ICE’s anti-gang crackdown largest in agency history

Agents arrest 1,378 in operation that included Atlanta.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday that its investigative branch has arrested 1,378 people across the United States in recent weeks in what officials called the largest antigang crackdown in the agency’s history.

More than two-thirds of the people arrested are U.S. citizens, and all but two of those were born in this country, ICE officials said.

The arrests were part of a six-week initiative, from March 26 to Saturday, led by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, which focuses on combating gangs and other criminal activity in the United States and overseas.

Unlike the agency’s immigration section, HSI has broad powers to enforce hundreds of federal laws on crimes like child exploitation, human smuggling, and drug and weapons trafficking. Its agents routinely arrest U.S. citizens.

Federal officials released the names of only four of the people arrested in the operation, which the agency dubbed Project New Dawn. ICE said it worked with San Antonio police to arrest Gilbert Vasquez III, an alleged associate of the Tango Orejon Gang, on April 5. A search of the house where Vasquez was arrested turned up cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, four handguns and over $48,000 in cash, officials said. Three others were arrested at the house, including Brent Reum, an alleged member of the same gang.

Olufemi Odeyemi and Brenda Jackson were arrested on April 7 in New Jersey in connection with possession and distribution of heroin, ICE officials said.

ICE acting director Thomas Homan and Derek Benner, deputy executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations, said a total of 1,098 people were arrested on criminal charges as part of the operation. Half were federal offenses. The rest involved state crimes investigated in cooperation with local police, mainly in the Houston, New York, Atlanta and Newark areas.

“Let me be clear that these violent criminal street gangs are the biggest threat facing our communities,” Homan said. “We are not done.”

Of the people arrested on criminal charges, 21 face “murder-related” allegations, and seven were arrested on charges of rape and sexual assault.

Another 280 people face prosecution for alleged civil immigration violations, meaning they were in the United States without permission, and will be processed for deportation, officials said. Of them, 112 are gang affiliates, meaning that ICE had verifiable information that thy were associated with gangs. Sixty-two had no gang ties, officials said.

ICE classifies people as gang members if they admit gang membership or violate federal or state anti-gang laws, or if they meet other criteria “such as having tattoos identifying a specific gang or being identified as a gang member by a reliable source.”

Nationwide, the biggest gangs targeted were the Bloods, Sureños, the Crips and MS-13, an international gang with thousands of members in El Salvador, its command center.