studying this leak and will make a decision based on it.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials and rights advocates had said the Trump administration would launch sweeps in multiple U.S. cities almost as soon as it took office on Monday, with Chicago seen as a likely first spot.
Dulce Ortiz, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told Reuters that it was expected that until 200 ICE agents will begin raids in the Chicago area on Monday at 05:00 local time, and that they will last several days.
An ICE spokesperson referred questions to Trump’s transition team, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A source told Reuters on Friday that New York and Miami would be the objectives. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would host a weeklong operation in Chicago that could include hundreds of agents.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Saturday that implementing the mass deportations he promised in his election campaign would be a top priority. But he declined to identify the target cities or when deportations would begin.
“It will start very quickly,” Trump said. «We have to get criminals out of our country“.
Homan appeared to have confirmed the operations earlier Saturday, telling Fox News: “I wouldn’t classify them as raids. There are going to be targeted law enforcement operations.”
When asked when Trump’s promised mass deportation flights would begin next week, Homan was not specific.
“Have more than 700,000 illegal aliens in the United States with final expulsion orders. “President Trump has been clear from day one (…) he is going to secure the border and he is going to have the deportation operation.”
