Trump administration officials are preparing to expand deportation efforts as immigration raids sweep major metropolitan centers across the country. On Tuesday, newly-sworn-in Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem led U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in getting “dirtbags off the streets” of New York City.

ICE was assisted by the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, and New York Police Department (NYPD) Special Operations. As has been the case with other deportation operations carried out under President Donald Trump so far, the Tuesday raids in New York targeted violent illegal immigrants, with Noem citing one illegal immigrant charged with kidnapping, assault, and burglary as an example.

As The Washington Stand previously reported, deportation operations are taking place in major cities across the country, especially in areas that had previously adopted “sanctuary city” policies. “Border czar” and former ICE chief Tom Homan has been leading deportation missions in Chicago, while operations have also been executed in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Omaha, Phoenix, and across California, New Jersey, and Texas. Law enforcement in Denver arrested 50 members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and gang “ringleader” Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco was arrested in New York. The gang members are slated to be deported.

Homan reported that major metropolitan areas and former “sanctuary cities” have proven to be the greatest challenge so far to Trump’s immigration agenda. “Sanctuary cities are difficult to operate in. We’d much rather arrest — one agent can arrest one bad guy in jail in 10 minutes. But when they release them back into the community, we’ve got to send a whole team to find him, and some of them don’t want to be found,” the deportation expert explained. He continued, “And it’s unsafe for the community because you’re putting a public safety threat back into the public, and that’s idiotic to begin with. It makes the job more dangerous for the agent, more dangerous for the alien, more dangerous for the community.” He added, “So, we’ve got to spend a lot of time trying to locate this person, write up an operational plan, and seek to arrest them. It’s not efficient. And so, not only is it difficult, it’s very dangerous.”

The most difficult cities to deal with, Homan said, have been “Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) previously pledged to support ICE operations but, according to Homan, New York officials have nonetheless been uncooperative. “The mayor in New York says he wants to help, but the city council is stopping him. The commissioner of the NYPD is saying they’re not going to help,” Homan reported. He said that Adams wants to allow ICE agents into Rikers Island via executive order but hasn’t done so yet. “So, Mayor Adams says he wants to help — actions speak louder than words. We’ll find out where it goes,” he said.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Trump administration arrested and deported 7,300 illegal immigrants within the first week of the president’s second term. But Homan wants to increase that number. “We’ve got to do more. We’ve got to open that aperture up, which we’re going to do,” Homan insisted. He added, “And we need more deportations, a lot more deportations, and that’s what we are working on.”

In order to deport the approximately 10 million illegal immigrants that crossed the border under Biden by the end of Trump’s term, ICE would have to arrest and deport roughly 6,850 illegal immigrants per day. Previously, Homan has explained that deportation numbers currently seem low because ICE is focusing its efforts on violent offenders before expanding to deport all illegal immigrants. “ICE is finally going to do their job. We’re going to take the handcuffs off of ICE and let them go arrest criminal aliens,” the border czar said just days before Trump’s inauguration. He added, “ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one.”

Regardless of the Trump administration’s satisfaction with the pace of deportations, ICE operations are having an effect at the southern border. According to Fox News, less than 600 illegal immigrants were encountered at the southern border on Sunday, less than one week after Trump’s inauguration. The final days of the Biden administration saw between 1,200 and 1,400 daily encounters. Video obtained by the New York Post shows that deported immigrants are warning their countrymen not to cross the border. “Everyone is getting caught. I don’t recommend to cross,” one deportee told potential border-crossers.