Two nabbed in Glendale as part of larger Southland immigration raid
A five-day operation conducted by immigration officials this week resulted in almost 200 arrests in the Los Angeles area, with two in Glendale, according to authorities.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 188 people in an operation targeting “at-large criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants and immigration fugitives,” the agency said in a statement on Thursday. The crackdown took place in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Roughly 90% of them — 169 — had prior criminal convictions, including 43 for drug offenses, 27 for domestic violence and seven for weapons violations.
The immigration agency said 146 of those arrested were Mexican nationals, while the rest hailed from El Salvador, Guatemala, Armenia, Honduras, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Yugoslavia and Cambodia.
In Glendale, a 44-year-old woman from Thailand and a 38-year-old man from Mexico were picked up by federal agents, according to ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.
The man had a prior conviction for driving while under the influence, while the woman was previously convicted of marijuana smuggling.
Neither had been previously deported or received deportation orders in the past, Kice said.
“It’ll be up to a judge to decide whether or not they’ll be allowed to remain in the U.S.,” she said.
In addition to the two in Glendale, others arrested included a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who was previously deported in 2014 after serving a nine-year prison sentence for rape. Another was a previously deported 51-year-old Mexican national who served a three-year sentence for trafficking cocaine.
Immigration arrests since the beginning of the year have risen almost 40% nationwide compared to the same period in 2016.
While immigration laws have not changed, Kice said President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration enforcement, which was signed in January, has broadened the way federal officials can enforce the law.
She also said enforcement operations such as this week’s arrests are fairly routine and that ICE conducts two to three of them a year.
Twitter: @Andy_Truc
