Houston police chief slams Trump’s planned ICE raids: ‘All that does is create havoc’

Houston’s police chief sounded off on reports of the Trump administration’s planned immigration raids this weekend, saying “all that does is create havoc.”

“There’s great fear amongst our immigrant community as to what’s going to happen,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said of the planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids while appearing for a Thursday interview with CNN’s Don Lemon.

“I’ve had children come up to me at forums saying, ‘I’m afraid to go to school,’ ‘I’m afraid to leave the house,’ ‘I’m afraid to come home to find out my parents are gone,’” Avecedo said. “And they are American children, U.S.-born children.”

“There’s a lot of fear across our immigrant community,” says Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo about ICE raids planned for Sunday. “When we make pronouncements that we’re going to go round up a million people, all that does is create havoc.” https://t.co/BhhlQj0wd1 pic.twitter.com/gtpakPuJHi

— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) July 11, 2019

{mosads}“And you try to allay those fears, but those fears are real,” he continued, adding that “when we make pronouncements that we’re going to go round up a million people, all that does is create havoc” and push people “further into the dark and further outside of the realm of society, which means we have a harder time investigating crime.”

“I think we should be chasing crooks, not cooks,” Avecedo said, adding he and local police are hopeful that ICE will focus their resources on capturing “people that are committing violent offenses” in his community.

His comments follow reports earlier this week that President Trump has directed ICE agents to target thousands of immigrants without legal status and who have received deportation orders in an operation expected to target up to 2,000 families this weekend.

The reports come weeks after Trump initially delayed plans to launch the operation last month, pending negotiations on immigration legislation in Washington.