U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) is in charge of immigration crimes and enforcement. However, if Trump has his way, ICE will soon be withdrawing completely from California.
Trump has said that he is planning to pull federal immigration enforcement offices from the state of California over sanctuary policies of the state. Tin an recent interview, he said “Frankly it’s a disgrace, the sanctuary city situation, in a meeting at the White house on school safety.
Since the state of California has declared itself a “sanctuary jurisdiction”, the opponents of administration have since then been noticeably critical to the actions taken by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the law enforcement agency that is responsible for its interior immigration enforcement.
California has been extremely uncooperative with the federal law enforcement, especially when it comes to dealing with the numerous violent gangs – primarily from South and Central America. Trump said that if the federal agencies were to pull out of the state, “you would have a crime mess like you’ve never seen in California”.
The acting director for ICE, Thomas Homan, said that in January, California should “hold on tight” for further ICE operations that will be taking place in the state.
On Wednesday, Homan reported that the agency would not be conducting raids, rather “targeted enforcement operations”.
“We don’t go into neighborhoods; knock on a bunch of doors looking for people different than us. Every person we arrest, we know exactly who we’re going to arrest, we know exactly where we’re going to arrest them,” Homan has said on Fox News.
Trump was also noticed to compliment Attorney General Jeff Sessions who is a frequent target of Trump’s criticism over his recusal on the Russian investigation on handling gang violence. “You’re doing a great job with the gangs,” Trump said.
Other people who were present included, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, White House chief of staff John Kelly, Education Secretary Betsy Devos and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
