ICE, Marines to conduct ‘biggest illegal immigrant grab in recent history’ near San Diego border crossing

Marines have arrived in the area and will be securing the crossing, in line with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Over 1,500 active duty troops have been deployed on the border this week. This includes 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton in California.

Daily Mail reports that they “have been joined with what has been described as a 'mile long line of DHS trucks and CBP.’”

“There is a 'mile long line of DHS trucks and CBP in front of Camp Pendleton right now, ready to do the biggest illegal immigrant grab in recent history,” a White House intelligence source told the outlet.

"The West Coast is this week and the East Coast is next week. It is about to get crazy in California," the source continued.

The source continued: “They are going to be taking 100,000 immigrants back to Mexico, Columbia, El Salvador and Guatemala in this grab.”

Border czar Tom Homan has expressed dissatisfaction with the rate at which decorations are happening, despite the “unprecedented” number of arrests. He says that the US needs to “open the aperture up” to carry out “more deportations.”

The Pentagon is preparing to send more troops in the coming days as Defense and Homeland Security officials finalize requests for additional support. Meanwhile, military leaders confirmed on Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been granted access to Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado to detain more illegals.

According to a statement from the US military's Northern Command, ICE began using Buckley’s facilities on Monday. The base is situated in Aurora, a suburb of Denver that gained national attention during Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign afterapartment complexes in the area had been overtaken by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. President Trump said during a campaign stop in Colorado that his adminsitration would launch "Operation Aurora" to crack down on gang-related crime.

ICE reports that immigration arrests have surged to around 1,000–1,200 per day, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 311 in fiscal year 2024. Despite this rise, Border Czar Tom Homan insists that the U.S. must step up its efforts to remove more illegal immigrants.

"It was a great start. The first week was unprecedented," Homan told Fox News' Jesse Watters, crediting Trump’s new policies for cutting illegal border crossings from "10,000 a day to under 600."

"It's great, it's good, but we're not finished, and we need more deportations," Homan added. "A lot more deportations, and that's what we're working on."

His comments come just days after he vowed that the number of daily arrests and deportations would "steadily increase" as the administration intensifies efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.