ICE arrests nearly 550 criminal migrants in massive city sweep

Federal immigration authorities arrested several hundred criminal migrants in a massive Houston operation that spanned only several days.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 646 illegal migrants, 543 of which were foreign nationals charged or convicted of a criminal offense and living unlawfully in the United States, according to a press release from the agency. The extensive operation — which was conducted in the Houston, Texas, area from Feb. 23 to March 2 — was the latest in the Trump administration’s mission to arrest and deport criminal illegal migrants from the country. 

“In recent years, some of the world’s most dangerous fugitives, transnational gang members and criminal aliens have taken advantage of the crisis at our nation’s southern border to illegally enter the U.S.,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston field office director Bret Bradford said in a prepared statement. “After illegally entering the country, many of these criminal aliens have gone on to commit violent crime and reign terror on law-abiding residents.”

“Fueled by our unwavering commitment to protect the public from harm, and united in our determination to restore integrity to our nation’s system of laws, ICE and our law enforcement partners in Southeast Texas have banded together to remove these dangerous criminal aliens from our local communities and put an end to the lawlessness that they spread,” Bradford continued.

Among those arrested included 140 illegal migrants charged or convicted of an aggravated felony or other violent crime such as homicide, aggravated assault or domestic violence, according to the agency. Deportation officers also apprehended 52 illegal migrants charged or convicted of illicit narcotics offenses such as drug trafficking or possession of a controlled substance, 34 illegal migrants charged or convicted of a sex offense or child sex offense such as aggravated sexual assault of a minor, possession of child pornography or rape, and numerous other illegal migrants allegedly involved in heinous crimes were apprehended.

The agency added that documented gang members and human smugglers were among those arrested, marking a victory in U.S. law enforcement’s war on organized crime.

The Houston sweep is the latest in the Trump administration’s aim in conducting the largest deportation operation in the country’s history. Since resuming power, the Trump White House has issued a series of directives and administrative orders aimed at helping ICE agents locate, apprehend and repatriate illegal migrants, particularly those with storied criminal histories.

The administration is already far exceeding the Biden White House’s pace of ICE arrests. Federal immigration authorities arrested more than 20,000 illegal migrants during Trump’s first month in office, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed.

President Donald Trump issued several executive orders on his first day in the Oval Office, including an emergency declaration at the southern border allowing for the use of military resources to help stem the illegal immigration crisis. The administration also made so-called “sensitive locations” fair game for ICE agents, giving them far more freedom to conduct enforcement actions, and marshaled the resources of nearly every other federal agency to help in immigration enforcement.

The latter directive was on display during the Houston operation, with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies assisting ICE, according to the agency.

“In just one week working alongside our counterparts from federal, state and local law enforcement, ICE HSI special agents successfully executed 71 criminal arrest warrants and made 554 administrative arrests that included illegally present human smugglers, gang members, human traffickers, child sex offenders, drug traffickers and weapons traffickers,” ICE Homeland Security Investigations Houston Special Agent in Charge Chad Plantz said in a statement.

“These collective efforts have made our local communities significantly safer and strengthened our national security and border security,” Plantz continued.

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