US intensifies crackdown on immigration; Vice President Vance, Trump’s Border Czar defend raids on schools, churches

The Donald Trump administration’s crackdown against illegal immigration continues to intensify, as the US Justice Department said it had begun making arrests in Chicago as part of a multi-agency enforcement operation, the New York Times reported.

US Vice President JD Vance, has also endorsed immigration raids on schools, and said that he hoped they would have a “chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming to our country.”

Vance said immigration raids in religious buildings and schools should not be ruled out. “If you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they are an illegal immigrant or not, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety,” he said. “That’s not unique to immigration.”

Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan has said that immigration officials will need at least 1,00,000 beds to support Trump’s sweeping deportation efforts. He called on the US Congress to “come to the table quick and give us the money we need.”

On being asked whether immigration enforcement agents would search for people in churches or schools, Homan replied that ICE would act on a “case-by-case basis.” But he seemed to suggest that high-school-aged children could be affiliated with gangs and represented legitimate targets.

Homan said that deportations would “steadily increase” as the administration moved to “open up the aperture” to target anyone in the country illegally — not just those with a criminal record.

Regarding deportation funding, Tom Homan said he would “leave it up to Congress,” The Hill reported. Homan was speaking about the Trump administration’s broad immigration plan, including specifics about how they plan to fund the costly mass deportation idea.

“The Congress, I think the president has a mandate. This is the number one issue that people voted on,” Homan said. “And I think Congress has a mandate to give us money.”

The US official said there needs to be ‘pressure’ on national security. Referring to the death of Georgia student Laken Riley, who was allegedly killed by a migrant, he said the incident has become the face of the Republicans’ immigration plan.

In another major development last week, US officals also shut down an app that allowed asylum-seekers to schedule appointments for admission at a port of entry.

Homan apparently dismissed the app, which had been set up by the Biden administration, as an ‘illegitimate method’ for migrants to use.

“Go to the embassy, go to the port of entry, do it the legal way,” Homan said as quoted by the New York Times. “You shouldn’t come to this country and ask to get asylum, and the first thing you do is break our laws by entering illegally.”