Trump plans to intensify immigration enforcement soon after inauguration, source says

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump’s incoming U.S. presidential administration plans to intensify immigration enforcement nationwide soon after he takes office on Monday, a person with knowledge of the plans said.

“We’re going to be doing operations all across the country,” the person told Reuters on Friday. “You’re going to see arrests in New York. You’re going to see arrests in Miami.”

The source was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that the administration plans to launch a large immigration raid in Chicago on Tuesday.

Citing four people familiar with the planning, the newspaper said the Chicago operation would last all week, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sending between 100 and 200 officers to carry out the operation.

The source who spoke with Reuters denied that there was a special effort to move personnel to Chicago.

Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Immigration was at the center of Trump’s campaign in the lead-up to the Nov. 5 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 U.S. 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.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward and Ted Hesson; Editing by William Mallard)