Federal immigration officials discuss 1,461 arrests in monthlong Massachusetts crackdown

By Peter Eliopoulos, Phil Tenser

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    BOSTON, Massachusetts (WCVB) — High-ranking federal law enforcement officials gathered in Boston to present the results of an “immigration enforcement surge” in Massachusetts.

Patricia Hyde, field director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in Boston, said the surge led to the arrests of 1,461 people who are not lawfully present. Of those, 277 faced removal orders issued by an immigration judge.

“Every person we arrested was breaking our immigration laws, but most of these individuals — 790, to be exact — had significant criminality as well,” said Hyde.

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said “well over 50” of the foreign nationals apprehended were previously deported and reentered the country.

“These are not immigrants, they are criminals and they will be treated as such,” said Foley.

“Hundreds of braves, officers and agents risked their lives every day here in the Commonwealth to remove dangerous criminals from Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lowell, Lawrence, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and several other communities across the Commonwealth. (A) significant amount of the criminal aliens that were arrested by the teams were drug traffickers, sex offenders, murderers and foreign fugitives trying to evade justice in their home countries,” said Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Throughout May, ICE agents were involved in several high-profile and controversial actions throughout the state. Most recently, there was the arrest of an 18-year-old high school student.

Hyde and Lyons said Monday that the student was not the target of their enforcement, but his father was, and the student was driving his father’s car.

“We’re looking for his father. So obviously he isn’t father of the year, because he brought his son up here illegally as well,” Lyons said.

“He’s 18 years old. He’s unlawfully in this country. And, unfortunately, we had to go to Milford to look for someone else and we came across him and he was arrested,” said Hyde.

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