The director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Todd Lyons, stated this Sunday that he plans to go after companies that employ undocumented migrants because “they exploit these workers (…) who came here in search of a better life.”
“We’re not just focusing on those people who, as you know, are working here illegally, but we’re also focusing on those American companies that are actually exploiting these workers, these people who came here in search of a better life,” Lyons stated in an interview with CBS. The ICE official stated that such hiring is not a “victimless crime,” but that investigations into it often reveal cases of forced labor or child trafficking.
His statements came just a week after authorities detained more than 300 immigrants allegedly in the country illegally, including ten minors at cannabis farms in Southern California—where such plantations are legal.
Lyons emphasized that his service “always focuses on the worst of the worst,” although he also boasted that “under this Administration, we have opened the full range of the immigration portfolio.” In this regard, the leader asserted that “it is possible” to achieve the government’s goal of reaching one million deportations by 2025, despite internal Washington data obtained by CBS indicating that fewer than 150,000 have occurred so far.
If ICE finds someone “who is in the country illegally, we will detain them,” Lyons asserted, also criticizing states and cities with “sanctuary” policies that limit cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement. According to him, this forces immigration agents to enter communities by not turning over detained non-nationals.
“What frustrates me, once again, is the fact that we would love to focus on these criminal aliens who are inside a correctional facility,” he noted, arguing that “a local law enforcement agency, a state agency, already deemed that person a threat to public safety and arrested them.”
Lyons linked this phenomenon to what he called “collateral” arrests, which occur because, due to the lack of cooperation from states and “sanctuary” cities, “we have to go out into the community and make those arrests,” he argued.
