U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Friday that a nationwide wave of arrests of immigrants will launch this weekend. Thousands of undocumented migrants will be rounded up for deportation which will break up many long-resident families and separate children from their parents.

The raids are expected to take place in 10 major cities, targeting the families whose immigration cases were handled through an expedited court process that began in 2018 and have already issued removal orders.

However, according to acting ICE Director Mark Morgan last month, the agency has notified about 2,000 of those people that they face deportation because they failed to appear in court. Immigration rights activists have complained that in many cases immigrants do not receive proper notice of their court dates.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups sued this week to stop the arrests going ahead, asking a court to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families who missed their court dates until they at least get a hearing.

Trump said ICE would focus mainly on people with convictions, including gang members, but according to local reports, the raids could potentially target families who have been inside the United States for many years, with homes, businesses and U.S.-born children.

In America, if one is born in the country, she or he is considered to be a U.S. citizen, which means some children may separate with their parents if their parents are deported while they don't.

A centerpiece of the Trump administration is cracking down on illegal immigration. He has been dealing with a surge of mostly Central American families since his accession to presidency. Many families are approaching the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum.

Migrant communities and immigration and rights activists around the country were girding for the raids. Democrats criticized the Trump administration on Thursday that the forthcoming arrests could break up the long-resident families with members who are inside the country legally and result in more immigrant children being separated from their families.

According to the Pew Research Center, there are about 10.5 million undocumented migrants in the United States, and two-thirds have been in the country more than 10 years.

The latest widespread criticism of Trump's immigration policy is invoked by overcrowded, unsanitary conditions for immigrants who are being detained along the southwestern border and a heart-wrenching body picture of a Salvadoran father and his two-year-old daughter drowned face-down in the water while trying to get to the United States.

The Trump administration has posed more pressure on Central American countries, especially Mexico who Trump claimed, failed to stem the illegal migrants entering the United States. Trump vowed to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions U.S. dollars on goods imported from Mexico weeks ago, and dropped last week when Mexico deployed 6,000 troops to the country’s southern border with Guatemala, cutting off the flow of migrants bound for the U.S. border.

Trump is also to meet with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales at the White House on Monday for talks on immigration and security.

(With input from agencies)