Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sought to as­sure the pub­lic that the re­cent­ly an­nounced mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise will ap­ply on­ly to in­di­vid­u­als al­ready ar­rest­ed for crim­i­nal of­fences and cur­rent­ly held in the na­tion’s pris­ons or de­ten­tion cen­tres.

On Mon­day, a memo from the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty to the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer stat­ed that, “The Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has in­struct­ed that all il­le­gal im­mi­grants de­tained are to be held at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre un­til repa­tri­a­tion. They are not to be placed on Or­ders of Su­per­vi­sion, as con­sid­er­a­tion is cur­rent­ly be­ing giv­en to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise for il­le­gal im­mi­grants. This pol­i­cy takes im­me­di­ate ef­fect and shall re­main in force un­til fur­ther in­struc­tions are is­sued by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter.”

Guardian Me­dia sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter on the pro­posed “mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise for il­le­gal im­mi­grants.” The Prime Min­is­ter was asked whether the ini­tia­tive would mir­ror the Unit­ed States’ im­mi­gra­tion crack­downs car­ried out by Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agents. Guardian Me­dia al­so in­quired whether this could in­volve a broad law en­force­ment op­er­a­tion lo­cal­ly, where of­fi­cers might stop in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing chil­dren, to de­mand proof of le­gal sta­tus.