Immigration arrests are up 20 percent and deportations have increased 30 percent in New Jersey over the past year as enforcement officers nationwide work to fulfill the president’s promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

But John Tsoukaris, the head of immigration enforcement in New Jersey, said most undocumented immigrants in the state don't need to be afraid because his officers are focusing on those who have committed serious crimes or have deportation orders against them.

“We have been directed to primarily focus on people involved in public safety concerns, public safety crimes, criminal aliens, gang members, they are still our number one priority,” said Tsoukaris, field office director for enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark,

Nationally, more than 41,300 undocumented immigrants have been taken into custody since President Donald Trump took office and expanded the power of immigration officials to decide who should be held for deportation. Some 400 immigrants are arrested each day now – a 38 percent jump from the previous year.

The arrests and deportations have heightened fears among the 500,000 undocumented immigrants in New Jersey, advocates said. They are reporting a noticeable increase of ICE officers in neighborhoods and that larger sweeps of undocumented people are occurring. Despite Tsoukaris’ assurances, they also say undocumented immigrants who don’t have criminal backgrounds are being arrested more frequently.

"People who have lived in this country, who have worked in this country who have not done anything wrong, are now scared,” said Archange Antoine, executive director of Faith in New Jersey, a coalition of clergy and faith communities working to advance social and economic issues.

“They are seeing what is happening to their neighbors, their friends and family members,'' he said. "I feel that right now there is so much discretion that is being given to the ICE office, they can just pick up anyone at any given time."

Tsoukaris said in an interview that immigration officers are not conducting raids, but targeted enforcement, with officers looking for a specific person. However, he said that under President Donald Trump’s executive orders on illegal immigration, other undocumented immigrants that officers come across during a targeted enforcement are also being arrested.

“In the past, if those other people that we encountered with the target, if they were not a priority we would not arrest them. Now if they are here illegally, then we will arrest them,’’ he said. “We have been encountering a lot of other people that sometimes they have been deported before…and came back illegally."

After talking on the campaign trail about getting rid of "bad hombres," Trump signed an executive order days after taking office to make good on his promises about illegal immigration. He directed immigration officers to prioritize undocumented immigrants who have been charged or convicted of a crime, have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation, have abused any program related to public benefits, and those who have final orders of removal. The executive order also allows immigration officers to decide if someone should be detained if they deem that a person poses a public safety or is a national security risk.

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Tsoukaris, who has worked in immigration enforcement for more than 25 years, said arrests and deportations were increasing in New Jersey before Trump took office.

“It’s not as different as it was six months ago. It really is not much different. Don’t believe everything you hear,’’ he said. “We are doing more enforcement, but it’s not as significant as it sometimes is portrayed."

Since October, about 800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in New Jersey, an increase of around 150 over the same period a year earlier. The number of deportations rose to approximately 1,500, an increase of about 300, according to numbers provided by ICE officials.

Tsoukaris said there has been a slight increase in the number of people who are detained at their check-ins with their deportation officers. Such check-ins are part of the routine supervision of unauthorized immigrants who have been ordered out of the country by immigration judges. He said officers usually detain people at check-in who may pose a flight risk or who have not complied with orders of supervision.

He attributes the rise in deportations to an increase in the number of immigration judges in Newark and to the fact that passports and other travel documents for those waiting to be removed are being processed faster by the countries where the immigrants will be sent.

Currently, there are seven immigration judges assigned to the Newark Immigration Court, compared to the five judges at the end of 2015, said Kathryn Mattingly, spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review. At the end of fiscal year 2016, there were eight judges, she said.

“So there are a lot of different things that are happening together, and it’s not because there is a new president,’’ Tsoukaris said.

While arrests and removals are up, he said the number of immigrants being detained at the immigrant detention facility in Elizabeth or the Essex and Hudson county jails, which house immigrant detainees held by the Newark ICE office, has decreased.

“A lot of them, after they are being processed, they are released and go back to court on their own,’’ Tsoukaris said. “They pay bonds. We issue low bonds and they can pay and they can get released.”

Among the challenges ICE officers face in carrying out their work, Tsoukaris said, is that some local law enforcement agencies refuse to cooperate. Some are not honoring detainer requests, which are formal requests from immigration agents instructing local agencies to hold individuals for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would have otherwise been released.

Tsoukaris said that county officers in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties are cooperative, but said that those in Middlesex, Union, Camden, Mercer and Somerset have released people despite detainers.

"We are still in discussion to try and work with them,'' he said.

The work by ICE officials in New Jersey is felt first hand by employees of First Friends of New Jersey & New York, an organization that coordinates visits to immigrant detainees at facilities in both states. Employees of the organization said they regularly hear stories of arrests and detainments.

Sally Pillay, program director, said she is hearing of more cases of people being taken into immigration custody after detainers have been issued and during check-ins. And she and Rosa Santana, volunteer coordinator for First Friends, said they have noticed the quicker deportations.

“We don’t have numbers, but it’s definitely happening,’’ she said. “It’s very, very scary times. People are being funneled and transferred, and the next thing you know they are gone.”

On Thursday, one of four Indonesian Christian men who were detained after a check-in at the Newark ICE office was deported. The men had been living in the country for more than 20 years and said they fled their homeland because of religious persecution. The man's lawyer had requested a stay of removal, but that was denied. The man didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to his son, who was in school, before he was put on a plane.

Pillay also said that she has heard of immigration sweeps happening, pointing to one that she said occurred in Kearny.

Nineteen people were arrested at a warehouse on immigration violations in early May, according to Lou Martinez, a spokesman for ICE. Immigration officers were at the warehouse as part of a scheduled inspection by officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, federal officials said.

The arrests validate the worries of immigrants and advocates, said Brenda Valladares, an organizer for Movimiento Cosecha, a movement fighting for the protection for undocumented people.

“Places like Kearny, Paterson, Passaic that have never seen raids are now seeing it closer to home,’’ she said at a rally outside the Newark ICE office recently on behalf of a Rutgers student who had been called in for questioning.

Those who work with immigrants say that people are so unsettled some are choosing to leave the country. Tsoukaris said he has not heard of any spike in people self-deporting, but Santana said she’s spoken to detainees who lost hope and have said they want to go home.

“They see the news and the new policies and they are scared, and they feel like ‘what would be the reason for me to fight this case if I’m going to be eventually deported,’” she said. “So they are saying, ‘send me back home.’”

Victoria Mota, who helps Guatemelan immigrants in Palisades Park, said that some undocumented people she knows have stopped driving and others have moved to other states. And she said she has heard of some people deciding against coming to the United States and heading to Canada instead.

"They feel they have more options over there,'' she said.

Elias Garcia, a volunteer for Centro Comunitario CEUS a non-profit in Union City that serves and organizes Hispanic immigrants in North Jersey, said several day laborers he knows told him that they planned to leave if Trump became president.

"They said that if he won, they were going,'' he said. "And I haven't seen them since."