In the early days of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out a series of enforcement actions, arresting over 460 individuals unlawfully present in the United States.
Among those detained were individuals with criminal records for offenses such as sexual assault, domestic violence, drug trafficking, and weapons-related crimes.
Fox News reported that data obtained by revealed that within a 33-hour window, spanning from midnight on January 21 to 9 a.m. on January 22, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations arrested more than 460 non-citizens.
The charges against them ranged from sexual assault and robbery to aggravated assault, burglary, domestic violence, and drug and weapon offenses.
The arrests included nationals from a diverse array of countries, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Senegal, and Venezuela.
These operations were conducted across several states, including Illinois, Utah, California, Minnesota, New York, Florida, and Maryland.
Additionally, ICE issued over 420 detainers, which are formal requests to notify the agency when specific individuals are released from custody.
These detainers were issued for nationals involved in crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, robbery, sexual assault, and battery.
Several notable arrests include:
Jesus Perez, a Mexican national arrested in Salt Lake City, charged with aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Franklin Osorto-Cruz, a Honduran national convicted of driving while intoxicated, apprehended in New York.
Kamaro Denver Haye, a Jamaican national arrested on charges of promoting a sexual performance by a minor under 17 and possessing explicit material involving a minor under 16.
Jesus Baltazar Mendoza, a Mexican national with a conviction for second-degree assault of a child, taken into custody in St. Paul.
Andres Orjuela Parra, a Colombian national convicted of sexual penetration with a foreign object on an unconscious victim, arrested in San Francisco.
In Miami, six Guatemalan nationals were detained, with criminal records including child abuse, battery, fraud, trespassing, vandalism, driving while intoxicated, and resisting arrest.
Meanwhile, in Boston, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin covered operations where agents apprehended multiple MS-13 gang members, suspects wanted by Interpol on Red Notices, and individuals accused of murder and rape.
These arrests come as the Trump administration accelerates efforts to implement a large-scale deportation strategy aimed at prioritizing threats to public safety.
A flurry of executive orders by President Trump and policy changes by the Department of Homeland Security have paved the way for these operations.
On Wednesday, DHS removed restrictions on expedited removals and rescinded a Biden-era directive limiting ICE’s enforcement capabilities. ICE’s former acting director, Tom Homan, told “America’s Newsroom” that enforcement teams were given clear instructions to prioritize threats to public safety.
“We gave them direction to prioritize public safety threats that we’re looking for. We’ve been working up the target list,” Homan said. “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. 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.”
