‘Every Day Heroes’: ICE Completed A Record-Breaking Year Of Criminal Arrests

REUTERS/Kate Munsch

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a record-breaking year in criminal arrests, highlighting the agency’s work to dismantle immigration-related crime, the drug trade, and other transnational criminal activity.

Homeland Security Investigations — ICE’s investigative arm — netted a record-high of 37,547 criminal arrests during the 2019 fiscal year, according to a Friday press release by the agency. The figure, which marked a nearly 10% increase from the previous fiscal year, reflected HSI’s increased effort to fight crime that extends well beyond the country’s borders. These arrests also resulted in the seizure of over $775 million in currency and assets.

“HSI uses aggressive investigative strategies to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations that engage in cross-border crime,” acting HSI executive associate director Alysa Erichs said in a statement released Friday. “HSI special agents worked tirelessly to address threats posed by criminal networks to protect national security and public safety in the United States and around the globe.”

The breakdown of arrests emphasizes the broad range of criminal activity ICE investigative agents cover.

HSI agents arrested 5,750 individuals tied to human smuggling investigations in fiscal year 2019, which ended Sept. 30. ICE attributed that figure, a 41% increase from the previous fiscal year, to implementation of the agency’s Rapid DNA testing technology, which is designed to detect migrant family fraud at the U.S.-Mexico border. Smugglers have been caught selling and renting children in attempts to skirt U.S. immigration laws, and DNA testing programs help rescue minors caught in the human-smuggling industry.

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