As the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continued on its mission to protect the US from cross-border illegal immigration and crime threatening both public safety and national security, it says that Caribbean citizens were among the sizeable number of undocumented immigrants apprehended during 2016.
In the agency’s ‘year in review’ report, ICE offers a look at the everyday work of its Management and Administration, Enforcement and Removals Operations, and Homeland Security Investigations divisions. In March, a five-week operation, ‘Project Shadow Fire’ saw the arrest of 1133 undocumented immigrants, including many from the Caribbean. The agency says that the sweep targeted over 900 transnational members of criminal gangs as well as others involved in a transnational crime, such as human smuggling, racketeering, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and murder.
Nationals from as many as 13 nations in Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe were arrested during the operation, ICE says, with 1001 charged with criminal offenses and 132 apprehended for immigration violations. Operation Community Shield conducted the ‘surge operation’.
In June, another 330 immigrants were arrested as part of an operation lasting a month and targeting immigration violators and criminal immigrants in six Midwest states. 100 immigrants were arrested in July in Los Angeles, with 58 taken into custody in New York, in August. ICE says that its people work together to carry out their mission with courage, excellence, and integrity.