DC immigrants brace for upcoming ICE raids

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Local immigrant communities are bracing for the worst after President Trump renewed his call for mass deportations.

The president said millions of undocumented immigrants would be rounded up and deported, but he delayed the plan to give Congress two weeks to work someting out.

That didn't happen ... and on Friday the president essentially said Democrats aren't willing to make a deal.

He also defended the controversial border detention facilities currently being used to hold migrants.

"Mexico is doing far more than the Democrats, we all know it, because of tariffs," Trump said Friday. "When people come in illegally and then it's crowded, and I've seen some of those places and they are run beautifully, they're clean, they're good."

Not everyone agrees.

Previously, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser spoke out against the raids. As have officials in Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Gustavo Torres of Casa, an immigrant advocacy group based in Langley Park, Md., says his group is hosting training sessions so people know what to do if ICE does show up at their door.

Torres also said this is not just a Trump issue, pointing out that President Obama actually deported more people.

"[Trump's] terrorizing our community. That is the way how we see it. People are very scared," Torres said. "If the president really wanted to do that, he's accomplished that tremendously because people are terrorized."

President Trump also said Friday that he's strongly considering using an executive order to get a citizenship question on the U.S. Census.

He's mulling the move after the Supreme Court blocked the question, at least temporarily.