Immigrant rights groups are preparing for further crackdowns by federal enforcement agencies after a series of highly visible raids by Donald Trump’s nascent deportation force has left Hispanic communities across the country racked by fear.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ice, has presented the raids conducted in recent days from New York to Texas, Illinois and California as “routine” affairs. They were merely an extension of the deportation procedures put in place under Barack Obama, officials said.

Ice said on Monday that it had arrested 680 people in five states during last week’s raids. In a statement, homeland security secretary John Kelly said that “Ice conducts these kind of targeted enforcement operations regularly and has for many years. The focus of these enforcement operations is consistent with the routine, targeted arrests carried out by Ice’s fugitive operations teams on a daily basis.”

But that belied the experience of activists on the ground, who reported that the federal government was taking aggressive measures unseen during the Obama era. “We are hearing that the Ice presence is heavier, they are out much more visibly in communities and that is scaring people,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights project.



David Leopold, a leading immigration lawyer who has been tracking the raids, said: “This is the beginning of the Trump deportation force. The president is making good on his promise to deport millions of people – it shows that he has to be taken literally.”



Adrian Reyna, of United We Dream, said the White House has given Ice a free pass. “So at this point anyone is a priority. The machine has let loose.”

Soon after he was elected president, Trump threatened to immediately deport up to three million undocumented immigrants. Earlier on the campaign trail he went further, promising to his voters that he would round up and evict all 11 million people living in the US without legal papers.

How far Trump will be able to go in putting his pledges into practice remains unclear, given limited federal resources and mounting resistance on the ground. But the recent raids suggest that the intention is certainly there.

Of particular alarm to human rights groups is evidence that Ice has already begun to widen the definition of who should be targeted for deportation. Under Obama, federal officials were under instruction to focus on those convicted of criminal acts.

But in Trump’s executive order on border security and immigration enforcement, released on 25 January, he extended the target group effectively to include all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, putting any individual without legal papers at risk. The order tells Ice to detain all individuals “apprehended on suspicion of violating federal or state law, including federal immigration law”.

Asked by Chuck Todd on NBC whether people would be singled out for deportation simply because they were undocumented, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller sidestepped the question, saying: “Ice officers make those decisions”.

In his DHS statement, Kelly said that 75% of the people who had been arrested were “criminal aliens”, convicted of homicides, drug trafficking and other serious offenses, including driving under the influence. But that still left 170 who do not fall into the criminal category.

Ice officers have reportedly been making “collateral” arrests in an early sign that they are widening the net. Agents acting on a warrant for a named suspect have been then questioning neighbors throughout apartment complexes and randomly arresting anyone suspected of being undocumented, according to WUSA9 in Virginia.

A DHS official tells @wusa9 there was an immigration "targeted enforcement" operation in Annandale. Targeted & "collateral" arrests made — Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) February 11, 2017

The location of the raids appeared to be significant, immigration rights advocates said. Several of the biggest raids were staged in cities led by progressive politicians who have spoken out against Trump’s harsh stance on immigration, including Kasim Reed in Atlanta, Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles and Bill de Blasio in New York. Sally Hernandez, the newly-elected sheriff in Austin, Texas – which saw major raids – has also been an outspoken critic.

“It’s very suspicious that ICE has concentrated on cities with very strong leaders. They seem to be targeting outspoken politicians who have refused to co-operate with Ice,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice.

On Monday, thousands of Latino immigrants and their supporters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin stayed away from their workplaces and schools and marched on the county courthouse in protest of a proposal from the local sheriff, David Clarke, to take up another controversial piece of Trump’s executive order. Clarke, a darling of the right who was considered for a Trump cabinet position as homeland security secretary, has announced he intends to take up a program known as 287g that allows police officers to act as immigration agents.

The program receded under Obama, though it was never repealed and remained on the books. Now Trump has called for its revival, using his executive order to encourage state governors and other local officials to embrace it.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera in Wisconsin, said that 287g was a discredited system. It has been “roundly condemned, found to be in clear violations of people’s civil and constitutional rights and lead to racial profiling of Latinos and others. We do not want 287g in Milwaukee or anywhere else in the United States”.

As Trump’s deportation force gathers pace, so too do resistance networks that are sprouting up across the country in an attempt to foil the president’s intentions. Hotlines have been set up, social media groups have been formed acting as alarm systems and support networks for people caught up in raids and national groups like the ACLU are organizing chains of volunteer lawyers able to mobilise at short notice.

In recent days more than 22,000 people have signed up to the #HereToStay network, which aims to mobilise an army of volunteers able and willing to attend protests at short notice. “I pledge to physically show up for immigrants in my community when they need me,” says the sign-up document.

Trump’s actions have galvanised the resistance, which finds itself flooded with new allies and volunteers, but its core leadership and tactics emerged in the fight against Barack Obama’s aggressive deportation policies.

There are early signs that the crackdown is starting to impact local communities in negative ways. In Buford Highway in Atlanta, Georgia, where several raids have been conducted, local shops are starting to feel the pinch as Latino, Vietnamese and other immigrant groups stay at home for fear of being picked up.

“People are scared, they don’t want to leave their homes or take their kids to school. Businesses are already hurting as a result of people stopping to engage in everyday activities,” said Sarah Owings, chair of the Georgia chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.