The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Sept. 20 statement that it warned the states of California, Illinois, and New York to cooperate with the federal government on deporting illegal immigrants.

The DHS said, via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that it was following up on letters sent to the three states’ attorneys general on Sept. 10 to confirm whether they would notify ICE when illegal immigrants are set to be released from jail or prison so that they can be transferred into the agency’s custody.

DHS said ICE had received responses from Illinois and New York, which affirmed their refusal to comply, and had not received a response from California.

According to the statement, ICE said in its Sept. 19 correspondence that while it would prefer to work in cooperation with state officials, it will “engage with the Department of Justice and other Federal partners to pursue all appropriate measures to end their inadvisable and irresponsible obstruction of the apprehension and removal of criminal illegal aliens.”

DHS said that despite the rejection of cooperation from these and other states, the department had arrested more than 400,000 illegal immigrants, 70 percent of whom have criminal convictions or have been charged with crimes.

The statement went on to list several criminal illegal immigrants who had been released back onto U.S. streets after committing crimes, including those with an alleged history of rape, battery, drug, and weapons offenses. Some were also identified as belonging to gangs, including Tren de Aragua and Latin Kings.

“These dangerous sanctuary policies, often combined with cashless bail for serious crimes, allow criminal illegal aliens to be released back into American communities—threatening the American people’s lives and wellbeing,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.

“ICE detainers ask for something very simple: To notify ICE when criminal illegal aliens are released from jail or prison, to ensure that they go into ICE custody before they are released back onto our streets. These sanctuary state politicians should do the right thing and side with law-abiding Americans over criminal illegal aliens.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office referred The Epoch Times to the Sept. 12 letter that Chief Deputy Attorney General R. Douglas Rees sent to acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons, which cited legal opinion that “detainers are requests, not requirements,” and said authorities cannot be forced to comply with them.

Rees added that the attorney general of Illinois does not oversee pretrial detention, so the office rarely receives requests for ICE detainers, and it cannot mandate local law enforcement agencies to accept thousands of ICE detainers.

“The Attorney General is firmly committed to protecting the public from anyone, citizen or non-citizen, who engages in criminal misconduct,” he wrote.

The offices of the attorneys general of New York and California did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

ICE Recruitment Drive

Since President Donald Trump returned to office for his second term in January 2025, he has launched a tough immigration enforcement campaign, reinforcing the southern border and pledging to deport millions of illegal immigrants.

Additional funding for these border security measures comes from the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the president signed into law in July.

The budget allocates roughly $170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement over the next five years, including $76.5 billion for ICE, almost 10 times its present yearly budget. Of that, $45 billion is earmarked for expanding detention facilities, while close to $30 billion would go toward recruiting 10,000 more personnel to push the agency toward its goal of carrying out 1 million deportations per year.

Over the summer, the DHS launched a drive to increase ICE recruitment.

Incentives for joining ICE include signing bonuses of up to $50,000, student loan forgiveness, and enhanced retirement benefits.

The agency also removed the age limit for joining. DHS said on Aug. 6 that it would waive it “so even more patriots will qualify to join ICE in its mission to arrest murderers, pedophiles, gang members, rapists, and other criminal illegal aliens from America’s streets.”

ICE said on Sept. 16 that it had received more than 150,000 applications and sent out 18,000 tentative job offers.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement last week, “Americans are answering their country’s call to serve and help remove murderers, pedophiles, rapists, terrorists, and gang members from our country.”

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.