WASHINGTON, United States (CMC) — United States President Donald Trump is deploying elite tactical agents from the country’s southern border to heighten aid in targeting undocumented Caribbean and other immigrants in so-called “sanctuary cities” such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Sanctuary cities limit cooperation with the administration’s heightened effort to enforce immigration law. 

The mayors in these cities say they want to reduce fear of deportation and possible family break-up among immigrants who are in the US illegally, so that such immigrants will be more willing to report crimes, use health and social services, and enrol their children in school. 

Lawrence Payne, a spokesman for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, said on Friday that CBP will be aiding the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency “in order to enhance the integrity of the immigration system, protect public safety and strengthen our national security”.

Payne disclosed that 100 CBP agents will collaborate with ICE in enhancing immigration enforcement activities in New York and Chicago.

He said more CBP agents will be deployed soon in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, New Orleans, Detroit and Newark, New Jersey.

“As we have noted for years, in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens (immigrants) from jails, our officers are forced to make at-large arrests of criminal aliens (immigrants) who have been released into communities,” said Matthew T Albence, ICE’s acting director, in a statement. 

“When sanctuary cities release these criminals back to the street, it increases the occurrence of preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims,” he added.

In recent weeks, ICE said it has issued immigration subpoenas to authorities in Connecticut, New York City and Denver, Colorado, after announcing it will exercise its “longstanding legal authority to request critical information required to enforce federal immigration law from jurisdictions that adamantly refuse to cooperate”.