RICHMOND, Va. -- The officers suit up in the predawn darkness, wrapping on body armor, snapping in guns, pulling on black sweatshirts that read "police" and "ICE."
They gather around a conference table at an ordinary office in a nondescript office park in the suburbs, going over their targets for the day: two men, both with criminal histories. At the top of the list is a man from El Salvador convicted of drunken driving.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's enforcement and removal operations, including the five-person field office team outside Richmond, hunt for people who are in the U.S. illegally, some of whom have been here for decades, working and raising families. Carrying out President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies has exposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to unprecedented public scrutiny and criticism, even though officers say they're doing largely the same job they did before the 2016 election -- prioritizing criminals.
But they have also stepped up arrests of people who have no U.S. criminal records. It is those stories of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arresting dads and grandmothers that pepper the local news. Officers are heckled and videotaped. Some Democratic politicians have called for the agency to be abolished.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees have been threatened at their homes, their personal data exposed online, officials said.
"There is a tension around 'It could be that somebody could find out what I do and hate me for it or do worse than hate me for it,'" said Ronald Vitiello, acting head of the agency.
Vitiello said the agency is monitoring social media and giving employees resources for when they feel threatened.
"It's a rare thing to be arrested in the country if you haven't violated the law," Vitiello said. "If someone is here and don't otherwise come across the criminal justice system, it's very rare that they are going to be arrested by ICE, despite the perceptions that are out there."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had been told under President Barack Obama's administration to focus on removing people who had committed crimes. Trump, in one of his first moves in office, directed his administration to target anyone in the country illegally.
Government data confirm that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is still mostly targeting people convicted of crimes. But the data also show the agency has greatly ramped up arrests of people who were accused of crimes but not convicted and has increased arrests solely on immigration violations.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 32,977 people accused of crimes and 20,464 with immigration violations during the 2018 budget year. There were 105,140 arrests of people with criminal convictions and 158,581 arrests overall. The most frequent criminal conviction was for drunken driving, followed by drug and traffic offenses.
By comparison, in the last budget year of the Obama administration, there were 94,751 people arrested with convictions, 6,267 arrests of those with pending charges and 9,086 arrest on immigration violations. There were 111,104 arrests overall.
Advocates say a traffic violation shouldn't be enough to get a person kicked out of the country. They accuse the agency of stoking fear and tearing families apart.
"You need some kind of agency to deal with immigration, but ICE is not that," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said on radio station WNYC. "ICE's time has come and gone; it is broken. ICE has been sent on a very negative, divisive mission, and it cannot function the way it is."
In response, some cities have banished Immigration and Customs Enforcement from jails where the agency could easily pick up immigration violators. Police in New York, Baltimore and Seattle rarely, if ever, give up information on when suspected criminals who are in the U.S. illegally will be released from custody.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers now do more street operations and say they end up with more "collateral arrests," people they happen upon who are also in the country illegally. They rarely knock on doors anymore, instead spending hours surveilling and waiting outside.
In New York, a Mexican construction worker who has lived in the United States for more than a decade appeared before a judge. He was a week away from clearing his name on a low-level moving vehicle infraction.
When he walked out of the courthouse, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were waiting for him. He was sent to a detention center and deported less than two weeks later. He left behind a wife and three children.
"I didn't do anything," said the man, who spoke from Mexico but did not want to be identified because he fears for his family. "I am a hard-working person; I am not a criminal. I don't understand."
Information for this article was contributed by Denise Lavoie and Tom Hays of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/31/2018