Top ICE Official Describes Who’s a Fair Target in Stunning Interview

ICE agents believe they have the authority to interrogate anyone en route to a “target.”

That’s what a senior agency official, Marcos Charles, told Cecilia Vega on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday. Vega had asked Charles about how ICE has been carrying out its stated goal of targeted enforcement, noting that the agency appeared to be stopping and detaining people simply because they looked Somali or Latino. 

“Our officers are—are conducting targeted enforcement looking for the worst of the worst. If they encounter anybody in the area of which they’re operating, they are OK to talk to those people. They’ve been authorized to talk to anybody that’s around there and establish  citizenship,” Charles said. Vega pointed out that this didn’t seem targeted. 

“If they were in that area looking for a target, and they were en route or coming from that target and encountered that individual, they are authorized to talk to somebody and speak to somebody—” Charles said, before Vega interrupted, confused.

“How do you define the area? Officers are walking down the street, driving down the street. The entire city of Minneapolis is everybody, potentially,” Vega asked, wondering if the entire city was under suspicion. 

“Nobody’s under suspicion, but we’re looking for those targets. And, again, if we walk—encounter somebody, as we’re walking up to a building, as we’re en route to that building, that’s still part of the operation as they proceed to that target,” Charles said. 

ICE Associate Director Marcos Charles says that any individual that ICE agents encounter in, around, or in-route to a "target" is fair game for an interrogation, leaving the interviewer stunned. pic.twitter.com/cSa6thpbEr

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Charles, who is the acting associate director of enforcement and removal Operations for ICE,  basically confirmed that ICE operates under the assumption that nearly everyone is fair game for arrest if the agents on the scene think someone is an undocumented immigrant. This explains how ICE agents in Minnesota have been trying to get the state’s residents to racially profile their neighbors, asking them to point out their Asian neighbors. 

In July, President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said that ICE agents have the right to detain anyone for any reason, brazenly admitting that the agency uses racial profiling. On Sunday, ICE agents dragged a half-naked man out of his Saint Paul home into the freezing cold, only to release him hours later once they realized he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record.