US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers dramatically increased daily arrests of immigrants in cities across the US beginning on Sunday under orders from the Trump White House.

In a meeting on Saturday, Trump administration officials demanded quotas for ICE arrests be raised from a few hundred to between 1,200 and 1,500 people per day. A report in the Washington Post said the increase was demanded “because the president has been disappointed with the results of his mass deportation campaign so far, according to four people with knowledge of the briefings.”

The Post report also said, “The quotas were outlined Saturday in a call with senior ICE officials, who were told that each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets.”

Prior to the new quotas, the daily number of immigrants being arrested by the Biden administration was 311 people on average.

ICE reported 956 people had been arrested on Sunday by multiple federal police agencies in cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Miami, Atlanta and major cities in northern Texas.

While the president and his fascist border czar Tom Homan are claiming that the raids are “enhanced targeted operations” aimed at “keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities,” it is clear the arrests are being carried out indiscriminately and the up to five-fold increase will intensify this fact.

In an example of the blatantly racist tactics being utilized by immigration authorities—which exposes the fundamentally undemocratic character of the entire operation—Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley reported that at least 15 Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico have reported being stopped and asked to produce proof of citizenship. Some of these US citizens in tribal communities have also been detained.

A press release issued by the Office of Navajo President Buu Nygren on Friday said, “My office has received multiple reports from Navajo citizens that they have had negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants in the Southwest.”

Other reports have shown that the raids are above all aimed at intimidating and terrorizing immigrant families and communities as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to scapegoat immigrants for the crisis of American and world capitalism.

In the Chicago area, ABC Eyewitness News said a woman reported that her father, who had been in the US for 30 years, was arrested at his home in Waukegan. Yelitza Marquina explained that the seizure of her father happened under apparently false pretenses. “They (family members) opened the door because they thought maybe one of us was in trouble or something happened to us. Never did they think it was ICE.”

In another example of the despicable role of media personalities in the ICE offensive, “Dr. Phil” McGraw has been permitted to “embed” with ICE officers during raids in Chicago. The purpose of the ride-along by the former psychologist, who rose to television fame alongside Oprah Winfrey, is to bolster the Trump administration’s claims that only “known criminals and terrorists” are being targeted by ICE.

In Miami, CBS News interviewed an unidentified man who said ICE had taken his wife during a raid in the neighborhood of Brownsville. The man said his wife of 11 years was from Venezuela and had a court date scheduled to complete a three-year process of getting her US citizenship. He said, “everything was good” until ICE showed up. “They just came, and they snatched her,” he said.

In Los Angeles, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials mobilized their forces to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in carrying out the crackdown in the fire ravaged city. Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of the DEA’s LA field division, posted photos on social media showing DEA agents, who were masked, armed and dressed in paramilitary fatigues, deployed in a residential area.

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In Texas, ICE representatives confirmed to the Texas Newsroom that raids were underway across the northern cities of Dallas, Irving, Arlington, Fort Worth, Garland and Collin County. The statement said that 84 people had been arrested in North Texas and the state of Oklahoma, and they were taken to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations field office in Dallas for processing.

Targeted operations were also carried out in Austin and the Rio Grande Valley. In Austin, ICE was supported by DEA agents from Houston. However, details on the number of arrests or where they were carried out have not been reported.

On Sunday afternoon, protesters gathered at the Texas State Capitol in response to the raids in Austin. One protester told KXAN, “They are the epitome of the American Dream. They’ve come here and worked hard. They have a right to be here just like anyone else who has fled a country that doesn’t provide the needs of the citizens.”

A demonstration against the ICE raids was also held in Omaha, Nebraska, near 24th and L streets in the south of the city, as reported by KETV 7 ABC.

It is not clear what kind of process those who have been arrested will face. It is being widely reported that anyone who is merely undocumented—a civil, not criminal, infraction—and picked up in the raids will be deported, along with those authorities claim who have committed crimes in the US.

Also, US military aircraft are being used to fly groups of immigrants back to their home countries. CNN reported from Guatemala City on Monday about two flights by US military planes that had landed with migrants who had been deported.

Numerous Democrats have been interviewed on CNN about the vicious attacks on immigrant workers and their families. Not one has disputed the assertions of the fascist Trump and his cabinet officials that the US has been invaded by “drug dealers, criminals and rapists.”

Far from it, the Democrats argue that Trump has a “moral obligation” to protect those who are innocent, while also consistently supporting the pretext that “criminals” must be arrested and deported. This amounts to an endorsement of an unprecedented assault on the basic rights of the most vulnerable sections of the working class.