By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Arrests of undocumented immigrants increased 32.6% in the first weeks of Donald Trump taking office.
Included in the arrests were thousands of undocumented immigrants who have no criminal record, the Washington Post reports.
From January through mid-March, ICE arrested 21,362 illegal immigrants, compared to 16,104 during the same period last year.
Among those arrested, 5,441 had no criminal record, a two-fold increase.
“My sense is that ICE is emboldened in a way that I have never seen,” Dan Satterberg, the top prosecutor in Washington state’s King County, which includes Seattle, said Thursday. “The federal government, in really just a couple of months, has undone decades of work that we have done to build this trust.”
An ICE Spokeswoman said no illegal immigrant is safe from deportation.
ICE “focuses its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security,” spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said in a statement. “However, as [Homeland Security] Secretary [John F.] Kelly has made clear, ICE will no longer exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”
