Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says filming ICE raids is an "accountability measure"
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps have gotten underway at the start of the Trump administration, multiple raids in cities across the U.S. have been filmed and highly publicized. Newly confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the purpose of recording the raids is to create an "accountability measure."
"It's not a spectacle," she told CBS News. "This is our nation's law enforcement — judicial process. The scales of justice are equally applied to everybody. We want transparency on this. I believe that this is an accountability measure."
Inside the ICE field office in Manhattan on Tuesday, the agency's ranks were enlarged by other agencies, including Noem, now ordered by the Trump administration. The plan was to carry out multiple predawn raids targeting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, with charges ranging from murder to theft to kidnapping. The short-term goal is 500 arrests over a weeklong operation in New York.
One of the targets of Tuesday's raids was a Venezuelan national and suspected gang member wanted out of Colorado on multiple felony warrants for kidnapping, burglary and a gun crime, according to authorities.
Around 5:30 a.m., heavily armed agents raided an apartment building in the Bronx and found the suspect and three other male associates. They were all handcuffed without incident. Three children were also found in the apartment, but their immigration status was not immediately known. Authorities will now check to see if they have a caregiver or if Child Protective Services needs to be brought in.
The next stop was a residence less than two miles away. After some negotiation, the officers made their way inside, but came up empty because their targets weren't home.
Federal law enforcement is working with limited help from the New York City Police Department because of the city's laws protecting undocumented immigrants. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, however, has been cooperative with ICE and DHS.
"I talked to him on the phone probably four or five times last night, and how one of these individuals was so dangerous, and that we needed the backup of the NYPD to be there in case things went south," Noem said.
Tuesday's Bronx operation required around three dozen law enforcement agents that yielded a handful of arrests. Noem said it's a ratio she's comfortable with.
"I won't doubt what they need for support and backup," she said.
Vice President JD Vance has suggested deporting one million undocumented migrants annually, a little under four times the number deported by the Biden administration last fiscal year. But it's not clear DHS will have the manpower to carry that out.
"We're working on it," Noem said.
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