Tensions have risen in Washington due to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s failure to reach its daily arrest quota of 3,000 illegal immigrants. The quota imposed by the Trump Administration not only puts excessive strain on ICE but is also unreasonable and dangerous.

ICE has currently arrested over 1,000 people a day, but it hasn’t been enough to hit their targets for the year. 

The Trump Administration’s pressure to hit the goal could cause ICE officials to detain and deport individuals who are neither criminals nor illegal immigrants.

The Supreme Court’s ruling of Noem v. Vazquez Perdomo granted ICE agents authority to temporarily detain individuals based on the suspicion that they are illegally in the United States. With a massive daily quota to achieve, ICE agents could use the ruling as an excuse to detain people based on their race, ethnicity or the language they speak.

New York City is a prime example of how the use of quotas can lead to racial discrimination. 

According to a CNN interview in 2013, an NYPD veteran said that former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg mandated quotas where officers “had to log at least five stop-and-frisks, make one arrest and write 20 tickets each month.”

This stop-and-frisk quota resulted in intense racial disparities,, with nearly 84% of those stopped being Black and Latino in a city where they made up 50% of the population, despite being less likely to possess a weapon or contraband.

In effect, ICE’s quota is likely to lead to a similar situation, further enabled by the ruling that, unlike stop-and-frisk, has not been labelled as unconstitutional. ICE agents will target minorities, particularly Latinos, in an effort to fulfill their quotas.

The Trump administration is in the process of making changes to ICE’s leadership, with plans to replace underperforming directors who are not aggressive in their tactics. 

With a desperate ICE nowhere close to hitting the Trump Administration’s lofty goal, vulnerable communities could be in danger of potential escalation of tactics by the government agency’s new leaders.