LOS ANGELES (KTLA/CNN) - Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested nearly 200 people in Southern California in an operation that started Saturday and lasted five days.
ICE officials said the effort focused on at-large criminals, illegal re-entrants, and immigration fugitives considered threats to public safety.
"Law enforcement agencies here in California, if they write somebody a ticket, ICE isn't notified about that, so we wouldn't know about those individuals. The individuals that we do find out about, again, are booked into a law enforcement facility, fingerprints taken,” said David Marin, an ICE field office director.
He said the LAPD was not involved.
He said there are differences in enforcement under the Trump administration compared to that of former President Barack Obama’s.
"Well, in the previous administration, there were groups of individuals, categories of peoples - so to speak - that we weren't allowed to target, weren't allowed to apprehend. With the new administration, anybody that's in violation of the new immigration laws, current immigration laws, are subject to arrest,” he said.
According to ICE, nearly 90 percent of those arrested had prior criminal convictions, with the largest portion having drug offenses. Eight people face federal prosecution for returning to the U.S. illegally after being deported.
Eleven women were among the 188. And the large majority of those in custody are from Mexico.
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