New Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined heavily armed federal authorities early Tuesday for the first deportation raids on illegal immigrants in New York City — starting with a “criminal alien with kidnapping, assault and burglary charges.”
Noem shared images of her wearing a protective ICE vest as she embedded with officers from numerous federal agencies in hitting targets, starting in the Bronx.
“Live this AM from NYC. I’m on it,” the newly sworn-in secretary said as she joined briefings before the raids.
“We are doing this right – doing exactly what President @realDonaldTrump promised the American people – making our streets safe.”
She joined heavily armed DEA officers and Homeland Security investigators operating in the Bronx, sharing her own video of someone being led in cuffs from an apartment building.
It showed a “criminal alien with kidnapping, assault & burglary charges,” Noem said.
“Dirtbags like this will continue to be removed from our streets,” Noem wrote defiantly.
One raid early Tuesday morning woke residents of an Ogden Ave. apartment building in the Bronx with a loud boom, a neighbor who heard Homeland Security officers apprehend a neighbor told The Post.
“They had a big operation in here,” the neighbor said of the raid led bu Homeland Security officers.
“They’re going to get due process. It doesn’t matter if, it doesn’t matter what crimes, there or they’re here illegally, they’re going to get due process so it’s okay. I’m not opposed. Whatever they allegedly did,” the neighbor said, noting the family living in the apartment that was raided consisted of a man, a woman, and several children.
The feds have been rounding up hundreds of criminal migrants daily in sanctuary cities nationwide since Trump assumed office under the watchful eye of border czar Tom Homan.
Agents have hit Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and New Orleans as part of the effort to ship lawbreakers out of the country.
Homan warned on ABC News last Sunday that anyone in the country illegally is “on the table” for deportation.
“You’re going to see the numbers steadily increase, the number of arrests nationwide, as we open up the aperture,” he said. “Right now, it’s concentrating on public safety threats [and] national security threats. That’s a smaller population.
“So we’re going to do this on a priority [basis], that’s President Trump’s promise. But as that aperture opens, there’ll be more arrests nationwide.”
Trump loosened restrictions on how immigration officers can approach deportation raids, tossing out bans on searching churches, courthouses, and other “sensitive” sites that illegal migrants have historically holed up in to avoid landing on the feds’ radar.
Mayor Eric Adams said last week ahead of the crackdown that city officials would “coordinate” with ICE on handling migrant criminals, but were still analyzing Trump’s new rule allowing raids in “sensitive” areas.
Adams has tried to assuage the worries of immigrant New Yorkers who are afraid of getting caught up in indiscriminate raids.
The NYPD sent out an internal memo obtained by The Post reminding cops they can partner with ICE on criminal investigations, but not federal deportations, which are civil matters under the city’s sanctuary status.
ICE said it made 1,179 arrests and lodged 853 detainers on Monday after it carried out 956 arrests and issued 554 detainers on Sunday leading up to Tuesday’s Big Apple action.