This is a nice sweep, but so much more needs to be done. I do like the special touch of focusing on the scourge of Sanctuary Cities, a nice reminder to these jurisdictions about how serious the federal government is about taking care of business.
Immigration officials on Thursday announced hundreds of arrests in an operation targeting communities where police and elected officials have refused to fully cooperate on enforcing federal immigration laws.
ICE said it arrested 167 people in and around Los Angeles, a region in which several cities and counties have been tagged by justice officials as being so-called sanctuaries — a loosely defined term used to describe local governments that restrict police from assisting immigration authorities in identifying and detaining people suspected of being in the country illegally.
Arrests were also made in San Francisco and San Jose. Overall, ICE said it arrested nearly 500 people across the country over the last few days.
The surge of arrests was similar in size to several past operations ICE has carried out in recent years. But the focus on places deemed by justice officials to be soft on illegal immigration served to ratchet up an already tense standoff…
As in past operations, ICE officials said they primarily went after people with criminal pasts and said participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, DACA, were not targeted.
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.
