Thousands of ICE officers have been dispatched to the San Diego border crossing as they prepare to take ‘100,000 immigrants’ back to Mexico and Central America in one of the biggest migrant raids in recent times.
Marines have already descended on the area in an attempt to secure the crossing as President Trump ramped up his promise of cracking down on illegal immigration.
Around 1,500 active duty troops were deployed to the nearly 2,000-mile border this week, including 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton in California.
DailyMail.com can now reveal that they have been joined with what has been described as a ‘mile long line of DHS trucks and CBP’.
A White House intelligence source said: ‘There is a ‘mile long line of DHS trucks and CBP in front of Camp Pendleton right now, ready to do the biggest illegal immigrant grab in recent history.
‘The West Coast is this week and the East Coast is next week. It is about to get crazy in California. They need to fill 100,000 spots’, meaning arrests is the directive.
The source continued: ‘They are going to be taking 100,000 immigrants back to Mexico, Columbia, El Salvador and Guatemala in this grab.’
Marines have already descended on the area in an attempt to secure the crossing as President Trump ramped up his promise of cracking down on illegal immigration. An aerial shot of Camp Pendleton is seen here
U.S. Marines with the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, deploy concertina wire as they re-enforce the border wall, January 25, 2025
Migrants deplane a U.S. military aircraft after it landed in Guatemala on January 24, 2025
The Pentagon expects additional troops to be ordered to deploy in the next few days as defense and homeland security leaders iron out requests for more support.
It was also announced on Tuesday that the military would allow ICE to use Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado to detain migrants.
The U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement it started providing facilities at Buckley to ICE starting on Monday.
Buckley Space Force Base is located in the city of Aurora, a Denver suburb, which figured prominently during Trump’s presidential campaign last year.
Trump said that apartment complexes in Aurora had been taken over by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which was refuted by city officials.
During a campaign event there in October, Trump pledged to launch an Operation Aurora targeting gang members
Immigration arrests have reached about 1,000-1,200 per day in recent days, according to ICE, far above the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024.
ICE officers have already begun storming properties across the country in sanctuary cities like New York.
Sanctuary cities including the Big Apple have become a haven for migrants who flock to them in the knowledge that officials there limit cooperation with federal immigration agents.
Trump, who ran on a mass deportation platform , has made immigration his first order of business since assuming office
Immigration arrests have reached about 1,000-1,200 per day in recent days, according to ICE, far above the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024
The president has since said he ‘might have to consider’ pulling funding to sanctuary cities, which include the likes of Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Trump, who ran on a mass deportation platform, has made immigration his first order of business since assuming office.
ICE agents have arrested more than 3,500 people since the inauguration last Monday, Axios reports.
On Friday, a senior official in the Trump administration revealed exclusive deportation and detainment data with DailyMail.com, including chilling details of dangerous criminals that were previously walking the streets freely.
Among the worst of the worst to be picked up by ICE on Friday included Cesar Augusto Polanco, 59, a Dominican Republican national who was living free in Boston despite a criminal conviction for second-degree murder.
Almost 5,000 Homeland Security and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers have been deployed by the Trump administration to carry out raids.
The raids have sparked fear in migrant communities, especially since Trump signed an executive order which will now permit raids in the likes of schools and churches.
Many migrants are said to be in hiding, turning usually crowded factories, warehouses and grocery stores into ghost towns.
Frightened undocumented migrants began hunkering down after Trump took office for the second time last week, with dozens failing to turn up to work.
ICE agents are seen conducting arrests in San Diego, California
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conduct an arrest as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging immigration crackdown in Chicago, Illinois
Trump ordered each of ICE’s field offices to make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets.
ICE insiders told the Washington Post they are concerned that the quotas make it more likely that agents will ‘engage in more indiscriminate enforcement tactics or face accusations of civil rights violations.’
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reportedly told the outlet, ‘your story is false,’ but did not elaborate.
The operations are being overseen by Trump’s hardline border Czar Tom Homan.
He justified relaxing rules governing enforcement actions at ‘sensitive’ locations such as schools, churches and workplaces, saying it sends a clear message to illegal immigrants.
‘There are consequences of entering the country illegally. If we don’t show there are consequences, you’re never going to fix the border problem,’ Homan, who was on the ground in Chicago this weekend to oversee the bolstered ICE plans, told ABC News.
However, the move was criticized by Catholic Charities USA which called for ‘dignity’ in dealing with the border crisis.
‘We recognize the need for just immigration enforcement and affirm the government’s obligation to carry it out in a targeted, proportional, and humane way,’ the organization wrote.
‘However, non-emergency immigration enforcement in schools, places of worship, social service agencies, healthcare facilities, or other sensitive settings where people receive essential services would be contrary to the common good.
‘All people have a right to fulfill their duty to God without fear.’
