The promised war against illegal-alien gangs, rapists, and murderers has begun.
On Sunday alone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested almost 1,000 of the alien miscreants and filed almost 600 detainers with state and local authorities.
As well, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided a nightclub in Denver, Colorado, and arrested dozens of members of Tren de Aragua (TdA), the Venezuelan terror gang that the Biden administration permitted to establish a beachhead in major U.S. cities.
The nearly 1,000 arrests add to some 1,300 since President Donald Trump took office just seven days ago.
The Arrests
The number and speed of arrests demonstrates just how much help the Biden administration offered illegal-alien criminals in entering the country and hiding in plain sight.
ICE bagged 956 criminals on Sunday, pursuant to another 1,300 before that. Total: 2,300.
Those criminals would still be at large had Vice President Kamala Harris defeated Trump.
“The number of arrests in the first three days of Trump’s presidency represents about 1.1% of total arrests made by ICE in FY 2024,” NewsNation reported:
Then, there were about 310 average daily arrests. That average is now about 433 per day — a number that will likely grow.
Border czar Tom Homan visited Chicago, where agents also arrested TdA members.
Homan told NewsNation’s Ali Bradley that agents arrested “’multiple public safety threats’ … including convicted murderers, #TdA members and sex offenders,” she wrote on X. Agents arrested five TdA members, she said.
Meanwhile, the Rocky Mountain Division of DEA has been busy as well.
It raided a “makeshift nightclub” at which it found dozens of TdA members.
Drugs and Guns
Some 100 local and federal agents “seized drugs — including cocaine, crack cocaine, and pink cocaine — known on the street as “’tusi,’” DEA reported. “Several weapons were seized on premises, as well as a large amount of US currency.” The agency continued:
49 individuals were inside the location at the time the warrant was executed. ICE determined at least 41 were in the United States illegally.
The DEA began the raid at 9 p.m. on Saturday, the Denver Post reported, citing an agency spokesman. The arrests began at 5 a.m.
Rocky Mountain DEA posted video of the arrests and a bus that took the illegal-alien thugs away.
In a characteristically negative story, The Washington Post reported that Trump is upset about the low numbers. ICE agents now have a quota of 1,200 to 1,500 arrests daily, the Post said.
“The quotas were outlined Saturday in a call with senior ICE officials, who were told that each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets,” the Post claimed, citing four anonymous sources.
Major Threat
In an interview broadcast on Sunday, acting ICE Director Homan explained to ABC’s far-left hostess Martha Raddatz that entering the country illegally is a crime.
Noting that Trump’s deployment of GIs and Marines to the border is a “force multiplier” to close it, notably by erecting concertina wire, Homan told the open-borders, hate-Trump Raddatz that ICE is “concentrating on public safety threats, national security threats.”
But as more and more of those criminals are removed, the “aperture” will open for illegals who jumped the border for jobs and welfare. As The New American has repeatedly reported, most asylum claims are bogus. So-called asylees come to the United States for jobs and free stuff. A study from UCLA found that 99 percent of asylum claims are invalid.
Homan’s explanation perturbed Raddatz, who worried about ICE going after “everybody who’s there illegally” once the agency deports all the criminals.
It’s a Crime
As he has so many other times during interviews with mulish, leftist reporters, Homan had to explain the law:
Every time you enter this country illegally you violate … Title 8 United States code 1325. It’s a crime. So, if you’re in the country illegally you’ve got a problem. And that’s why I’m hoping those who are in the country illegally who have not been ordered removed by the federal judge should leave.
Raddatz pressed ahead.
You have said no one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, you should be looking over your shoulder, you should be afraid and start packing now. Is that what you’re doing to get hotel workers out or people working on farms that they’ll be so scared they just leave?
Said Homan:
If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. It’s not OK to violate the laws of this country. We have millions of people standing in line, taking the test, doing their background investigation, paying the fees, that want to come in the right way.
Raddatz also fretted that an illegal not convicted of or charged with a crime might get caught with the convicted criminals.
Homan explained that sanctuary cities release illegal-alien criminals, which requires ICE to fan out into the community to arrest them. That means so-called innocent illegals will be arrested because illegal-alien criminals hang out with other illegals.
As for TdA, the Biden administration caught and released its members at the border. Those included Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan thug who raped and murdered nursing student Laken Riley. Biden caught and released his two brothers, as well.
TdA has established gang territory in El Paso, Texas; Aurora, Colorado; Chicago; and New York City.
Terrorist Organizations
In one of his first executive orders, President Trump declared south-of-the-border drug cartels, along with TdA and the murderous Salvadoran MS-13 gang, as terrorist organizations.
The designation upset reporters at The New York Times, which claimed that the designation “could hurt the U.S. economy.”
The Times did not quote one individual who supported the designation.
At the Republican National Convention, Homan warned that the designation was forthcoming. The days of the cartels operating with impunity at the Southwest border would soon end, he said.
“When President Trump gets back in office, he’s going to designate you a terrorist organization, and he’s going to wipe you off the face of the earth,” Homan vowed. “You’re done. You’re done.”
