A US marshal was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Arizona, after being mistakenly identified as a man that agents were looking for, according to a statement from the US Marshals Service.
The deputy marshal matched the “general description of a subject being sought by Ice” and was detained at a federal building in the Old Pueblo in Tucson.
Officials said the detention was brief and the deputy marshal was released after his identity was “quickly confirmed” by other law enforcement officers.
The Marshals Service did not say when the incident happened or who the deputy marshal was.
“The Deputy US Marshal’s identity was quickly confirmed by other law enforcement officers, and he exited the building without incident,” a service spokesperson told NBC News.
Ice agents are under pressure from the White House to increase arrests. On Tuesday, agents detained more than 2,200 people, the highest number of immigrant arrests in a single day in its history, according to reports.
Hundreds of the people who were arrested had been enrolled in Ice’s Alternative to Detention (ATD) program, three sources familiar with the arrests told NBC News.
Under the program, Ice releases undocumented immigrants who are not considered to be threats to public safety and tracks them using ankle monitors, smartphone apps, along with periodic check-ins at Ice facilities.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, reportedly told a meeting with Ice leadership last month that senior officials could be fired if it did not start making 3,000 arrests a day.
But with the raids in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the administration appears to be moving away from arresting suspected gang members or those with criminal histories and moving to a more generalized detention of undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News on Saturday that the national guard would be deployed to Los Angeles county on Sunday after anti-Ice protests became violent amid police use of teargas on demonstrators.
