Federal immigration authorities last month arrested 11 illegal migrants allegedly involved in human rights violations abroad who were hiding out in the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehended the foreign nationals, hailing from all corners of the globe, in a nationwide sweep from June 10 to June 14, according to a press release from the agency. The sweep, conducted by the agency’s National Fugitive Operations Program, apprehended illegal immigrants accused of various human rights abuses abroad, such as extrajudicial killings, rape, forced abortions, religious persecution and other crimes.
“These individuals fraudulently entered the United States in an attempt to escape justice in their home countries,” Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Daniel Bible stated in the press release.
“Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor and the men and women of Enforcement and Removal Operations who made the arrests, our communities are safer and 11 known or suspected human rights violators will not receive safe haven in the U.S.,” Bible continued.
The nationwide sweep included ICE offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, New York, Phoenix, Seattle, San Francisco and St. Paul in order to identify and apprehend the illegal immigrants, according to the press release.
Among those arrested are three Central Americans implicated in human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances; three Africans implicated in extrajudicial killings, rape and recruiting child soldiers; one individual from Asia who admitted to targeting females for forced abortions and sterilizations; two individuals from the Caucasus who admitted to persecution of religious minorities and organizing violence against political opposition groups; and two former members of paramilitary groups from Asia and the Caribbean, according to ICE.
Every foreign national arrested in the operation has outstanding final orders of removal and is subject to deportation to their home countries, the agency said.
The nationwide sweep of suspected human rights violators follows a high-profile crackdown on suspected terrorists across the U.S. earlier this month.
ICE agents, working in conjunction with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, apprehended numerous Tajik nationals suspected of having ties to ISIS in a sting operation that spanned New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
“As the FBI and DHS have recently described in public and partner bulletins, the U.S. has been in a heightened threat environment,” read a joint statement from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as news of the sweep broke. “The FBI and DHS will continue working around the clock with our partners to identify, investigate, and disrupt potential threats to national security.”
The ongoing immigration crisis has led to a sharp increase in individuals on the terror watch list arriving at U.S. borders, with the number of suspected terrorists entering illegally into the U.S. spiking over 2,500% since the Trump administration, according to the federal immigration data released in May.
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