The incoming Trump administration intends to scrap a longstanding policy that largely prevents federal immigration authorities from arresting illegal migrants in areas that are known as “sensitive” locations, according to an NBC News report.
President-elect Donald Trump would like to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to begin arresting illegal migrants at or near hospitals, schools, churches and other areas deemed to be “sensitive” locations without needing prior approval from their supervisors, according to NBC News. Trump, who won the presidential election with a hardline immigration platform, may issue the rule change as soon as his first day in office.
The reported policy change could allow ICE agents to better follow through on one of the president-elect’s most notable campaign promises: conducting the largest deportation operation in American history.
A policy of not conducting apprehensions at sensitive locations — with exceptions relating to terrorism, national security threats or other imminent dangers — has been on the books for over a decade within the agency. Then-ICE Director John Morton issued a memo in October 2011 that largely prohibited agents from operating in schools or churches, establishing a policy that extended into the Trump and Biden administrations.
Morton’s memo not only restricted ICE apprehensions at schools, churches and hospitals, but also funerals, weddings, religious ceremonies and public demonstrations. Agents, he ordered, could only do so under exigent circumstances or after obtaining approval from their superiors.
The incoming administration is reportedly considering other novel ideas to help carry out its ambitious deportation agenda, including sending illegal migrants whose home countries refuse to accept them to third-party countries such as Panama or Turks and Caicos.
Trump has also pledged to end birthright citizenship for those born to illegal migrant parents, continue construction on the U.S-Mexico border wall, beef up Border Patrol staffing and a slate of other measures. In order to help him lead this effort, he has tapped Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to serve as Homeland Security secretary, former ICE acting director Tom Homan to serve as border czar, longtime aide Stephen Miller to serve as a top policy advisor, former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott to serve as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and Caleb Vitello to lead ICE.
A growing number of Democratic mayors and governors have voiced opposition to Trump’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement, with some localities passing or doubling down on their sanctuary city policies. Homan, on the other hand, has publicly warned Democratic opponents to “get the hell out the way” once he begins deporting illegal migrants out of the U.S.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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