US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will arrest anyone found living in the country unlawfully, regardless of their criminal history or lack thereof, and is ramping up enforcement against employers hiring unauthorised workers, the agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said Sunday.
Under orders from the Trump administration, ICE has reinstated wide-ranging immigration enforcement policies, including so-called collateral arrests — detaining non-criminal undocumented immigrants found during broader operations — which had been curtailed during the Biden era.
“What’s, again, frustrating for me is the fact that we would love to focus on these criminal aliens that are inside a jail facility,” Lyons said in an exclusive interview with CBS News.
“A local law enforcement agency, state agency already deemed that person a public safety threat and arrested them and they’re in detention.”
Lyons said the current rise in community arrests is a consequence of states and cities with sanctuary policies refusing to hand over noncitizen inmates, forcing ICE agents to go into neighbourhoods.
“I’d much rather focus all of our limited resources on that...but we do have to go out into the community,” he said.
In the first half of 2025, ICE deported nearly 150,000 people, including around 70,000 with criminal convictions, many of which were minor, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News.
Lyons did not rule out reaching the administration’s target of 1 million deportations this year, citing a recent multi-billion-dollar boost in congressional funding.
“ICE is always focused on the worst of the worst,” Lyons said. “One difference you’ll see now is under this administration, we have opened up the whole aperture of the immigration portfolio.”
He also confirmed the agency has resumed large-scale worksite raids, including recent operations at a Nebraska meat plant, a Louisiana racetrack and California cannabis farms, where over 300 unauthorised workers were arrested, including minors.
“Not only are we focused on those individuals...we’re focused on these American companies that are actually exploiting these laborers,” Lyons said. When asked if employers will be held accountable, he responded: “One hundred percent.”
