If you want something done right, do it yourself.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) carried out a nationwide sweep of sanctuary cities, arresting nearly 450 illegal aliens with additional criminal charges or known gang affiliation without the help of local authorities.
Illegal immigrants with criminal charges or known gang-affiliations were targeted, the release said, noting that recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program were not.
In Philadelphia, 107 illegal immigrants were arrested, while 101 were arrested in Los Angeles and 45 people were arrested in New York.
The release noted that 18 of the 498 people arrested were gang members or have gang affiliations.
A Mexican illegal immigrant in Los Angeles who was arrested is a member of the Colonia Chiques gang, a group dubbed one of the “largest and deadliest gangs” in southern California’s Ventura County by the FBI.
That immigrant, who was found with a handgun, allegedly rammed a number of law enforcement vehicles in an attempt to escape from authorities.
Sanctuary cities – or cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration policy – have become a heated topic as the Trump administration has pushed for a stronger crackdown on illegal immigration.
Even though ICE has said arrests of illegal immigrants are up 43 percent since this time last year, deportation numbers are down, according to The Washington Post.
This is taking the war directly to the enemy, as the acting director of ICE explained.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions that do not honor detainers or allow us access to jails and prisons are shielding criminal aliens from immigration enforcement and creating a magnet for illegal immigration,” said ICE Acting Director Tom Homan in a statement announcing the arrests. “As a result, ICE is forced to dedicate more resources to conduct at-large arrests in these communities.”
According to the ICE press release, more than 300 of the illegals who were detained had criminal convictions:
All told, more than 300 of those arrested had criminal convictions, according to figures released by ICE. Nearly 90 of those people had been convicted of drunk driving, the most common offense.
In a press release, ICE highlighted the most serious criminals caught. It described the arrest of a Colonia Chiques gang member in Los Angeles as part of the raid, saying he “rammed multiple law enforcement vehicles in an effort to evade arrest” and was found with a loaded handgun.
Talia Inlender, a senior staff attorney at Public Counsel, which advocates for immigrants, criticized the focus on sanctuary cities.
“It’s clearly a political move that is not actually geared toward public safety,” she said.
Getting a couple of hundred drunk drivers off the roads doesn’t contribute to public safety? Guess again.
It is unfathomable that cities would resist getting illegal aliens committing additional crimes off the streets. How can they possibly defend their position or criticize ICE? It shows just how warped the thinking of sanctuary city politicians has become, where they defend gang-bangers against the lawful federal authority trying to remove them from the country.
