Trump wants mass deportations. A ride-along with immigration officers shows the challenges

NEW YORK (AP) — The immigration officers sat in their vehicles before dawn near a two-story building. A New York subway line rumbled overhead, then an officer's voice crackled over the radio.

After watching for about two hours, he said, “I think that's Tango,” using a term for target. “Gray hoodie. Backpack. Walking quickly.”

The immigration officers surrounded and handcuffed a 23-year-old man from Ecuador who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor.

Kenneth Genalo, head of Enforcement and Removal Operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, said a popular misconception is that officers can sweep into a community and pick up a wide swath of people who are in the United States illegally and send them to their home countries.

“It’s called targeted enforcement,” Genalo said. “We don’t grab people and then take them to JFK and put them on a plane."

With Donald Trump returning to the White House, there is intense interest in how the Republican will carry out his immigration agenda, including a campaign pledge of mass deportations. His priorities could run into the realities faced by agents focused on enforcement and removals, including the unit in New York that offered The Associated Press a glimpse into its operations: The number of people already on its lists to target eclipses the number of officers available to do the work.

The Biden administration had narrowed deportation priorities to public safety threats and recent border crossers. Trump's incoming “border czar,” Tom Homan, says officials in the new administration also will prioritize those who pose a risk, such as criminals, before moving on to immigrants whom courts have ordered removed from the U.S.

But Homan also has signaled that enforcement could be wider: “If you’re in the country illegally you got a problem,” he said recently on Dr. Phil’s Merit TV.

It's a tall order.

About 1.4 million people have final orders of removal, while about 660,000 under immigration supervision either have been convicted of crimes or are facing charges. But only 6,000 officers within ICE are tasked with monitoring noncitizens in the country and then finding and removing those not eligible to stay.

Those staffing numbers have largely remained static as their caseload has roughly quadrupled over the past decade to 7.6 million. About 10% of that workforce was pulled from their regular duties last year to go to the U.S.-Mexico border at times when immigration spiked.

Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff earlier in the Biden administration, said the number of officers needed to pursue those deemed a public safety threat are at direct odds with the goal of deporting people in large numbers.

“You're not going to be able to do both of those with the resources you have, with the deportation officers you have,” Houser said. “Just the arithmetic, the time-intensive nature of those sort of arrests will overwhelm any ability to get to those large scale numbers.”

Genalo said the officers in charge of individual cases have to get a lead, ensure they have the legal authority to arrest someone and then track the person down. They generally aren't allowed to enter a residence, so they want to catch people outside.

On this recent operation, about a dozen officers gathered before 5 a.m. at a White Castle parking lot in the Bronx. After putting on their body armor and checking their equipment, they circled around for a briefing.

Besides the 23-year-old Ecuadorian man, they were going after a 36-year-old Mexican man convicted of forcibly touching a young girl and another Ecuadorian also convicted of sexual abuse of a minor.

The first target, the 23-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl, was believed to usually leave the apartment building around 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. Sometimes he was with a woman and child.

“Light came on in the first floor of the apartment,” an officer waiting outside said over the radio. Then later: “Someone came out of the basement, but it’s not our target.”

They finally spotted him, swept him into the back of a vehicle and quickly left the neighborhood.

Inside, the man's 22-year-old wife didn't know what had happened until he called later from detention.

In an interview, she said they met in Ecuador and had a child — a bubbly 3-year-old girl with braids — and she was pregnant with their second. He worked construction while she was a manicurist.

She said she knew why her husband had been arrested but felt there were important mitigating factors. She said they knew it was possible her husband could be sent back to Ecuador after his criminal case wrapped up but that it was still a shock.

ICE deported more than 270,000 people over a recent 12-month period, the highest annual tally in a decade, the agency said in a recent report. But it also said it made fewer arrests of noncitizens, in part because of the demand of sending staff to the border. Of those arrested, a greater proportion had serious criminal histories.

Some cities and states work with ICE to turn over people in their custody who aren't U.S. citizens.

But many left-leaning states and cities have so-called sanctuary policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In New York City, for example, ICE used to have an office at the jail to easily take custody of noncitizens. In 2014, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation kicking out ICE and restricting police cooperation.

His successor, Eric Adams, has shown willingness to revisit some of those policies. He recently met with Homan and told reporters they agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes.

Genalo said agents spend time and resources picking up immigrants few would argue should have the right to stay in America.

“How can you state that sanctuary policies help the community when you’re releasing all these criminals right back into the community?” he said. “We’re safer when we collaborate.”

Staffing is also an issue. He said he's supposed to have about 325 officers, but in recent years, the number has been about 30% lower.

Many immigration advocates have long-standing concerns about ICE's tactics, and those concerns are deepening with Trump's return to office in January.

Advocates say the incoming administration's position of going after public safety threats is already longtime policy. They object to rhetoric they say paints immigrants as people to be feared. They say there can be nuances in some cases: Maybe someone committed a crime a long time ago and has been rehabilitated, or someone facing a final order of removal moved and never got the notice.

During Trump's first term, there were a lot of “collateral arrests” where immigration officers would detain others besides those being targeted, said Jehan Laner, a senior staff attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. That destabilizes communities, she said, adding, “We saw them go after everyone.”

Genalo said he couldn’t comment on the incoming administration’s plans but stressed that officers are going after specific targets with criminal histories. He said he has a docket of about 58,000 people who either have criminal convictions or pending charges.

“I’m pretty sure we’re going to be tied up for a while dealing with the criminal population," Genalo said.

Associated Press reporter Cedar Attanasio contributed to this report.

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, looks at the apartment of Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Deportation officers with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Deportation officers with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Deportation officers with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office carries the backpack of Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina after arresting him during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Enforcement and Removal Operations deportation officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office conduct a brief before an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, holds an information sheet on Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office conducts a brief before an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, looks at the apartment of Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Deportation officers with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, left, walks to arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina, right, during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Deportation officers with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office arrest Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A chain depicting St. Michael, the patron saint of law enforcement, hangs from the rear view mirror of Kenneth Genalo's, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, car during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office changes the handcuffs of Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina from back to front after arresting him during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Judith Almodovar, deputy director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, listens to a brief before an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, listens to his radio during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Kenneth Genalo, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office puts Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina in the back of a car after arresting him during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office changes the handcuffs of Wilmer Patricio Medina-Medina from back to front after arresting him during an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday announced that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office.

The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.

It means just three federal inmates continue to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.

“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

Reaction to the president's end-of-year act of clemency was strong, particularly among those who were victimized by Roof.

Michael Graham, whose sister Cynthia Hurd was killed by Roof, wants him to die for his crimes and was thankful Biden kept him on death row. He said Roof’s lack of remorse and simmering white nationalism in the U.S. means he is the kind of dangerous and evil person the death penalty is intended for.

“This was a crime against a race of people who were doing something all Americans do on a Wednesday night – go to Bible study,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”

Felicia Sanders, who shielded her granddaughter while watching Roof kill her son Tywanza and her aunt Susie Jackson sent her lawyer, Andy Savage, a text message that called Biden's decision to not spare Roof's life a wonderful Christmas gift.

The Biden administration in 2021 announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used, which suspended executions during Biden's term. But Biden actually had promised to go further on the issue in the past, pledging to end federal executions without the caveats for terrorism and hate-motivated, mass killings.

While running for president in 2020, Biden's campaign website said he would “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.”

Similar language didn't appear on Biden's reelection website before he left the presidential race in July.

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden's statement said. “But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, vice president, and now president, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

He took a political jab at Trump, saying, “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has spoken frequently of expanding executions. In a speech announcing his 2024 campaign, Trump called for those “caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts.” He later promised to execute drug and human smugglers and even praised China's harsher treatment of drug peddlers. During his first term as president, Trump also advocated for the death penalty for drug dealers.

There were 13 federal executions during Trump's first term, more than under any president in modern history, and some may have happened fast enough to have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus at the federal death row facility in Indiana.

Those were the first federal executions since 2003. The final three occurred after Election Day in November 2020 but before Trump left office the following January, the first time federal prisoners were put to death by a lame-duck president since Grover Cleveland in 1889.

Biden faced recent pressure from advocacy groups urging him to act to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The president's announcement also comes less than two weeks after he commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, and of 39 others convicted of nonviolent crimes, the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The announcement also followed the post-election pardon that Biden granted his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges after long saying he would not issue one, sparking an uproar in Washington. The pardon also raised questions about whether he would issue sweeping preemptive pardons for administration officials and other allies who the White House worries could be unjustly targeted by Trump’s second administration.

Speculation that Biden could commute federal death sentences intensified last week after the White House announced he plans to visit Italy on the final foreign trip of his presidency next month. Biden, a practicing Catholic, will meet with Pope Francis, who recently called for prayers for U.S. death row inmates in hopes their sentences will be commuted.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has long called for an end to the death penalty, said Biden's decision is a “significant step in advancing the cause of human dignity in our nation” and moves the country “a step closer to building a culture of life.”

Martin Luther King III, who publicly urged Biden to change the death sentences, said in a statement shared by the White House that the president "has done what no president before him was willing to do: take meaningful and lasting action not just to acknowledge the death penalty’s racist roots but also to remedy its persistent unfairness.”

Madeline Cohen, an attorney for Norris Holder, who faced death for the 1997 fatal shooting of a guard during a bank robbery in St. Louis, said his case “reflects many of the system's flaws” and thanked Biden for converting his sentence to life in prison. Holder, who is Black, was sentenced by an all-white jury.

“Norris’ case exemplifies the racial bias and arbitrariness that led the President to commute federal death sentences,” Cohen said.

Donnie Oliverio, a retired Ohio police officer whose partner was killed by one of the men whose death sentence was converted, said the execution of "the person who killed my police partner and best friend would have brought me no peace."

“The president has done what is right here,” Oliverio said in a statement also issued by the White House, “and what is consistent with the faith he and I share.”

Weissert reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)