ICE to Target 'Worst of the Worst,' Others at Risk Too

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will continue to focus on arresting "the worst of the worst" aliens, though any migrant in the country illegally could be apprehended in the process, according to the agency's acting director.

During a Sunday appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation," Acting Director Todd Lyons said ICE will prioritize its "limited resources" on arresting and deporting migrants with criminal histories.

"ICE is always focused on the worst of the worst," Lyons told CBS News' Camilo Montoya-Galvez. "One difference you'll see now is under this [Trump] administration, we have opened up the whole aperture of the immigration portfolio, meaning that if you're here illegally and ICE goes out and arrests someone that is released from a sanctuary jurisdiction or wanted in their home country, and an ICE officer finds other individuals with them who are in the country illegally, we're going to take them as well.

"We are still focused on the worst of the worst."

Asked whether some illegal migrants therefore could be considered "collateral arrests," Lyons replied: "Correct."

Lyons said sanctuary cities are forcing ICE to enter their communities rather than assisting in the effort and preventing federal agents from needing to disrupt neighborhoods.

"What's, again, frustrating for me is the fact that we would love to focus on these criminal aliens that are inside a jail facility," Lyons told Montoya-Galvez. "A local law enforcement agency, state agency already deemed that person a public safety threat and arrested them and they're in detention.

"I'd much rather focus all of our limited resources on that to take them into custody, but we do have to go out into the community and make those arrests, and that's where you are seeing those increase of if we encounter someone say, that is here in the country illegally, we will take them into custody."

Lyons said that more than half the individuals ICE presently has in custody have either a conviction or pending criminal charges.

"One thing, though, that I'd like to highlight is the fact that foreign criminal records aren't in U.S. data systems," he said. "So when we do go out and say, arrest someone that has an Interpol Red Notice because they're wanted in their home country, they're still a criminal, but under the American judicial state, they don't have an American criminal history, but that doesn't mean they don't have a criminal history in their home country."

According to the acting director, "it's possible" for ICE to meet the administration's target of 1 million deportations in a year following the infusion of new funding approved by Congress.

Lyons also said that although he's "not a proponent" of ICE officers wearing masks to hide their identity during operations, he will allow it "to keep themselves and their family safe."

Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., have proposed legislation banning federal immigration agents from wearing face coverings and requiring they display information identifying themselves as federal enforcement officials.

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