Cities across US wary of coming ICE age

While Minneapolis has been at the epicenter of Immigration and Customs Enforcement tensions, legal experts report seeing growing fear in communities across the United States over the aggressive tactics of federal agents.

As Donald Trump's administration tries to ease the situation in the Minnesota city, immigration raids have continued in New York City, Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, California and Chicago Illinois.

Edward J. Cuccia, a New York lawyer based near Chinatown who focuses on immigration, family and matrimonial law, said he had seen a large rise in the number of ICE-related cases.

"The last year has been turned upside down thanks to ICE and all the things that have been happening," Cuccia told China Daily. "It's been very, very, very stressful and very, very difficult. I guess that sums it up.

"A year ago, I had not a single client detained by ICE. Now I have got well over 10, and every day there are people getting detained … some of them were lucky enough to get out, some of them (were) not and it's very stressful. Every day we're getting phone calls. People are detained constantly."

In New York City, an estimated 13 percent of all Asian Americans and Pacific Islander immigrants are undocumented, slightly lower than the 16 percent of undocumented people citywide, data from the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs shows.

New York Attorney General Letitia James formed the 'Legal Observation Project' on Feb 3 to observe federal immigration operations. She has urged New Yorkers to send any video of federal agents breaking the law.

As of mid-January, about 73,000 immigrants were in ICE detention, compared with 40,000 in custody at the same time last year, federal data released on Feb 3 showed.

Mike Fox is a legal fellow for the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and works for its Project on Criminal Justice focusing on over-criminalization, police accountability and coercive plea bargaining.

"People have been able to sort of insulate themselves, and say 'Well, that would never happen to me, you know, because these are bad people. They're illegal,'" Fox told China Daily. "Well, first of all, most of the people who are here illegally are not bad people. They're good people searching for better opportunity, (they are) economic migrants.

"And second of all, there have been countless US citizens who've been trapped in the process. So, the idea that it can't happen to you is just ridiculous. It can very easily happen to you. It's simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

In an October 2025 raid on a Chicago apartment building aimed at finding members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, only two of the 37 immigrants arrested were gang members.

ICE and Border Patrol agents unleashed chemical flash bangs. A Black Hawk helicopter was used, and half a dozen US citizens were held for hours before being released.

Fox believes that federal agents are encountering widespread opposition because they're not trained to do urban policing.

"They're not the Minneapolis Police Department, the Chicago Police Department. They're not supposed to be making traffic stops. They're not supposed to be doing crowd control," he said.

"Border Patrol is supposed to patrol the border. Keep people from coming in unlawfully, and keep dangerous substances … coming in, and ICE is supposed to be going in small groups, to target violent offenders."