Arrests were made in Philadelphia, Newark, Boston, and Los Angeles.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers carried out arrests in a number of sanctuary cities across the United States, including arrests of individuals convicted on rape and kidnapping charges, according to an announcement Monday.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that ICE has “successfully detained dangerous criminal illegal aliens in Sanctuary jurisdictions,” referring to cities and municipalities that have laws limiting local cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“No American wants criminal illegal aliens loose on America’s streets and neither should our leaders who represent them,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.
DHS did not provide an exact figure on how many people were arrested or a timeline but said that enforcement efforts were carried out in the cities of Philadelphia and Newark, and in the states of Massachusetts and California.
In its news release, DHS provided multiple examples of people who were arrested, including an MS-13 gang member and illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had been arrested in Massachusetts for the unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Others included illegal immigrants who were convicted on a variety of charges in Philadelphia, Newark, and Los Angeles, the agency said.
The Epoch Times contacted DHS for comment on how many were arrested.
A separate news release issued by DHS on Monday singled out Massachusetts, which it described as a “sanctuary state”—one that limits cooperation with or goes against federal immigration enforcement—including details on several individuals with prior criminal convictions who were detained by ICE.
“The targets of this operation in Massachusetts included criminal illegal aliens charged with soliciting to commit murder, assault and battery on a pregnant woman, assault and battery on law enforcement, and indecent assault on a 7-year-old,” McLaughlin said in the statement.
Since winning office in January, President Donald Trump has been carrying out a wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop and reverse what he calls an invasion of the United States encouraged by lax immigration enforcement in previous years.
