Nearly 200 people were arrested in the Los Angeles area by federal immigration agents in a dragnet that lasted five days and was targeted at criminal undocumented immigrants, according to US officials on Thursday.
A total of 188 people were arrested by agents in the operation, which was aimed at criminal aliens who were still at large, immigration fugitives and those who have illegally re-entered the United States after having already been deported, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.
Of those arrested during the operation, which came to an end on Wednesday, 169 – 90 percent – had previous convictions, according to officials. Those taken into custody include foreign nationals from 11 different countries, with most coming from Mexico, but some also from the likes of El Salvador, Honduras, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Armenia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Among those arrested were a 26-year-old registered sex offender from El Salvador, a 52-year-old convicted Mexican drug trafficker already deported from the United States on a previous occasion, a 47-year-old Mexican with previous convictions for battery and felony assault, and a 29-year-old convicted rapist who had also previously been deported, again from El Salvador.
Other undocumented immigrants arrested in the operation had convictions for domestic violence, sex crimes, weapons violations, burglary, arson, robbery, property damage, manslaughter, trespassing, receipt of stolen property, and more, the ICE claimed.
ICE LA Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Office Director David Marin said that communities have been made safer for everyone by taking such people off the streets.