The Department of Homeland Security refuted an article in Monday's Los Angeles Times that accused the agency of making sweeping arrests based on "racial profiling."
The article's headline read, "Fears of racing profiling rise as Border Patrol conducts 'roving patrols,' detains U.S. citizens."
It quoted an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California as saying, "We are seeing ICE come into our communities to do indiscriminate mass arrests of immigrants or people who appear to them to be immigrant, largely based on racial profiling."
The DHS official X account posted a screenshot of the article and stated, "Any claims that individuals have been ‘targeted’ by law enforcement because of their skin color are disgusting and categorically FALSE."
The post continued, "These types of smears are designed to demonize and villainize our brave ICE law enforcement. DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence. We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability."
The post then claimed, "We will follow the President's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets."
ICE has expanded its reach far beyond "criminals," however, which has sparked nationwide protests that began in L.A.
According to Reuters, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention statistics show the number of detainees arrested by ICE with no other criminal charges or convictions rose from about 860 in January to 7,800 this month - a more than 800% increase."
Earlier this month, top Trump aide Stephen Miller reportedly set a quota for ICE agents to arrest 3,000 undocumented migrants each day.
Read the L.A. Times article here.