Trump Orders ICE to Start Family Raids on Sunday

President Trump has ordered ICE to conduct a mass roundup of families in major cities that could begin before dawn Sunday. Agents are to take up to 2,000 families into custody that have received deportation orders, the Washington Post reports. Trump had tweeted on Monday that the raids would begin "next week" and that millions of people "will be removed as fast as they come in." The raids could take place in as many as 10 cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. Trump's acting DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, has preferred a smaller operation against about 150 families that had attorneys but dropped out of the legal process. He warned that arresting migrants at home and at work could separate children from their parents in cases where the children are at the homes of friends or family, or at day care or summer camp.

But the acting director of ICE said Friday that the raids are a necessary deterrent. "Right now, the greatest pull factors for families to come here is they know that once they arrive in the U.S., they remain here untouched," Mark Morgan told NBC. "We have to change that." The families taken into custody probably will be held in ICE family residential detention centers, per CNN, while the agency and consulates work on travel documents. In some cases, ankle bracelets will be placed on parents, who will be allowed to stay with their children who are US citizens temporarily. One official said the goal will be to not leave children alone. (More Immigration and Customs Enforcement stories.)