ICE finds targeting violent criminals increasingly fraught in backlash over indiscriminate sweeps

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The ICE officers descended on Compton, targeting immigrants convicted of theft, child abuse and selling drugs.There were no protesters.No whistles alerting targets to the officers’ presence.

No face masks.In some cases, residents opened their doors to let the officers inside their homes.

One man thanked them for not arresting him in front of his children.The Los Angeles area operation ended with 162 arrests, including a Mexican national convicted of rape and a Salvadoran national convicted of voluntary manslaughter.Immigration and Customs Enforcement said almost 90% of the people arrested had criminal convictions.It was June 2018, more than a year into Donald Trump’s first term as president.

Seven years later, carrying out the same operation in L.A.or other U.S.

cities feels almost impossible without drawing angry crowds and requiring multiple officers, at times across federal agencies, to detain a single target.In the years since Trump’s first term, ICE and the government’s immigration enforcement apparatus expanded raids well beyond those against known criminals or suspected ones.Increasingly, immigrants with no criminal records and even legal residents and U.S.

citizens found themselves stopped and sometimes arrested.The uncertainty over who is being targeted has fueled a growing pattern of community protests and rapid response mobilizations, even when officials say they are targeting convicted felons, reflecting a widening gap between how enforcement is described and how it is experienced.That gap has become most visible on the ground.In recent months, sightings of ICE or other federal agents have drawn crowds of protesters, legal observers and community organizers.

In many cases, residents say they can’t distinguish between targeted enforcement actions — against child molesters, human smugglers and other serious criminals — and broader sweeps, responding i...