Targeted operations conducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have long taken place across the United States. What has changed in recent years is where agents can and cannot carry out warrants on undocumented migrants. Some areas that have been identified as ‘sensitive locations’ include schools and churches. The Biden administration expanded areas protected from ICE operations to include places like disaster or emergency response and relief centers. “There were whole neighborhoods where ICE officers were precluded from going into those neighborhoods because of where sensitive locations were,” said John Fabbricatore, the former ICE Field Office Director in Denver, covering Colorado and Wyoming. “People were actually hiding in those areas because they knew ICE agents could not go into them.” Until now. This week, the acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued two ICE directives removing sensitive-area protections in and near places of worship, schools, daycares, college campuses, churches, playgrounds, recreation centers, school bus stops, homeless and domestic violence shelters, food banks, funerals, and weddings. “Where was Laken Riley killed,” he asked. “At school yes, so that would have been a sensitive location that ICE agents would not have been allowed to go on to arrest that criminal, go on or near. That is the biggest issue.” While unable to speak to any local operations, Fabbricatore is willing to share what undocumented migrants that agents zero in on first: “These are cases, many of them are final order cases, which we have 1.4 million of those in which illegal criminal aliens have already gone and seen an immigration judge. That judge has ordered them deported and they have not left the country. Out of those 1.4 million, we have 600,000, which either have criminal convictions or current criminal charges, so it’s about 400,000 convictions and about 200,000 charges,” he said. “The rest are simply people who are here who entered the country illegally, counter to our immigration law, saw an immigration judge, and refused to leave.” The swift policy change has led church leaders to educate members on their rights while deciding how they’d respond to a wanted person seeking refuge. With their hands no longer tied and agents left to use “common sense,” according to DHS, there is fear in the migrant community of who they consider “collateral victims.” That is to say, what happens if ICE carries out an arrest of one wanted migrant but encounters an undocumented grandmother, wife or child present? “They are not a victim, alright? They entered the country illegally,” he said. “They could potentially be caught up in this, but you have to remember we have limited resources, limited bed space. So, to take an 80-year-old grandmother is not something that ICE agents are going to be looking to do.” However, Grandma may not be off the hook. “She’s not going to be put into custody, but she may be processed for removal,” he said. Something both immigration attorneys and Fabbricatore agree is that ICE agents have never walked into a school campus to make arrests, despite rumors over the years. “ICE agents are not going to go into elementary schools and arresting elementary school kids. This is ludicrous,” he said. However, the policy reversal would allow agents to follow a parent after dropping off their child. “Possibly,” said Fabbricatore. “Maybe they drop off that child, and then we make an arrest safely outside of where that school is.” With a take-no-prisoner approach to illegal immigration, Fabbricatore stresses the Trump administration is simply following laws approved by Congress. “If this person is in there and we can get a criminal warrant and the U.S. Attorney accepts this case and it goes before a judge and a judge shines off on a criminal warrant and they are harboring a criminal illegal alien, get ready because ICE will come in,” he said.