SILVER SPRING, Md, Jan 28, (AP): A week into Donald Trump’s second presidency and his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, federal officers are operating with a new sense of mission, knowing that "nobody gets a free pass anymore.” A dozen officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement gathered before dawn Monday in a Maryland parking lot, then fanned out to the Washington suburbs to find their targets: someone wanted in El Salvador for homicide, a person convicted of armed robbery, a migrant found guilty of possessing child sexual abuse material and another with drug and gun convictions.

All were in the country illegally. "The worst go first,” Matt Elliston, director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said of the agency's enforcement priorities. The Associated Press accompanied the officers, who offered a glimpse of how their work has changed under a White House intent on deporting large numbers of immigrants living in the US without permission.

People considered public safety and national security threats are still the top priority, Elliston said. That is no different from the Biden administration, but a big change has already taken hold: Under Trump, officers can now arrest people without legal status if they run across them while looking for migrants targeted for removal. Under Joe Biden, such "collateral arrests” were banned.

"We’re looking for those public safety, national security cases. The big difference being, nobody has a free pass anymore,” Elliston said. The number of collateral arrests has fluctuated, he said. By the end of Monday across Maryland, ICE had arrested 13 people. Of those, nine were targets and the other four were people ICE came across during the course of the morning.

Of those "collaterals,” one had an aggravated theft conviction. Another had already been deported once, and two others had final orders of removal. The administration highlighted the participation of other agencies in immigration operations over the weekend, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which are part of the Justice Department.