Posted on January 31, 2025

ICE Agents Search for Those With Criminal Histories but Say ‘Collateral Arrests’ Are Possible

Gabe Gutierrez et al., NBC, January 27, 2025

Several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal personnel waited in unmarked cars as they prepared to approach what they called their target.

According to ICE, Christopher Fragoso Lara, 25, of Mexico, had been convicted of home invasion, aggravated battery, domestic battery, possession of a weapon and other crimes. A surveillance team had spotted him Monday morning at the Chicago tire shop where he worked.

Agents shut down the street outside the business and arrested Fragoso Lara as he spoke to a customer outside, in subfreezing temperatures.

The arrest took place without incident when NBC News was embedded with the agents during operations throughout the Chicago area Monday morning. The enforcement agents departed downtown Chicago before sunrise and drove to Berwyn, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.

Three door-knocking operations did not result in arrests, but they demonstrated the time and manpower that goes into the operations. At each location, there were at least seven officers, from ICE and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, covering all the entrances and exits.

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The Trump administration has sought in the past week to publicly demonstrate that it is following through on Trump’s promises to enact mass deportations immediately after having taken office. Arrest numbers last week remained on par with those in September, the latest month for which figures were available, until Friday, when numbers doubled.

On Sunday, ICE arrested 1,179 people, according to data first obtained by NBC News. The figure, which is higher than the 956 arrests the agency announced Sunday night, is the largest number under the new administration.

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The Trump administration has said the crackdown targets criminals, but there has been concern that law-abiding migrants with varying forms of legal immigration status could also be rounded up, otherwise known as “collateral arrests.”

Asked about collateral arrests, Sam Olson, the enforcement and removal operations director in the Chicago field office, said they were possible. “We’re tasked to enforce the immigration laws,” he said. “If somebody is here illegally, whether or not they’ve committed crimes, there is that possibility that they could be arrested.”

Officials have not always disclosed the number of migrants with and without criminal histories who have been arrested.

However, just 613 of the 1,179 people arrested Sunday — nearly 52% — were considered “criminal arrests,” a senior Trump administration official said. The rest appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense.

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