US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that its\u00a0Harlingen, Texas, field office, working with law enforcement partners, arrested 238 illegal immigrants in a single-day operation that the agency said set a record for targeted arrests in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n
ICE said the arrests marked the highest number of targeted arrests in a single day for Enforcement and Removal Operations in Harlingen.<\/p>\n
The June 18 operation resulted in the arrests of\u00a0illegal immigrants with convictions including\u00a0attempted kidnapping, sexual battery and drug possession, according to the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ICE mission continues to focus on enhancing public safety and restoring integrity to our nation\u2019s immigration system,\u201d ICE Harlingen Field Office Director Juan Agudelo said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will stop at nothing to keep our American communities safe by removing one criminal illegal alien at a time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
ICE\u2019s Rio Grande Valley field office in Harlingen arrested 238 illegal immigrants in a single day, including convicted gang members and violent offenders.<\/p>\n
The arrests come as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on illegal immigration and seeks to\u00a0remove criminal illegal immigrants\u00a0from communities across the country.<\/p>\n
Among those arrested was Manuel Morales-Geronimo, a Mexican national whom authorities identified as a\u00a0Paisas gang member.<\/p>\n
Morales-Geronimo was previously convicted of assault causing bodily injury, possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, driving while intoxicated, illegal entry into the United States and three counts of illegal reentry, according to ICE.<\/p>\n
ICE said the arrests marked the highest number of targeted arrests in a single day for Enforcement and Removal Operations in Harlingen. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/p>\n
The June 18 operation resulted in the arrests of\u00a0illegal immigrants with convictions including\u00a0attempted kidnapping, sexual battery and drug possession, according to the agency. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/p>\n
Jose Alfredo Castillo-Mendoza, also a Mexican national, was arrested during the operation. According to ICE, he was previously convicted of attempted kidnapping, sexual battery and illegal reentry.<\/p>\n
The announcement came the same day President Donald Trump pushed back on a reported\u00a0DHS move to pause\u00a0most ICE traffic stops, calling them \u201cone of ICE\u2019s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reported pause followed scrutiny over recent fatal encounters involving immigration enforcement traffic stops.<\/p>\n
In a social media post, Trump wrote, \u201cWe CANNOT give up one of ICE\u2019s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!\u201d<\/p>\n
The president added that the DHS policy shift would be \u201cplaying right into the criminal\u2019s [sic] hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital\u2019s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that its\u00a0Harlingen, Texas, field office, working with law enforcement partners, arrested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4028,1829,7770,27,29,28,734],"class_list":["post-375253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-arrests","tag-ice","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}