A relatively short but lucrative ICE crackdown in West Virginia netted about 650 illegal immigrant arrests earlier this month — a two-week operation that state officials say went off with little disruption and now represents a counterpoint to the turmoil surrounding similar enforcement efforts in Minnesota.
Between Jan. 5 and Jan. 19, federal agents fanned out across the Mountain State — sometimes working with local law enforcement — targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records or prior deportation orders, DHS officials told Fox News Digital.
Officials involved contrast the West Virginia operation with recent tensions in Minnesota, where ICE-related enforcement actions have sparked sustained protests, surveillance by federal agents and confrontations with law enforcement.
“I think the most important thing to note here is that West Virginia and similarly situated states … have made it very, very easy for illegal aliens to be picked up and processed by ICE,” West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
Many of America’s safest cities are in jurisdictions that cooperate with ice
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey speaks outside the Supreme Court.
(Getty Images)
Some of the operations have even reached the state’s bluer East Panhandle, the fast-growing exurb of Washington, DC, where officials say the response has defined cooperation, not confrontation.
Read on the Fox News app
There, Jefferson County Sheriff Thomas Hansen confirmed a two-week operation with ICE in his jurisdiction, which includes Charles Town, Harpers Ferry and Summit Point.
“(JCSO) was impressed with the officers’ professionalism and work ethic and how well they interacted with citizens and local law enforcement officers,” Hansen said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
McCuskey said the lack of disruption in West Virginia reflected a cooperative approach that he said prevented the kind of disruption seen elsewhere.
“When you contrast that with places like Minnesota, where you have Keith Ellison — who is obviously involved in a massive fraud scandal involving Somali immigrants et cetera, what you see is riots and violence,” he said.
McCuskey suggested the West Virginia mission shows Minnesota leadership can no longer blame federal law for its approach, noting that all states still operate under the same immigration statutes that have remained intact since the Obama administration.
Trump’s immigration victory in a Minnesota court is a victory for all law-abiding citizens
An ICE agent standing outside a house in a residential area.
“All God-fearing Americans believe in immigration. We believe that the promise of this country should be available to those who want to come to America the right way, follow our laws, and become large parts of this incredible quilt that is the American experience,” McCuskey said.
“And if your first act as a hopeful new American is to break our laws, that trust has been broken.”
McCuskey also accused Minnesota leadership of failing on parallel issues, calling Ellison “accurate” in the fight against social services fraud.
“My office [oversees] same things,” he said, noting that West Virginia also has a high proportion of eligible residents, but doesn’t have the level of fraud he says plagues Minnesota.
Just across the Potomac River from ICE Martinsburg, Maryland Democrats have criticized ICE’s presence in Washington County.
Ice Reveals ‘Worst of the Worst’ Arrests in Just One Day After Arresting ‘Hugs’ Convicted of Heinous Crimes
ICE officers arrested Sagar Singh, an Indian national who had previously been ordered removed, during Operation ICE Wall after he was stopped for failing to perform a mandatory commercial vehicle brake inspection.
McCuskey called it a “representation of the widespread idiocy of the majority of Democrats in Congress, who have sat on their hands for the last 25 years and done nothing about immigration laws that they are very upset about being enforced.”
Ellison, by contrast, praised the protesters at a recent public appearance, calling ICE operations a “federal invasion” and telling those gathered in the Twin Cities that he “wants you to know that I was here with you, fighting with you, standing with you. Keep fighting, stand strong, don’t back down.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Ellison and Gov. Tim Walz for comment, but neither office responded. However, DHS officials said they expect states that cooperate with ICE to have similar success to West Virginia.
Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said “work[ing] together we can make America safe again.”
DHS told Fox News Digital of similar low-profile ICE operations in Alabama, including activity near Birmingham that drew a violent illegal immigrant accused of stabbing a federal agent, along with law enforcement actions in other cities reported by local media.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Sen. Tommy Tuberville told Fox News Digital they will continue to welcome federal agents from the Yellowhammer state, with Tuberville, a gubernatorial candidate, quipping that a mayor who has pledged to protect illegal immigrants “won’t like me too much” if he succeeds Ivey.
Among those arrested in the West Virginia area are Mexican citizen Enrique Vergara, convicted of assault with a weapon; Guatemalan national Isaias Santos, convicted of multiple charges of violence; Julian Garza, charged with auto theft; Brayan Canelis-Giron, charged with domestic violence and weapons offenses; and Dennis Paz-Vallecillo, convicted of child neglect.
Not all Mountaineer leaders were on board, however, as West Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Mike Pushkin, a state delegate from Kanawha County, said the folks at Fox News Digital “need to be honest about what’s really going on here.”
From protest to murder: The lines Minnesota’s anti-ice agitators might be crossing
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison praised the protesters at a recent public appearance, calling the ICE operations a “federal invasion.”
“The difference between what you see in Minnesota and what’s happening in West Virginia isn’t complication — it’s courage,” Pushkin said, crediting Minnesota leaders for standing up to President Donald Trump.[ing] due process and ignore[ing] The Constitution”.
“The Republican leaders here won’t even clear their throats — and trying to compare the size and scope of the operation in Minnesota to what happened here is just silly. It’s like comparing a house fire to a burnt piece of toast and pretending they’re the same emergency,” he said.
Pushkin cited a Clinton-appointed judge’s order that some of the detainees be released, including two men picked up on the West Virginia Turnpike.
“In the words of the court, there was not ‘a shred of evidence to justify the government’s position’ – that should be the headline.” That should alarm anyone who cares about freedom or the rule of law,” Pushkin said.
“Minnesota’s leaders pushed back. West Virginia’s Republican leadership just kicked their heels, saluted and fell in line.”
Homan announces drawdown of federal presence in Minnesota, hails ‘unprecedented cooperation’ from local police
Fox News Digital also asked several blue state leaders about the cooperative contrast, but only got a response from one.
A spokeswoman for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said if the feds really cared about getting “hardened criminals off our streets, they would pick up every single person released from our state prisons who have immigration detainers placed on them.”
Click here to download the Fox News app
Diana Crofts-Pelayo said there was only a one-in-eight rate of doing so, showing that the Trump administration only wants to “incite panic and fear to ultimately secure compliance with a dangerous immigration agenda that threatens the safety, accessibility and freedom of Americans.”
A California source familiar with law enforcement dynamics said that immigrants who commit crimes are subject to certain exceptions that allow local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, particularly those charged with a violent crime.
DHS said cooperation with federal law enforcement is the safest and most effective option for state officials.
“Sanctuary politicians who refuse to cooperate with DHS law enforcement are wasting law enforcement time, energy and resources while putting their own constituents at risk,” McLaughlin told Fox News Digital, crediting West Virginia officials with enabling such a swift and effective operation and hoping other states will follow suit.
Source of the original article: West Virginia worked with ICE – 650 arrests later, officials say Minnesota-style ‘chaos’ is a choice