Targeted immigration arrests in San Diego have increased after an executive order by President Donald Trump expanded the priorities for the arrests, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
"All we're trying to do is protect the community and remove the threats," Greg Archambeault, field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations, told The Union-Tribune.
Former President Barack Obama changed enforcement priorities in 2014 to focus on those with felony convictions or multiple misdemeanors, but Trump's executive order now includes anyone charged with any level of crime, as well as those who have received final orders of removal — a judge's sign-off on their order to be deported, The Union-Tribune reports.
San Diego's fugitive operations team has arrested 547 people this year from February through May, according to ICE information, The Union-Tribune reports, and that figure is more than double the February-May total from last year — 242 — or the year before — 267.
Before Obama's priority change in 2014, February-May arrests totaled 540, the report said.
"We're still focusing on criminals, but we're not confined to them. It's the ability for us to enforce the law across the board," Clinton Johnston, assistant field director at the Enforcement and Removal Operations in San Diego, told The Union-Tribune.
The fugitive operations team investigates people that ICE believes could be removable, and they attempt to pick up their targets by knocking on doors starting at 6 a.m. However, they cannot go into a house without permission.
Officers do not always take targets into custody, says Johnston and if the person is the only caregiver for children, officers will take that into account and give them a notice to appear in court.
The House of Representatives passed two bills related to immigration issues on June 29 —the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which bars federal grants for state and local governments that prevent investigation of immigration status, and Kate's Law, which increases penalties on those who are deported, then re-enter the U.S.
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