How Washington communities are responding to ICE deportation orders
Just hours after being sworn into office for a second term, President Donald Trump signed numerous executive orders on immigration. While some were policies he had executed in his first term, others were unprecedented, such as ending birthright citizenship and designating international drug cartels as terrorists.
Shortly thereafter, the Trump administration sent a memo to the Justice Department directing it to boost efforts on immigration enforcement, a swift follow-through on a promise Trump made during his presidential campaign. In the past several weeks, thousands of people, in documented instances, have been arrested or questioned by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Cascade PBS reached out to advocates and a city manager in Central Washington to learn more about how mass deportation efforts have affected Washington and its more than 300,000 undocumented residents.
Intent and reality
Trump has maintained that his targets for deportation have been only undocumented immigrants committing crimes, in particular those who have been “arrested many times,” as he said during a recent speech to House Republicans. However, during one day of enforcement actions in which 1,200 people nationwide were detained, nearly half simply did not have legal authorization to be in the U.S. but did not have a criminal record, a senior Trump administration told NBC News. a senior Trump administration told NBC News.
https://www.cascadepbs.org/news/2025/02/how-washington-communities-are-responding-ice-deportation-orders