WASHINGTON – On Sunday, President Donald Trump instructed federal immigration authorities to focus on deportations in cities governed by Democrats, following significant protests in Los Angeles and other major locations against his administration’s immigration policies.

In a social media post, Trump urged ICE officials “to use all available means to accomplish the crucial goal of initiating the most extensive Mass Deportation Program in History.”

He further stated that to achieve this, officials “must increase efforts to apprehend and expel Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where millions of Illegal Aliens reside.”

Trump’s declaration comes after weeks of increased enforcement, and after Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.

At the same time, the Trump administration has directed immigration officers to pause arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels, after Trump expressed alarm about the impact aggressive enforcement is having on those industries, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter who spoke only on condition of anonymity.