The new administration has said so-called sanctuary cities will be the first targets of its mass-deportation program

Chicago’s Lower West Side felt uneasily quiet this week.

Christina Alejandra, a dancer and local business owner in the city’s artsy, majority Mexican American neighborhood, wondered whether it was because of the freezing temperatures, or the impending threat of immigration raids.

Ras Baraka and other state lawmakers express outrage as sanctuary cities nationwide brace for similar Ice actions

The mayor of Newark, New Jersey, said an immigration raid in the city was done without a warrant, and led to the detainment of undocumented residents as well as citizens.

Newark mayor Ras Baraka said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had raided a local establishment. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized,” he wrote in a statement.

Expert Austin Kocher explains why the ‘clown show’ of Trump orders will nonetheless fuel confusion and anxiety

Donald Trump began to enact his promised immigration crackdown just hours after taking power, issuing a barrage of executive actions that have incited panic and chaos across the US and at its borders. But much of the orders’ content will be difficult to enforce, and many will face strong legal challenges.

Trump’s executive orders on immigration didn’t read like presidential actions so much as a “stream-of-consciousness mess … strung together in a lattice of nonsense”, wrote the political and legal geographer Austin Kocher, who had been issuing hourly immigration policy updates on his blog throughout inauguration day.