Trump Orders ICE to Expand Deportations in Largest US Cities (2)

President Donald Trump directed federal officials to expand efforts to deport migrants in the largest US cities in the face of protests and court challenges, even as his administration is looking to ease the impact of the crackdown on key sectors of the American workforce.

“ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” Trump said in a post to social media on Sunday.

“In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside,” he added.

Trump’s move to ramp up immigration enforcement in big Democratically-led cities comes a week after he acknowledged his deportation agenda’s impact on the US workforce and said he would craft policy changes to cover farm and hotel industry workers. The president’s focus on large cities drew a quick response from California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is already embroiled in a court battle over Trump’s deployment of military troops to Los Angeles.

“His plan is clear: Incite violence and chaos in blue states, have an excuse to militarize our cities, demonize his opponents, keep breaking the law and consolidate power,” Newsom said in a tweet Monday. “It’s illegal and we will not let it stand.”

Read more: Trump Vows to Shield Farmers From Deportations as Workforce Hit

A man says goodbye to a woman as federal agents detain him following an immigration court hearing at Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York on June 10.

Photographer: Adam Gray/Getty Images

Trump reiterated his plan Monday as he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at a Group of Seven leaders summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.

“I want them to focus on the cities, because the cities are where you really have what’s called sanctuary cities,” Trump said. “Most of those people are in the cities, all blue cities, all Democrat-run cities, and they think they’re going to use them to vote. It’s not going to happen.”

Trump campaigned on carrying out the largest deportation in US history and has moved swiftly to deliver on the agenda with a sweeping series of orders and stepped-up raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Earlier this month, ICE said it was arresting 2,000 undocumented people a day, a big jump from the numbers that were typical under former President Joe Biden.

Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and an architect of the administration’s hardline policies, told ICE officials in a tense meeting last month that arrests should average a minimum of 3,000 a day. Data earlier this month showed the US workforce shrank in May, partly because of the largest back-to-back decline in the number of foreign workers in the labor force since 2020.

Trump’s call to focus on cities follows days of unrest in Los Angeles over the mass-deportation effort.

The protests in LA, sparked by increasingly aggressive ICE raids, escalated following Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to help quell violence in the city over the objections of Newsom and the city’s mayor. Trump also deployed as many as 700 active-duty Marines, who have been given orders to protect federal property and officers.

Newsom has sued the administration arguing that the National Guard deployment exceeded Trump’s authority. While a lower court issued an order that would limit the use of National Guard troops to respond to the protests, a federal appeals court panel is reviewing that decision.

Over the weekend, protesters rallied in hundreds of US cities to denounce what they said were Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, including the increased deportations and tactics used to carry them out.

Read more: ‘No Kings’ Rallies Draw Massive Crowds in US as Clashes Hit LA

(Updates with Gavin Newsom tweet in fourth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Justin Sink at jsink1@bloomberg.net

Meghashyam Mali, Brendan Case

© 2025 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission.