Anti-gang crackdown nets 1,378 arrests

Immigration officials say operation is largest in ICE history

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday that its investigative branch has arrested 1,378 people across the U.S. 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 May 6, led by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, which focuses on combating gangs and other criminal activity in the U.S. and overseas.

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

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 City, Atlanta and Newark, N.J., areas.

“Let me be clear that these violent criminal street gangs are the biggest threat facing our communities,” Mr. 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 U.S. without permission, and will be processed for deportation, officials said. Of them, 112 are gang affiliates, meaning that ICE had verifiable information that the person was associated with a gang. Sixty-two had no gang ties, officials said.

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.