DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day

Stephen Miller was unequivocal: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would seek to arrest 3,000 or more immigrants per day, a staggering target that he said was necessary to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

But when federal judges pressed for details about that figure last week, the administration denied any such quota existed. The contradiction came in a lawsuit that alleged the intense pressure to rack up arrests had led ICE to conduct illegal sweeps in Los Angeles.

“DHS has confirmed that neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that ICE or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law,” a Justice Department attorney reported to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday.

Archive article: https://archive.ph/Ab2N6