Wow, what a fiasco this is.

LA Times:

An immigration sweep targeting thousands of people nationwide resulted in only 35 arrests, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday, suggesting that the widely publicized advance notice of the raids, including prominent mention by President Trump, led many people to take actions to avoid being caught.

The sweep, called Operation Border Resolve, was focused on more than 2,000 families with final orders of removal by an immigration judge. The numbers so far have fallen far short of the target.

The acting director of ICE discussed the numbers during a call with reporters, citing the wide notice given across the country.

“There were advocates, there were people in Congress sitting here giving instructions to people illegally in the country and telling them how to avoid detection,” Matthew Albence said. “There’s no way for us to quantify what impact that had, but you couldn’t turn on any TV station anywhere in this country for several weeks without this being one of the lead topics.”

Those targeted had cases that were part of an accelerated docket, in which recent arrivals were allowed to quickly present their case in front of an immigration judge, according to Albence. Of those, Albence said, 85% did not show up for their first hearing and were ordered removed in absentia.

ICE asked families in February to turn themselves in, but only 65 reported to agency offices, according to Albence.

Of those arrested, 18 were members of families and 17 were collateral arrests, meaning they were not on the target list but were present when arrests were being made, according to ICE. Albence called the operation the “first iteration” and said it would be continuing.

To explain the low arrest numbers, Albence cited ICE’s suspension of enforcement operations in the New Orleans area because of a tropical storm. The agency also backed out of some operations in which ICE agents were being watched by locals, to avoid confrontation, he said.

We were told that millions were going to be deported with 2,000 getting arrested and deported this past weekend. But now we see this report talking about how only 35 got arrested.

This is fucking joke. If the federal government can’t even enforce existing immigration laws, than it doesn’t matter if new laws are passed. After all, what good are laws if nobody enforces them?