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Senior US immigration officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file officers to “turn the creative knob up to 11” when it comes to enforcement, including by interviewing and potentially arresting people they called “collaterals”, according to internal agency emails viewed by the Guardian.
Officers were also urged to increase apprehensions and think up tactics to “push the envelope” one email said, with staff encouraged to come up with new ways of increasing arrests and suggesting them to superiors.
“If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said.
The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.
The emails, sent by two top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials this past Saturday, instructed officers around the country to increase arrest numbers over the weekend. This followed the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, pressing immigration officials last month to jack up immigration-related arrests to at least 3,000 people per day.
One of the emails, written by Marcos Charles, the acting executive associate director of Ice’s enforcement and removal operations, instructs Ice officials to go after people they may coincidentally encounter.
“All collaterals encounters [sic] need to be interviewed and anyone that is found to be amenable to removal needs to be arrested,” Charles wrote, also saying: “We need to turn up the creative knob up to 11 and push the envelope.”
The email later added: “We complained for the last four years about not being allowed to do our job, and now the time has come for us to step up!”
Experts explained that collateral arrests happen when Ice has a warrant to arrest a particular person or persons but when they arrive, they might encounter additional people, such as relatives or co-workers, and then arrest them as well. This despite not having additional warrants or necessarily any evidence of crimes. Being undocumented in the US is a civil offense, not criminal, so “collateral” arrests may oftentimes include people with no criminal backgrounds.
Ice is typically required to have a warrant before they arrest someone. Although not illegal, the practice of collateral arrests without a warrant has been less common, due to heightened legal requirements.
“I am extremely troubled by [the emails] for a number of reasons,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). Fleming said the emails suggest an attempt by Ice to skirt the legal requirements for warrantless arrests.
In 2022, a court settlement put in place some rules for Ice, requiring the agency to have warrants to justify an arrest. If officers did not have a warrant during a collateral arrest, Ice had to show probable cause to justify the arrest and detention. Notably, an officer had to document that a person was likely to escape before getting the additional warrant.
The settlement terms ended in mid-May. But Fleming and the NIJC are challenging the Trump administration, claiming that the settlement should continue to protect people from warrantless arrests. They also accuse Ice of violating the settlement terms earlier this year when Ice officials unlawfully arrested a number of people without obtaining warrants, Fleming and the NIJC said, and then generating the warrant after the arrests.
The emails obtained by the Guardian, Fleming said, shows that Ice “learned nothing from the litigation and the policy that resulted. It sure seems like there is an intention to once again violate both the statute but also the requirements for making warrantless arrests.”
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Another email reviewed by the Guardian was sent on Saturday by senior longtime Ice official Francisco Madrigal.
“While the weekend is still young, please look at efforts to increase our arrests over these two days compared to our results from last weekend,” Madrigal wrote. “We know there are different dynamics to consider on Sats and Sundays, and many of you have been pushing what works and trying out new lines of effort as well.”
“If you’d like to run something up or if we can help give a push somewhere, please reach out. If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” Madrigal added.
The Trump administration has roped in other federal agencies and further deputized local law enforcement as it pushes to widen its dragnet. Charles also asked officials, on the topic of collateral arrests and increased efforts, to “convey this to your local federal partners and teams”.
The Department of Homeland Security responded that the Trump administration is pursuing “criminal illegal aliens”.
“After four years of not being allowed to do their jobs, Ice officers are being empowered under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership to enforce the law and arrest illegal aliens,” DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Although it may come as a shock to the Guardian that the Trump administration is arresting illegal aliens, this is not groundbreaking news, and it is exactly what the American people elected President Trump to do.”
Michael Kagan, the director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, said the push to arrest people without warrants is a divergence from Obama- and Biden-era policies, during which Ice prioritized arresting people with criminal backgrounds. Under the first and current Trump administrations, “everyone can be a priority”, he said.
“Collateral arrests are an outgrowth of that,” Kagan added, warning that they can open the door to abuses, including racial profiling and the arrest of US citizens. “It’s about immigration enforcement becoming indiscriminate and just targeting whoever they can get their hands on, rather than a more targeted approach.”
