The Donald Trump administration has intensified its crackdown on illegal immigrants in the United States. In this vein, the Department of Homeland Security agents visited Gurudwaras in New York and New Jersey on Sunday (26th January) to check for illegal immigrants.
Reports say that the Homeland Security Department officials visited the Gurudwaras in New York and New Jersey after allegations emerged that these places of worship were being used by anti-India Khalistani separatists and undocumented immigrants. Not to forget how back in November 2023, Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu was heckled by pro-Khalistani elements at the Hicksville Gurudwara in Long Island, New York.
Meanwhile, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF) raised concern over the DHS agents visiting Gurudwaras to check for illegal immigrants.
“These places are not just places of worship; they are vital community centres that provide support, nourishment, and spiritual solace to Sikhs and the broader community. We are deeply alarmed by this decision to eliminate protections for sensitive areas and then target them.”
Within hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States on 20th January 2025, the acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive rescinding the Biden administration’s guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enforcement actions that impede law enforcement “sensitive” areas such as churches and Gurudwaras.
Similar raids have also been reported to be conducted by DHS agents in churches to identify and arrest illegal immigrants. Besides, Colombian illegal immigrants are also being deported by the US government. On Sunday, high-voltage drama unfolded between the US and the Colombian government over two US military aircraft carrying illegal Colombian immigrants. The Colombian government refused to accept its citizens, however, after President Trump threatened to tariffs and sanctions, Colombia took an embarrassing U-turn and accepted its deported citizens.
The US government has initiated measures to send back illegal immigrants to their native countries right after Donald Trump assumed office on 20th January. Even during his election campaign, Donald Trump had strongly advocated for deporting illegal immigrants and ensuring that only legal immigrants make their way into America.
In September 2024, Trump said that Donald Trump raised alarms about how the Presidency of Kamala Harris would negatively impact the United States and worsen the migrant crisis. “She fought me for years on the wall. I built hundreds of miles of wall. But she was one of the people that fought me…We’ll have 100 million people in this country within four years if she gets selected. They come from prisons and jails. There’s a slight difference. And they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. And they come also as terrorists at a level that we’ve never seen before. And they’re pouring into the country. We have millions of people coming in. But hundreds of thousands of those people are criminals from Venezuela… They come from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and from South America. And they’re destroying our country.”
Meanwhile, the US Justice Department said it had begun making arrests in Chicago as part of a multi-agency enforcement operation, the New York Times reported. US Vice President JD Vance has also endorsed immigration raids on schools, and said that he hoped they would have a “chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming to our country.”
Vance said immigration raids in religious buildings and schools should not be ruled out. “If you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they are an illegal immigrant or not, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety,” he said and added, “That’s not unique to immigration.”
Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan has said that immigration officials will need at least 1,00,000 beds to support Trump’s sweeping deportation efforts. He called on the US Congress to “come to the table quick and give us the money we need.”
On being asked whether immigration enforcement agents would search for people in churches or schools, Homan replied that ICE would act on a “case-by-case basis.” But he seemed to suggest that high-school-aged children could be affiliated with gangs and represented legitimate targets.
Homan said that deportations would “steadily increase” as the administration moved to “open up the aperture” to target anyone in the country illegally not just those with a criminal record.
Regarding deportation funding, Tom Homan said he would “leave it up to Congress,” The Hill reported. Homan was speaking about the Trump administration’s broad immigration plan, including specifics about how they plan to fund the costly mass deportation idea.
“The Congress, I think the president has a mandate. This is the number one issue that people voted on,” Homan said. “And I think Congress has a mandate to give us money.”
The US official said there needs to be ‘pressure’ on national security. Referring to the death of Georgia student Laken Riley, who was allegedly killed by a migrant, he said the incident has become the face of the Republicans’ immigration plan.
In another major development last week, US officials also shut down an app that allowed asylum-seekers to schedule appointments for admission at a port of entry.
Homan apparently dismissed the app, which had been set up by the Biden administration, as an ‘illegitimate method’ for migrants to use. “Go to the embassy, go to the port of entry, do it the legal way,” Homan said as quoted by the New York Times. “You shouldn’t come to this country and ask to get asylum, and the first thing you do is break our laws by entering illegally.”
