By The Signal Editorial Board
There has been a lot of panic in California, Los Angeles and the Santa Clarita Valley over the past week.
Rumors about people being “kidnapped,” taken from their homes and jobs. Being grabbed by federal law enforcement while picking kids up from school. Nannies and gardeners, snatched right from the homes where they work. Construction workers, grabbed in the midst of swinging a hammer.
Strawberry pickers, plucked from the fields.
Such rumors gathered steam in the SCV this week when a local social media “news” site posted pictures of black SUVs, saying it had received “reports” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting “raids” and arresting people in locations throughout the SCV. A level of hysteria ensued. People became fearful and started panicking and not showing up for work.
But the rumors were false. ICE was not conducting immigration sweeps in the SCV and the SUVs were not from ICE. The closest thing to an “operation” by a law enforcement agency, according to the SCV Sheriff’s Station, was a county agency conducting probation compliance checks.
ICE is conducting immigration arrests, but its agents are going after specific individuals for whom they have warrants. These are illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, then were arrested and released. If you try to stop ICE agents from doing their job or interfere, they will arrest you as well, but if you are legally allowed to be in this country, and don’t have any warrants, you do not have to worry.
A lot has been said about ICE going into the garment industry, graduations and workplaces, “sweeping” for illegal immigrants. But this is false. They, again, are serving criminal warrants on individuals who are here illegally. For instance, in the garment industry operation cited by critics of ICE, agents were serving a warrant on a business in connection with a reported $80 million money laundering and tax avoidance scheme benefiting criminal cartels.
As for the other arrests ICE made before riots erupted in L.A. last weekend, the agency’s operations had netted the arrest of 118 illegal aliens, including five gang members, and many with prior criminal histories of drug trafficking, assault, cruelty to children, domestic violence, robbery and human smuggling.
In other words, contrary to the inflammatory, hyperbolic rhetoric from the likes of Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass — two peas in a pea-brained pod — ICE isn’t rolling up on random homes or businesses and “abducting” people who, other than being here illegally, have done nothing wrong.
There are many more, but the following batch of arrestees were among the first ICE reported on from the L.A. operations that occurred prior to the onset of civil unrest:
• Cuong Chanh Phan, a 49-year-old illegal alien from Vietnam. His criminal history includes a conviction for second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life.
• Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, a 55-year-old illegal alien from the Philippines. His criminal history includes burglary in Ontario, and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force and assault with intent to commit rape in Pomona.
• Lionel Sanchez-Laguna, a 55-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. His criminal history in Orange includes discharging a firearm at an inhabited dwelling and vehicle; battery on spouse or cohabitant; willful cruelty to child; DUI; assault with semiautomatic firearm; and personal use of a firearm.
• Armando Ordaz, a 44-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. Ordaz’s criminal history includes sexual battery in L.A., with a sentence of 135 days of jail and five years of probation, receiving known or stolen property in Norwalk, with a sentence of 90 days in jail and three years of probation, and petty theft in L.A., with a sentence of 365 days in jail and four years of probation.
• Francisco Sanchez-Arguello, a 38-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. Sanchez-Arguello’s criminal history includes arrests for grand theft larceny and possession of a prohibited weapon.
• Jose Gregorio Medranda Ortiz, a 42-year-old illegal alien from Ecuador. Medranda Ortiz’s criminal history includes conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more cocaine while on board a vessel in Tampa, Florida, with a sentence of 135 months in prison.
• Victor Mendoza-Aguilar, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. His criminal history in Pasadena includes a conviction for possessing unlawful paraphernalia; possessing controlled substances; assault with a deadly weapon: not firearm; and obstructing a public officer.
• Delfino Aguilar-Martinez, a 51-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. His history includes assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury in L.A., with a sentence of 365 days in jail.
• Jose Cristobal Hernandez-Buitron, a 43-year-old illegal alien from Peru. His criminal history includes a conviction for robbery that resulted in a 10-year sentence.
• Jordan Mauricio Meza-Esquibel, 32-year-old illegal alien from Honduras. Meza-Esquibel’s criminal history includes arrests for distribution of heroin and cocaine and domestic violence.
• Jesus Alan Hernandez-Morales, a 26-year-old illegal alien from Mexico. His history includes conspiracy to transport an illegal alien in New Mexico, with a sentence of 239 days in jail.
There are many more, and you can find them at dhs.gov because you won’t find them in most mainstream media, which ignores them. But you get the idea: These are not innocent housekeepers, construction workers or strawberry pickers. They are violent criminals who have been protected by the “sanctuary” policies of California and L.A. that put the interests of violent illegal immigrant criminals over public safety.
If state and local authorities held these criminals for ICE to arrest and deport, ICE would not have to go into communities to arrest them. But, the city and state just release them, forcing ICE to find them and arrest them. Inevitably, when they do that, other illegal immigrants will be picked up in the process.
No matter how much Newsom, Bass, California Democrats and their mass media accomplices want you to believe ICE is going to those places at random, it’s just not true.
The federal government is responsible for enforcing immigration law. It’s a responsibility that was shirked for the four years of the Joe Biden administration. Sanctuary city and state policies are, in effect, local and state governments deciding, in a calculated way, to obstruct justice. In doing so, they cause panic, fear and civil disturbances.
We thank ICE for doing its job — taking illegal immigrants who are violent criminals off the streets, and protecting the public. Someone should do it. Because Newsom, Bass and Co. will not.
