Stephen Miller explicitly ordered ICE to target Home Depot parking lots to arrest undocumented day laborers, a report alleges.
The White House deputy chief of staff gave the order in late May, gloating in a meeting that he could leave ICE’s D.C. headquarters and arrest 30 people outside the nearest Home Depot, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
Miller, 39, is also said to have reminded top immigration officials they are not just targeting the “worst of the worst” criminals, but anybody who is in the country illegally—even if that is their only alleged wrongdoing.
“Just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” he said, according to the Journal.
ICE officials appear to have heeded the White House’s call.
The Journal reported that ICE conducted an immigration sweep at a Home Depot on Friday in a predominantly Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles. The raid was among those that spurred widespread anti-ICE demonstrations and occasional riots in the city, which escalated after President Donald Trump activated the National Guard and deployed Marines against the wishes of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Day laborers are known to use Home Depot parking lots to find work at locations across the country, often waving down contractors or homeowners as they exit the home improvement store. Home Depot has acknowledged the practice, but does not explicitly allow it. Some stores feature signage to make clear that soliciting work is illegal in their parking lots.
MAGA influencers have seized on this practice by migrants and are now encouraging ICE to continue targeting Home Depot parking lots.
“I’d like to report the front entrance of @HomeDepot at 5 am,” said Laura Loomer on Wednesday, responding to a promotion for the Department of Homeland Security’s tip line to report undocumented immigrants. “Location: Every Home Depot in the U.S.”
Recent Home Depot raids have occurred at a minimum of seven locations in California, according to the Journal, The Guardian, and NBC Los Angeles. This appears to have workers skiddish about finding work in their go-to spot.
Martha Arévalo, the executive director of the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, told the Journal that Home Depot parking lots in Southern California, once filled with hundreds of willing workers, have dwindled down to a “handful.”
Home Depot spokeswoman Beth Marlowe told the Daily Beast that the Atlanta-based corporation is not working in conjunction with ICE and that it does not receive any advance notice of raids at or near its locations.
“We tell associates to report [raids] immediately and not to engage with the activity for their safety,” she said. “If associates feel uncomfortable after witnessing ICE activity, we offer them the option to go home for the rest of the day, with pay.”
ICE did not respond to emails from the Daily Beast.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Beast in a statement, “If you are present in the United States illegally, you will be deported. This is the promise President Trump made to the American people, and the administration is committed to keeping it.”
Miller has reportedly orchestrated the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. In the same meeting he reportedly ordered ICE to target Home Depot locations, he also allegedly threatened to terminate officials if their arrest numbers did not rise significantly.
Miller told ICE it needed an arrest total at or near 3,000 migrants per day. A plan, dubbed “Operation At Large,” was implemented shortly after. It saw thousands of federal law enforcement officers and special forces, who don’t typically assist with immigration, being activated to help ICE round up migrants accused of being in the country illegally.
This supercharging of arrests resulted in several notable mishaps. That included ICE briefly detaining a U.S. Marshal in Arizona by mistake last week.
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