Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (pictured Dec. 16) said 121 people were taken into custody in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. | Getty Obama administration kicks off family deportation raids

The Obama administration confirmed Monday that it began a new wave of arrests of Central American immigrant families over the weekend, moving forward with deportations of mothers and children despite an outcry from immigrant rights groups and potential political fallout for Democrats.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement that 121 people were taken into custody in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina in recent days and will soon face deportation.


"This past weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) engaged in concerted, nationwide enforcement operations to take into custody and return at a greater rate adults who entered this country illegally with children," Johnson said. "This should come as no surprise. I have said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied children, will be removed."

White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged "some discussions" between the White House and DHS over policy matters related to the raids, but did not get into specifics. He said President Barack Obama supports deportation of those who recently entered the U.S. illegally.

"Some operations have taken place that have been focused on individuals, deporting individuals that have recently crossed the border. That is consistent with the kinds of enforcement priorities that the president and the secretary of homeland security discussed more than a year ago," Earnest said at the daily briefing for reporters. "Certainly, people should take from this the understanding that the administration is quite serious about enforcing our immigration laws."

Johnson said the batch of deportees were among immigrants who crossed the southern U.S. border illegally since May 2014. That's when the U.S. began experiencing a surge of families and unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Officials say such crossings decreased by early last year, but began to pick up again in recent months.

Administration officials have expressed concern with the recent spike in the number of families and unaccompanied children being apprehended at the southern border — particularly since illegal migration tends to slow down during colder months.

In October and November 2015, just over 12,500 families were apprehended, compared with 4,577 during the same two months in 2014. Meanwhile, 10,588 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the southern border in October and November 2015, according to federal officials — more than double the number of minors who tried to cross into the United States during the same period in 2014.

The proposals to increase deportations appear to have stirred some dissent within the Obama administration. Just before Christmas, unnamed "people familiar with the operation" disclosed the plans to the Washington Post — a highly unusual leak about planned law enforcement actions.

The disclosure last month of the planned raids drew immediate criticism from Democratic presidential candidates. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley condemned the planned actions, while front-runner Hillary Clinton issued a more muted statement through a spokeswoman, who said Clinton had "real concerns" about the plans. Word of the planned raids also highlight a political predicament for Clinton, who endorsed quick return of illegal immigrant children in 2014 but is also trying to court Latino voters.

On Monday, Clinton's camp seemed uncomfortable with the scope of the enforcement drive the Obama administration has embarked on.

"Hillary Clinton believes the United States should give refuge to people fleeing persecution, and should be especially attentive to the needs of children," spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said. "Families who arrive here should be guaranteed due process on their asylum petitions, including a full and fair opportunity to tell their stories. She believes we should not be conducting large-scale raids and roundups that sow fear and division in our communities."

Regardless of the reaction on the campaign trail, Earnest said politics played no role in the weekend raids.

"I can assure you that politics did not factor in these kinds of enforcement decisions," the White House spokesman said. "Ultimately, when it comes to enforcement issued, those are decisions that are made by law enforcement professionals.

Both Earnest and Johnson said DHS remains focused on deporting "felons, not families" — a curious talking point given that families were the targets of the weekend sweep.

Johnson stressed in his statement Monday that all the immigrants arrested over the weekend had been ordered removed from the U.S. and had exhausted any appeals. He also said ICE agents took special steps to assure the well-being of those detained and decided not to detain some of those originally slated to be part of the operation.

"Given the sensitive nature of taking into custody and removing families with children, a number of precautions were taken as part of this weekend’s operations. ICE deployed from around the country a number of female agents and medical personnel to take part in the operations, and, in the course of the operations, ICE exercised prosecutorial discretion in a number of cases for health or other personal reasons," the secretary said.

Despite calls to halt the deportations and the arrests, Johnson said similar raids will take place in the future. "At my direction, additional enforcement operations such as these will continue to occur as appropriate," he said.

The Obama administration — Johnson in particular — has also taken pains to point out that immigration officials are now focusing on deporting criminals and recent border-crossers, rather than immigrants who have lived here illegally for a long time.

“We’re focusing more sharply on felons over families, so fewer deportations, but more focused on convicted criminals, more focused on apprehensions at the border,” Johnson said during a POLITICO interview last month. “I’ve encouraged our immigration enforcement personnel to engage in a mission more like law enforcement.”

But news of the planned immigration raids infuriated immigrant-advocacy groups, who said the DHS strategy evoked memories of workplace raids under the Bush administration such as the operation at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in 2008.

Advocates have also argued since the so-called border crisis in the summer of 2014 that most of the immigrants coming here illegally are fleeing violence in their home countries — primarily El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — and should be allowed to seek asylum in the United States.

"The raids may serve a political purpose for the Administration, but it will not deter the flight of refugees from Central America," said Kevin Appleby, the International Migration Policy Director for the Center for Migration Studies, a Catholic-based institute and think tank. "It only sends vulnerable families back to danger, many of whom did not receive adequate due process protections from our legal system."

Democrats in Congress — which is currently in recess — have been mostly quiet on the raids.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, GOP poll leader Donald Trump — whose candidacy has been characterized by hardline rhetoric against immigrants here illegally — took credit for the raids in his typical flair.

“Wow, because of the pressure put on by me, ICE TO LAUNCH LARGE SCALE DEPORTATION RAIDS,” Trump tweeted when news of the planned raids broke. “It's about time!”

The fact that Trump was proudly taking credit for the raids wasn’t lost on advocates, who used that point to draw comparisons between the real estate billionaire and Obama’s immigration policies.

"The president's actions are far more harmful than Trump's demagoguery,” said Pablo Alvarado, the executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “While Trump's dangerous rhetoric stigmatizes our loved ones, President Obama actually deports them.”

