The Trump administration is escalating its immigration operations in Democratic cities in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling giving the government the ability to conduct immigration stops based on an individual\u2019s ethnicity or whether they speak Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday morning announced<\/u><\/a> \u201cOperation Patriot 2.0\u201d in Massachusetts and announced<\/u><\/a> \u201cOperation Midway Blitz\u201d in Chicago roughly an hour after the Supreme Court decision came down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Supreme Court ruled 6-3<\/u><\/a> to lift a lower court\u2019s ruling that barred racial profiling as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers roved Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The timing of the announcements appeared to be coincidental; President Trump has for weeks floated surging resources into Chicago to crack down on crime. But the high court\u2019s ruling provides additional momentum for an administration that has repeatedly pushed the envelope with its deportation efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The planned ICE raids build on action earlier this summer in Los Angeles that sparked a court battle over the agency\u2019s enforcement policies, with a judge blocking officers from using race, language or even someone\u2019s profession as a basis for targeting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n s Supreme Court order puts people at grave risk, allowing federal agents in Southern California to target individuals because of their race, how they speak, the jobs they work, or just being at a bus stop or the car wash when ICE agents decide to raid a place,\u201d the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in bashing the order as condoning racial profiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor anyone perceived as Latino by an ICE agent, this means living in a fearful \u2018papers please\u2019 regime, with risks of violent ICE arrests and detention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration has repeatedly tested the bounds of the law with its deportation efforts, facing legal challenges as it sought to deport migrants<\/u><\/a> to third-party countries and over its use of the Alien Enemies Act<\/u><\/a> to remove alleged gang members to a foreign prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump spent much of August publicly contemplating whether to send the National Guard to Chicago or other Democratic-led cities like Baltimore and Oakland, Calif., as an extension of his crime crackdown in Washington, D.C. Immigration enforcement has been a central component of the federal operations in the District, which has drawn pushback from residents<\/u><\/a> and some local officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president over the weekend further inflamed tensions when he posted a message on Truth Social that read, \u201c\u2018I love the smell of deportations in the morning\u2026 Chicago about to find out why it\u2019s called the Department of WAR.\u201d The post was accompanied by an AI-generated image of Trump in the role of a character from the film \u201cApocalypse Now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D) and other Democrats viewed Trump\u2019s post as a threat to go to war with an American city. Trump disputed that characterization, but Monday\u2019s announcement of a large-scale ICE operation made the administration\u2019s plans clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS said its operation would target \u201cthe criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. Tammy Duckworth\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-Ill.) accused Trump of \u201cessentially declaring war on a city in his own nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the coming days Donald Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>will seek to provoke a response to his un-American actions, hoping for images of chaos and violence to validate his lie that Chicago is an apocalyptic city in crisis and justify sending in the military to intimidate Americans,\u201d Duckworth said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile in Boston, city officials were bracing for a ramp-up of ICE activity, building on an operation first launched in May to target immigrants in the country illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Supreme Court\u2019s injunction only concerned ICE policy in the Los Angeles area, the agency is likely to use similar guidelines elsewhere now that the practice has been backed by the high court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brought by five men arrested by ICE when raids began in Los Angeles in June, the case resulted in an initial win blocking profiling based on ethnicity, language or due to their presence at places like bus stations and car washes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n