The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) have landed in Chicago with both feet. They're rounding up illegal alien criminals, at least one of whom is a convicted murderer, that the state of Illinois let out on the street, costing ICE another three days to find him.
DHS and ICE are finding them, though.
The Department of Homeland Security ramped up its Chicagoland operations Tuesday, as ICE’s Operation Midway Blitz was met by resources from Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino’s Operation At-Large utilized in Los Angeles in August.
"Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived," Bovino said in captioning a video taken from vehicles rolling northbound on the Barack Obama Expressway (I-55) toward the Windy City.
"Operation At-Large is here to continue the mission we started in Los Angeles—to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens," Bovino wrote.
"We are already going hard this morning!!! Many arrests," he told Fox News.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on hand, overseeing an operation in Elgin, Illinois, an exurb of the Chicago area.
Border Patrol sources told Fox News that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also arrived in the Land of Lincoln, overseeing a morning operation in the exurb of Elgin, Illinois.
A tactical team served a felony arrest warrant for illegal re-entry in one case, with sources saying that a roadblock led to the feds making an "explosive" entry into a home.
Chicago's hapless Mayor Brandon Johnson is surely unhappy, as is the state's Governor JB Pritzker, who is rumored to be considering a 2028 presidential run, as though he were capable of running anywhere.
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But here's the big bust, and the one that best illustrates the problem of dealing with "sanctuary" jurisdictions:
ICE also arrested a violent gang member found guilty of murder charges after a maximum security prison outside Chicago declined to honor a federal detainer.
Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, Illinois, released Aldo Salazar Bahena in line with Illinois sanctuary policies, and it took three days for ICE to find and arrest him themselves.
Salazar Bahena had been locked up for about 20 years but was released despite a 2016 order of removal signed by an immigration judge from the Justice Department.
I'm having a hard time seeing how this isn't an obstruction of federal authorities in the conduct of their duties. This goblin, and let's remember, he is a convicted murderer, had a legal order of removal from a federal immigration judge. He was, in other words, to be removed the moment he got out of the slammer. Instead, the state of Illinois tossed him out onto the street. This required ICE agents to spend three days chasing this guy down, three days in which he may well have obtained (illegally) any kind of weapon, in which he may have presented a serious threat to citizens and to any law enforcement he encountered. Illinois could have simply notified ICE and handed him off while he was still under the control of the Department of Corrections; instead, they subjected the people of Illinois and federal immigration officers to any number of possible dangers from this guy.
But catch him they did, and he's going to be sent back to where he belongs: Mexico. Much good may it do him.
And, yes, this is still what we voted for.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left's lies, new legislation wasn't needed to secure our border, just a new president.
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