In the first days of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made more than 460 arrests of illegal immigrants, including those with criminal histories of sexual assault, domestic violence, drugs, and weapons crimes.
According to Fox News, the arrests took place across the US between midnight January 21 and 9am January 22, a 33-hour period, with nationals from various countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Senegal, and Venezuela.
ICE also issued more than 420 detainers, requesting notification when a national is released from custody after being arrested for crimes such as homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, battery, and robbery. Notable arrests include Jesus Perez, a Mexican national charged with aggravated sexual abuse of a child in Salt Lake City; Franklin Osorto-Cruz, a Honduran national convicted of driving while intoxicated in New York; Kamaro Denver Haye, a Jamaican national arrested for promoting and possessing sexual performance by a child; Jesus Baltazar Mendoza, a Mexican national convicted of 2nd degree assault of a child in St. Paul; and Andres Orjuela Parra, a Colombian national with a conviction of sexual penetration with a foreign object on an unaware victim in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, in Miami, six illegal immigrants from Guatemala with criminal histories including battery, child abuse, fraud, resisting arrest, DWI, trespassing, and vandalism were arrested. Fox News reported that agents in Boston arrested multiple MS-13 gang members, Interpol Red Notices, and murder & rape suspects.
The Trump administration is moving rapidly to fulfill its promise of launching a historic mass deportation operation, focusing primarily but not exclusively on public safety threats. President Trump has issued a series of executive orders, and his cabinet agencies have made subsequent moves to support this effort.
The Department of Homeland Security has removed limits on the powers of expedited removal and rescinded a Biden-era memo restricting where ICE can conduct enforcement operations. Former ICE Director Tom Homan stated that teams are already out there, prioritising public safety threats and those who are in the country illegally and have been convicted or arrested for serious crimes.
"Right out of the gate it's public safety threats, those who are in the country illegally that have been convicted, arrested for serious crime," he said. "But let me be clear. There's not only public safety threats that will be arrested, because in sanctuary cities, we're not allowed to get that public safety threat in the jail, which means we got to go to the neighborhood and find him."
The Trump administration has been firm on immigration crackdown since Day 1. Earlier, it was reported that Trump ordered deployment of 1,500 additional troops to the Mexico border, taking the tally of total border troops to around 4,000. An emergency was also declared at the Southern border.
Trump has claimed that he's fine with legal immigrants but soon after he took office, an app, called CBP One, that streamlined the legal process was shut down. This has left many waiting at the Mexico-US border in disillusion and feeling defeated.
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