U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has just announced the huge success of a massive operation targeting “egregious criminal alien offenders” in a so-called “sanctuary city.”
During raids in Massachusetts, ICE made almost 400 arrests.
Those arrests included over 200 apprehensions of illegal aliens who had serious criminal convictions or charges.
In a press release, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde said:
“The Commonwealth is a safer place for our residents to live and work because ICE and our federal law enforcement partners arrested hundreds of alien offenders and removed them from the streets of Massachusetts.”
The operation, which took place between March 18 and March 23, netted the arrests of 370 illegal immigrants in the Boston area.
Among those arrests, 205 of the illegal aliens had “significant criminal convictions or charges,” the release noted.
Six of the foreign criminals were wanted on “charges or convictions for murder, drug trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering.”
The six-day operation targeted “egregious criminal alien offenders,” the release notes.
The targets for the raids included members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs who were operating “in and around Boston.”
The raids came despite Boston’s status as one of several so-called “sanctuary” cities across the country.
“Sanctuary” jurisdictions prohibit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Boston’s Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu has doubled down on those policies in recent days.
During her State of the City address last week, the far-left mayor vowed to continue protecting illegal aliens in Boston.
“No one tells Boston how to take care of our own, not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings. Boston was born facing down bullies,” she said.
“You belong here,” she told illegal aliens and foreign criminals.
ICE agents were joined by personnel from several other federal agencies, including the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, and DSS.
In the release, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division Jodi Cohen said:
“Safeguarding the integrity of the immigration and citizenship process is critical.
“We simply can’t permit violent and dangerous criminals to enter or remain in the United States under false pretenses, with unknown allegiances and intentions.
“It’s a direct threat to public safety and our national security.”
Those arrested in the operation included a Dominican alien who illegally re-entered the U.S. after previously being charged with trafficking deadly fentanyl, a Chilean pedophile convicted on four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, and a convicted child rapist from Honduras.
During the “sanctuary city” raids, federal authorities also seized roughly 44 kilograms of methamphetamines, five kilograms of fentanyl, and 1.2 kilograms of cocaine.
“ICE and our federal law enforcement partners are committed to protecting the homeland through the eradication of transnational criminal organizations, dismantling dangerous criminal gangs preying on the American public, locating and arresting criminal alien offenders, and making our communities a safer place to live,” Hyde said.
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