Continuing its campaign of high profile immigration crackdowns in major cities nationwide, the Trump administration on Wednesday launched extensive new operations in New Orleans and Minneapolis aimed at arresting and deporting people without legal status.

The administration has claimed that it is going after dangerous criminals: the “worst of the worst.” When announcing the New Orleans operation, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) listed 10 violent offenders it said had been released from local jails because of the city’s “sanctuary” policies.

But government data collected during the administration’s other recent and ongoing raids — in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and elsewhere — shows that the vast majority of people swept up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have no criminal record.

Instead, as agents work to meet the administration’s new quota of 3,000 ICE arrests per day, up from 1,000 previously, they are increasingly rounding up noncriminals in public places, as top White House aide Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s immigration agenda — instructed them to do back in May, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rather than “develop target lists of immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, a longstanding practice,” the Journal reported,” Miller told agents to target “Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores.”

Here’s a quick rundown of all the cities the Trump administration has raided so far — and where things stand in each.

New Orleans

December 2025

Louisiana is the second conservative state to face mass immigration raids after Tennessee. But New Orleans — like Memphis before it — is a Democrat-led city. Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, who was born in Mexico, issued a warning before the operation began. “The reports of due process violations and potential abuses in other cities are concerning,” Moreno said in a statement. “I want our community to be aware and informed of the protections available under law.”

So far, it is unclear which agencies are involved or how many agents will be flooding the city. Reports suggest that a DHS crackdown led by the border patrol will aim for 5,000 arrests. Residents have been bracing for the feds’ arrival for weeks; some businesses have told their workers to stay home or have reported workers staying home out of fear.

Minneapolis

December 2025

Following President Trump’s “xenophobic tirade” on Tuesday about Somali immigrants — he called them “garbage,” among other things — the administration directed ICE to send roughly 100 officers, agents and other federal officials to Minneapolis-St. Paul this week to find and arrest Somalis with final deportation orders. (Minnesota is home to the largest diaspora of Somalis in the world.)

“When they come from hell and complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country,” Trump said Tuesday.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, warned that “targeting Somali people… means that American citizens will be detained for no reason other than the fact that they look Somali.” About 73% of Somali immigrants nationwide are naturalized U.S. citizens, according to the Census Bureau. Many others have had temporary legal status for decades under a program for migrants from countries in crisis.

Charlotte

November 2025

Last month, federal agents surged into Charlotte, where they were seen wearing tactical gear and masks while making arrests in public places, sowing widespread fear. The largest city in North Carolina and one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, Charlotte has a booming Latino population; senior Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, who led earlier raids in Los Angeles and Chicago, is from North Carolina as well. Agents quickly expanded their operations in Raleigh and other nearby cities.

"There's a strategy here,” Bovino recently told a podcaster, referring to his aggressive street-level tactics. “And that is — self-deportations.”

Local officials said the North Carolina operation ended around Nov. 20, but DHS disputed that assessment. Only one-third of those arrested in Charlotte were classified as criminals, according to an internal DHS document obtained by CBS News.

Chicago

September 2025

Initially led by Bovino, federal agents in Chicago used some of their most aggressive tactics to date, sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in the nation’s third-largest city.

Among the reports: deploying chemical agents near a public school; handcuffing a Chicago City Council member at a hospital; shooting and wounding a motorist; “rappelling” from choppers and using zip ties to restrain apartment residents.

“They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in October. “They need to get out of Chicago if they’re not going to focus on the worst of the worst, which is what the president said they were going to do.”

Last month, a federal judge ruled that government officials, including Bovino, had repeatedly lied about their own behavior. “I see little reason for the use of force that the federal agents are currently using,” she wrote.

Since then, Bovino has left Chicago, and the Border Patrol has sharply diminished its presence in the city. Overall, the federal operation in the region resulted in more than 3,000 arrests.

Memphis

September 2025

Seeking to combat crime, Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee welcomed federal forces into the state starting in late September; he also agreed to deploy the National Guard. Since then, more than a dozen agencies have participated, including the F.B.I.; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Administration. All told, more than 2,600 residents have been arrested, including undocumented immigrants; immigration agents have been seen throughout the city.

Last month, a judge temporarily blocked the Guard from participating in federal actions. The state appealed that order on Tuesday.

Portland

June 2025

Since June, protesters have been gathering outside the ICE facility about two miles south of downtown Portland, Ore., to demonstrate against stepped-up immigration raids in the city. After some sporadic clashes, reports from the Portland Police Bureau showed that the size and intensity of the city’s nightly ICE protests ebbed in August and September.

Regardless, on Sept. 27, Trump directed his “Secretary of War” — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — to marshal troops against the “domestic terrorists” outside Portland’s ICE facility, encouraging the use of full force in a city he likened to a war zone.

Portland and Oregon sued, and a federal judge last month issued a permanent block on the deployment.

Los Angeles

June 2025

In June, an immigration sweep at a Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake triggered mass protests in downtown Los Angeles — which in turn gave the Trump administration a pretext to deploy thousands of National Guard troops. The guard has left the city after a series of successful court challenges, but the sweeps continue. Federal agents have made nearly 9,000 immigration arrests in the area over the last six months, according to DHS data.