Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

World Press Freedom Day, 2024

How Trump convinces Republicans to adopt extreme views

Campuses are grappling with the Gaza war. So are our columnists.

Miss Manners: Offering my bedroom to guests

Ask Amy: My wife’s sister confessed her feelings for me

Carolyn Hax: Will request for a postnup offend much younger wife?

The 6 best things to do with kids in the D.C. area this weekend 

The 33 best things to do in D.C. this weekend and next week

Trevor Williams’s escape act helps Nationals blank Rangers 

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

I learned to heal my sadness by cradling dying chickens 

NASA moon capsule suffered extensive damage during 2022 test flight

Russian state media ramping up English, Spanish presence on TikTok, study finds

Apple is behind in AI and killed its self-driving car project. What’s next?

Chinese EVs are good for the world. Biden says they’re bad for America. 

Why the Solomon Islands election matters to China and the U.S.

Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ like China, Russia, at campaign event

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

Eighty percent of Ukraine-Israel bill will be spent in U.S. or by U.S. military

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Local sports networks go dark mid-game amid dispute with Comcast 

This masterpiece ‘Birth of Venus’ probably isn’t of Venus at all

The beginner’s illustrated guide to watching an F1 race

US President Joe Biden Departure

REF:Luis Velarde

President Trump has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major U.S. cities on Sunday, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

The “family op,” as it is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families in as many as 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the law enforcement operation.

[Trump vows mass immigration arrests, removals of ‘millions of illegal aliens’]

Acting DHS secretary Kevin McAleenan has been urging ICE, an agency within his department, to conduct a narrower, more targeted operation that would seek to detain a group of about 150 families that were provided with attorneys but dropped out of the legal process and absconded.

McAleenan has warned that an indiscriminate operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents in cases where the children are at day care, summer camp or friend’s houses. He also has maintained that ICE should not devote major resources to carrying out a mass interior sweep while telling lawmakers it needs emergency funding to address the crisis at the U.S. border.

John Moore

Trump has been determined to go forward with the family operation <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/trump-vows-mass-immigration-arrests-removals-of-millions-of-illegal-aliens-starting-next-week/2019/06/17/4e366f5e-916d-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a_story.html?utm_term=.cc520f5b1d79" title="www.washingtonpost.com">after tweeting Monday</a> that the immigration raids were coming next week as a first step toward his pledge for “millions” of deportations. The White House has been in direct communication with acting ICE director Mark Morgan and other ICE officials, circumventing McAleenan, three officials said.

ICE spokeswoman
 Carol Danko declined to discuss the operation, saying only that “as a law enforcement agency, ICE’s mission is to uphold the rule of law; operations targeting violators of immigration laws are not only standard practice, but within the statutory authority prescribed by Congress.”

DHS and White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.

[With White House threatening mass raids, undocumented immigrants try to stay out of sight]

ICE has been preparing agents and equipment for the operation, which is expected to unfold across several days starting Sunday morning, the officials said. Discussions about the scope of the operation continued Friday at ICE, DHS and the White House, two officials said.

The agency is planning to use hotel rooms as temporary staging areas to detain parents and children until all the members of a family are together and ready for deportation. Officials also acknowledge that they might arrest individuals they cannot immediately deport — known as “collateral arrests” — and likely will release those people with ankle monitoring devices.

As news of the looming raids reached the Democratic-run cities on the ICE list, some local and state officials blasted the Trump administration and said they would not provide police support.

The Los Angeles Police Department released a statement Friday saying LAPD is aware of upcoming ICE actions “beginning this Sunday,” that would be directed toward individuals who have been issued final deportation orders, and LAPD Chief Michel Moore <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sweeps-southern-california-20190621-story.html" title="www.latimes.com">told reporters Friday</a> that ICE has 140 targets in the area.

“The Department is not participating or assisting in any of these enforcement actions,” the LAPD statement said. “The Department has reached out to various community stakeholders regarding the reported ICE enforcement actions, reiterating that members of this Department will not be participating. We are committed to protecting the public through meaningful relationship building and community partnerships.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James assailed Trump’s plan for mass deportation raids, saying that the president’s “use of migrant families and asylum seekers as political punching bags is a despicable act of racism and xenophobia that is antithetical to our basic human values.”

“This is an immoral and unconscionable act by a president and an administration hellbent on dividing our country, and, as New York’s top law enforcement officer, I can assure New Yorkers we will do everything in our power to fight back against these inhumane policies,” James said in a statement.

Morgan, deputy ICE director Matt Albence and others are eager to begin the operation despite the risk of public backlash against the agency after calls to “Abolish ICE” intensified in the wake of the administration’s failed “zero tolerance” crackdown last year that separated more than 2,700 children from their parents.

ICE agents have limited intelligence on the locations of the families with court-ordered deportations beyond their last known addresses. But White House and ICE officials believe agents will be able to make many “collateral arrests” by finding foreigners living in the country illegally at or near the target locations.

Large-scale immigration enforcement operations are typically kept secret to avoid tipping off targets, but Trump’s tweet Monday blew the cover off the roundup. That the operation was revealed publicly stunned law enforcement officials, and they believe it gave them more latitude to discuss the raids.

[Trump, questioned on child separation policy, insists, ‘I brought the families together’]

Some within DHS and ICE say the president appears to be using the operation for political purposes as he begins his reelection bid. Law enforcement officials worry that by publicly discussing the plan, Trump has undermined the chances of capturing those on the target list, as it could have
 pushed migrants with deportation orders underground.

But others say the president’s advance warning was welcome because of the public distrust generated by the “zero tolerance” move.

“ ‘Zero tolerance’ was not telegraphed and didn’t come out very well, so now the idea is to make sure everyone knows what’s coming,” said one senior administration official. “The thinking is ‘Let’s do this a different way, by explaining that these are people with final removal orders who have refused to go.’ ”

Morgan and others at ICE insist the operation is crucial to uphold the integrity of the U.S. immigration system. There are nearly 1 million immigrants living in the United States who have been issued deportation orders, they say, and ICE is averaging about 7,000 deportations from the U.S. interior each month.

According to DHS statistics, fewer than two percent of the families who arrived from Central America in 2017 have been deported.

“In February, we sent letters to these individuals telling them they had an order of removal,” Morgan told reporters this week. “We’re at the point right now where we have no other choice but to use our interior enforcement statutory authority to identify where these individuals are and remove them.”

Families cannot be exempted, he said: “The law must be applied fairly and equally. We’re going to do that with compassion and dignity, but we’re going to enforce the law.”

[Before Trump’s purge at DHS, top officials challenged plan for mass family arrests]

The expedited family court docket, or “rocket docket,” was developed by Trump officials late last year in an effort to deport more migrant families with the belief that a highly visible roundup operation could have a deterrent effect on others in Central America considering the journey.

The Department of Justice fast-tracked the cases of thousands of families in major cities, obtaining “in absentia” deportation orders for people who did not show up for their court hearings.

The plan to carry out those deportations has been stalled, however, over concerns that it will enrage Democrats and sink whatever chances remain for achieving a bipartisan deal to close the gap in the dysfunctional U.S. asylum system.

Trump ousted ICE acting director Ronald Vitiello and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in April <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/before-trumps-purge-at-dhs-top-officials-challenged-plan-for-mass-family-arrests/2019/05/13/d7cb91ce-75af-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html?utm_term=.ae809f5e3447" title="www.washingtonpost.com">when they challenged the “family op” plan</a>, urging more deliberation.

Nielsen was replaced by Mc­Aleenan, who has made significant inroads with leading Democrats, including Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), toward the request for $4.6 billion in supplemental aid to address the humanitarian crisis at the border. Most of that funding would go toward care for unaccompanied children who arrive at the U.S. border without a parent.

Democratic senators indicated a willingness to work with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on proposals to fix the asylum process. On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 30 to 1 to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/senate-committee-overwhelmingly-approves-46-billion-in-emergency-border-spending/2019/06/19/552af800-92a5-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803_story.html?utm_term=.6ef9c547bf5d" title="www.washingtonpost.com">approve </a>the supplemental funding in a rare example of bipartisan cooperation on immigration. The White House has been warned that a large-scale “family op” along the lines the president wants could scuttle the deal.

[Senate panel overwhelmingly approves emergency border funding]

McAleenan has said that the crisis at the border — where more than 144,000 were taken into custody last month — remains the most urgent problem for DHS. Following Trump’s threats to slap tariffs on Mexico, McAleenan led negotiations with Mexican officials that resulted in commitments to dramatically toughen enforcement and begin work on a regional asylum overhaul that would allow the United States to send asylum seekers back to Central America.

Officials say McAleenan does not oppose ICE interior enforcement against families with deportation orders, but he wants a more limited approach that averts a repeat of “zero tolerance.”

Morgan this week urged families with deportation orders to turn themselves in to ICE, and he said that operations targeting those who defy court orders would reinforce the administration’s broader deterrent efforts.

“The message has gotten out that if you bring a kid, nothing will ever happen to you,” Morgan said. “We need to make sure we’re sending the message that that will not be tolerated any more.”

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Maria Moors Cabot Prize, 2017

Overseas Press Club award, 2015

Overseas Press Club citation, 2012

Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award, 2008

University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, MJ, 2006

University of California at Santa Cruz, BA, 2000

Nick Miroff covers the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post, with a focus on immigration enforcement and the southern border. He was a Post foreign correspondent in Latin America from 2010 to 2017, and has been a staff writer since 2006.