Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have not been directed to meet a daily quota for arrests or deportations, according to a court filing by a Trump administration attorney.
In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Department of Justice attorney Yaakov Roth on Friday filed a letter in which he said that "neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that ICE or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law."
Roth said the allegation ICE has been mandated to compile 3,000 arrests per day "appears to originate from media reports quoting a White House adviser."
"That quotation may have been accurate, but no such goal has been set as a matter of policy, and no such directive has been issued to or by DHS or ICE," Roth wrote in his letter to the court.
Axios reported in late May that ICE goals of 3,000 arrests per day were laid out by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a "tense" May 21 meeting.
Roth's filing came four days after three Democrat-appointed federal appeals court judges demanded an explanation as to whether the Trump administration has an official policy that requires the daily arrests of 3,000 migrants.
The DOJ is requesting that a stay be issued regarding a Los Angeles federal judge's earlier ruling that ICE activities were illegally conducted without reasonable suspicion.
U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong earlier this month issued a temporary order preventing ICE agents and all others from using "apparent race or ethnicity" to determine potential enforcement actions.
Roth on July 28 argued that Frimpong was incorrect in her findings, and insisted the ICE patrols were perfectly legal, carefully targeted, and conducted with probable cause to make arrests, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.
The members of the three-judge appeals panel said they were concerned about the "large number" of arrests.
Judge Ronald Gould ordered Roth to determine the origin of the daily arrest figure and file the results with the court.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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