Under the administration of President Donald Trump, officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have greatly increased their arrest of non-criminal immigrants.

According to the ICE data, the focus of ICE officials in New England appears to be more on the immigrants with no criminal record.

ICE arrests of the non-criminal immigrants living in New England without the authorization have more than tripled so far in this year.

Looking at the trend of arrests made by the ICE since the month of January, it is clear that the non-criminal immigrants are being arrested at a high rate. When seen in the nationwide, the number of arrests has been more than doubled as compared to the same time during the last year.

In the "Boston Area of Responsibility", which includes whole of New England, the ICE officials have arrested more than thrice as many non-criminal immigrants as of the end of April, 335, up from 104 of the last year.

Sherman-Stokes, a clinical instructor at the Boston University's Immigrants Rights and Human Trafficking Program said that an increase in the ICE arrests this year is unsurprising given by the Trump's executive orders. The order has broadened the enforcement priorities for ICE officials to include not only the serious criminals but also those who enter the country without any authorization.

In the year 2014, former President Barack Obama has sought to narrow the enforcement priorities by focusing on "deporting felons not families." While the deportations did rise to the historic levels under Obama administration, the numbers have decreased toward the end of his second term. Still, Sherman-Stokes said that some of the enforcement patterns we are seeing now began well before the Trump's executive orders.

Trump administration has also said that, it hopes to increase the number of ICE agents in order to support the new enforcement priorities.

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Mrudula Duddempudi.