A former senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official has raised sharp concerns about current U.S. immigration raids, warning they are being driven by political pressure rather than public safety.
Darius Reeves, a former ICE Field Office Director who retired after 20 years with the agency, told Reuters that enforcement tactics have shifted away from targeting serious criminals toward mass operations aimed at boosting arrest numbers. Reeves criticized highly visible raids at locations like home improvement stores, saying they often result in the detention of undocumented day laborers rather than violent offenders.
“Where is the gang banger in all this? Where are the guns?” Reeves asked, questioning the strategy and warning of falling morale inside ICE. He also said pressure for higher arrest numbers is coming from the White House through the Department of Homeland Security, with leadership facing consequences if targets are not met.
00:00Yeah, this is weird stuff going on. Was this helpful for what you needed to do?
00:04Yeah, she just, she can't handle the daughter. I felt so bad. But my mind was elsewhere, and his mind was elsewhere.
00:11The focus has shifted for whatever reason to, we're going to hit the streets, we're going to be in our full-blown military gear.
00:22It's a major issue. We're going to augment every federal agency, law enforcement agency out there to flood these streets for the worst of the worst of the worst, because they're here.
00:36But the numbers don't answer that. The numbers don't show that.
00:44We're picking up just any and everybody? We don't have the infrastructure to hold any and everybody.
01:05I thought we were going to be the most egregious of offenders.
01:12Now we're hitting the Home Depot and hoping that we find someone who's a day laborer who wasn't arrested for anything or any major crime.
01:26He just happens to enter the United States illegally, which is a misdemeanor at most.
01:32Okay, why are we holding on to this person? Can we just paper him and then send him through his immigration process and we'll deal with him?
01:41Where's the game banger in all this? And where's the guns?
01:46I really want, what I really want to, I thought we were supposed to be doing.
01:52Exactly.
01:52It's like Cosa Nostra, where somebody's going to say, like, you guys go to Vegas and like establish.
01:57Absolutely.
01:58It's more like, you know, the mystique of us.
02:02You know, it's coming from the White House, coming down to the DHS, you know, the FOD calls.
02:09I mean, it's, it's, it's not, it's, it's very real documented that Stephen Miller said, got on a phone call, the first officer said, you're going to be fired or removed.
02:21I want my numbers.
02:22And there's been numerous articles, studies, quotas for law enforcement, it's bad.
02:35Everybody in on that.
02:37No, they didn't land, you know.
02:40ERO is great at being the silent service.
02:43All I see now is media, Twitter feeds, photo ops, you know, you hit an apartment, apartment complex in Chicago, and you have a Blackhawk hovering above it, you know, PAs, you know, rappelling down, and you walk out with two, three, maybe four people.
03:10What's the takeover?
03:11All right, and is this a dress rehearsal for something down, that's coming down the road?
03:21They are not here.
03:22They are here.
03:24But what I've come to learn, morale is always going to be a morale issue with major organizations, you know, not everyone's going to be happy.
03:33However, here, the sense is, when is this over?
03:39What's the end game?
03:40What's the end game?
03:41We're tired.
03:44This is not, and I want you to say, this is not what we signed up for.
03:48I don't want to say that.
03:50But no one's articulating anything.
03:53I didn't see that.
03:56That didn't develop for me like I was hoping it was going to develop for me.
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