WATCH: Head of ICE Announces Crackdown on Companies That Employ Illegal Aliens

In a major win for the American worker, the head of ICE, Todd Lyons, has just announced that the agency will start holding businesses that hire illegal aliens accountable.

UPDATE 🚨 ICE head Todd Lyons says agents will arrest anyone found in the U.S. illegally, crack down on employers of unauthorized workers. (CBS) pic.twitter.com/vtr1OXDodw

— Live From America TV (@LFATVUS) July 20, 2025

In an interview with CBS News‘s Face the Nation, Lyons also said that ICE will detain anyone who is living in the country illegally, regardless of whether or not they have a criminal record.

However, they remain focused on arresting the “worst of the worst” first.

Watch that clip from the interview here:

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons tells @camiloreports that the agency will take people into custody if they are in the U.S. illegally, even if they do not otherwise have a criminal record — something he acknowledges as "collateral arrests." pic.twitter.com/OzyalJUqd5

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 20, 2025

Crazily, this “collateral arrests” concept — basically, if ICE finds more illegal aliens with a target they find, then they will detain them, as well — was actually banned during the Biden regime.

Worksite raids were also a no-go underneath Biden.

CBS News has more:

Collateral arrests by ICE were effectively banned under the Biden administration, which issued rules instructing deportation officers to largely focus on arresting serious criminal offenders, national security threats and migrants who recently entered the U.S. illegally. That policy was reversed immediately after President Trump took office for a second time in January…

“ICE is always focused on the worst of the worst,” Lyons said. “One difference you’ll see now is under this administration, we have opened up the whole aperture of the immigration portfolio.”

Another major policy at ICE under the second Trump administration is the lifting of a Biden-era pause on large-scale immigration raids at worksites.

In recent weeks, federal immigration authorities have arrested hundreds of suspected unauthorized workers at a meatpacking plant in Nebraska, a horse racetrack in Louisiana and cannabis farms in southern California. At the cannabis farms alone, officials took into custody more than 300 immigrants who were allegedly in the country unlawfully, including 10 minors.

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Amid concerns from industry that Mr. Trump’s crackdown was hurting their businesses, ICE in June ordered a halt to immigration roundups at farms, hotels and restaurants. But that pause lasted only a matter of days. Since then, the president has talked about giving farmers with workers who are not in the U.S. legally a “pass,” though his administration has not provided further details on what that would entail.

In his interview with CBS News, Lyons said ICE would continue worksite immigration enforcement, saying there’s no ban on such actions. He said those operations would rely on criminal warrants against employers suspected of hiring unauthorized immigrants, which he said is not a “victimless crime,” noting such investigations often expose forced labor or child trafficking.

“Not only are we focused on those individuals that are, you know, working here illegally, we’re focused on these American companies that are actually exploiting these laborers, these people that came here for a better life,” Lyons said.

Asked to confirm that ICE plans to hold those employing immigrants in the U.S. illegally accountable — and not just arrest the workers themselves — Lyons said, “One hundred percent.”

This is exactly what we voted for!

Common sense immigration policies that protect the safety and livelihood of the American people.

If you want to the full interview, here it is:

What’s your take?