The Trump administration is initiating new operations to arrest migrant families with children as part of a nationwide crackdown on immigration, NBC News has learned from sources familiar with the planning. These operations will focus on families and unaccompanied children, even those without criminal records.
The enforcement actions will target adults and children who entered the U.S. together and have outstanding deportation orders. Once arrested, families will be detained prior to removal from the country.
Additionally, a separate initiative aims to locate unaccompanied minors who were released without court dates after entering the U.S.
Lawyers within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are currently working to obtain warrants that would allow agents to enter homes and make arrests.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have not responded to requests for comments regarding these developments.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump and his immigration chief, Tom Homan, indicated that initial mass deportation efforts would focus on migrants with criminal backgrounds. However, the new operations demonstrate that many families and children targeted do not have such histories. As part of this strategy, the Trump administration is collaborating with private prison companies to reopen family detention centers that were closed under the Biden administration, according to NBC News.
On Wednesday, Core Civic, a private prison company, announced it would reopen its family detention center in Dilley, Texas, capable of housing up to 2,400 individuals.
Since 2014, U.S. administrations under Obama, Trump, and Biden have attempted to deter families and unaccompanied minors from crossing the border. The Obama and initial Trump administrations held families in detention centers after crossing until they were released with pending court dates.
In 2018, the first Trump administration introduced a controversial “zero-tolerance” policy that led to the separation of over 5,000 families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Following widespread backlash, Trump reversed this policy.
After taking office in 2021, President Biden’s administration launched a program to expedite the removal of migrants crossing the border as families, requiring heads of households to wear ankle monitors until the family was deported. This approach faced criticism as costly and limited to specific U.S. cities, according to former ICE officials.
Under the Flores agreement, a long-standing federal court settlement, minors detained with their parents cannot remain in ICE custody for more than 20 days. This rule may complicate and increase costs for the Trump administration’s plans for large-scale family detentions compared to deporting single adults, according to former ICE officials.
