Hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested in the United States on Thursday, and hundreds more were flown out of the country on military planes as President Trump’s promised mass deportation operation began, the White House announced.
In a post on X Thursday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “The Trump Administration arrested 538 illegal immigrant criminals, including a suspected terrorist, four members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and several illegals convicted of sex crimes against minors.”
Tren de Aragua is a violent gang that started in Venezuela and has now spread to the United States. It became a flashpoint during the presidential campaign.
According to documentation provided by a senior administration official, the 538 arrests included 373 people with criminal records and 165 people without criminal records, excluding immigration violations. According to the records, another 1,041 people were either removed or repatriated.
Arrests included a 23-year-old Ecuadorian citizen convicted of rape. He was arrested in Buffalo. Another arrest in Buffalo involved a Dominican man who had previously been convicted of continuous sexual conduct against a child.
In San Francisco, ICE apprehended a man convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child aged 14 or younger and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Meanwhile, a defense official stated that there had been two flights overnight. Both visited Guatemala, according to two sources. A Guatemalan migration official stated that three flights have arrived: A flight from El Paso carrying 80 people arrived early Friday morning.
Another flight from Tucson, carrying 80 people, arrived around 7 a.m., followed by a third flight from El Paso, carrying approximately 105 people, on Friday afternoon.
According to Leavitt, “the Trump administration also deported hundreds of illegal immigrant criminals via military aircraft.” The largest massive deportation operation in history is already underway.”
President Trump was questioned about the flights after landing in Asheville, North Carolina, where he was surveying the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene late last year. He told reporters, “Deportation is going extremely well. “We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out.”
He continued, “These are people who have been as bad as you can get, as bad as anyone you’ve ever seen. “We’re taking them out first.” The Trump administration has not released any additional criminal information about those on the deportation flights.
Three officials say the plan to use military aircraft for deportation flights was approved by the Trump administration, not the Biden administration.
The flights are part of the actions announced by the acting secretary of defense on Wednesday in response to President Trump’s executive order directing the US military to increase its presence at the southern border.
Mr. Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigration during the campaign and began his second term this week with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling the United States’ immigration system.
There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Many have lived in the country for many years.
On Thursday, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, said in a statement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “raided a local establishment… detaining undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant.”
According to Baraka, one of those detained during the raid was a United States military veteran.
