Victor Navarro Govea, a Mexican, crossed into the U.S. illegally in 2009. Last year, he was deemed to be a bona fide candidate for a special victim’s visa. He was granted a four-year deportation amnesty by Homeland Security, which should have lasted through 2029.
He was caught by surprise when ICE officers arrested him in Minnesota earlier this month.
Yah Eh Do Lah was welcomed in 2024 as a refugee from Myanmar, along with her husband and three children. They settled in St. Paul. After her one-year wait was up, she applied last November for a green card, signifying legal permanent residence.
Ms. Lah gave birth to her fourth child last summer. She was still breastfeeding the baby when ICE came after her on Jan. 10, arresting her because of a referral from another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Then there’s Segundo Pualasin Masaquiza, an Ecuadorian who crossed into the U.S. illegally in 2019. His deportation proceedings dragged on for nearly five years until DHS under President Biden ruled him too low a priority and dismissed the case against him.
The Trump administration re-flagged him as a priority in July. On Dec. 30, ICE officers arrested and detained him.
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Ms. Lah, Mr. Pualasin Masaquiza and Mr. Navarro Govea were all picked up as part of Operation Metro Surge, Homeland Security’s massive deployment of officers to the Minneapolis area.
Court documents show no criminal history for any of them. In two of the cases, federal judges have said as much.
They are among more than 3,500 migrants Homeland Security said it has arrested since the operation began on Dec. 1.
That works out to about 60 arrests a day.
DHS says the operation is about taking the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” off the streets.
Indeed, there are plenty of those.
Of the 500 or so people arrested since Jan. 19, The Washington Times looked at DHS press releases issued highlighting 110 of them and the crimes they committed.
They include nine people with murder or homicide convictions; four with rape convictions and another three with rape charges on their record; two with kidnapping convictions, one with a kidnapping charge; and 37 with DUI convictions or charges.
There are also sexual assaults, gun offenses, drug dealing, fraud, terrorist threats and domestic assault.
Carlos Antonio Flores-Miguel, from El Salvador, is considered a MS-13 gang member. He is a registered sex offender who has been deported four times but was caught and released into the U.S. in 2022, DHS said. His record includes resisting arrest, assaulting officers and attempting to grab an officer’s firearm, and a rape charge.
He also had an arrest in El Salvador for robbery.
Then there’s Nelbert Joseph, from St. Lucia, who amassed 11 convictions for property crimes and was ordered deported in 2023.
The Minnesota operation began soon after a blockbuster report by scholars at the Manhattan Institute said members of the state’s Somali immigrant community were defrauding government benefit programs and shipping the money to Somalia, where some of it ended up in the hands of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
The report caught the attention of senior government figures, including President Trump.
Things escalated in early January as the president’s focus intensified.
The Times sampled a list of 170 immigration arrests dating back to Dec. 1 and found that Somalia ranked third on the list of nationalities. Mexico led the way with 40, followed by Laos at 34. Ecuador and Guatemala rounded out the top five.
All told, some 27 countries are represented on the list.
Without a full list of the 3,500 people arrested, there’s no way to know what percentage of those caught in Minnesota qualify as worst of the worst, or even how many have criminal records.
But there are indications that the majority are not serious offenders.
While DHS highlighted 110 arrestees from Jan. 19 to Jan. 28, more than 240 habeas corpus petitions have been filed demanding the release of migrants over that time — more than double the worst of the worst.
Those habeas cases don’t automatically exclude dangerous criminals, but they’re less likely to have a case for release from detention, so the incentive to file a petition is less.
David L. Wilson, an immigration lawyer who’s filed dozens of habeas petitions, said he figures the ratio runs 10-to-1 skewed in favor of rank-and-file arrests versus worst-of-the-worst arrests.
“They’re not focusing their energy on the worst of the worst. They’re focused on getting numbers. This is about quantity,” he told The Times.
He pointed to one case of a pastor with a pending green card petition who had been following all the conditions of his case but was arrested while driving to the airport. Another case, which DHS identified as a “worst of the worst,” was for a man who had a driving offense.
Mr. Wilson said that man wasn’t a target. He was arrested because officers encountered him.
“This idea that it’s the worst of the worst — it’s a great social media campaign, but it’s not reality,” he said.
Mr. Wilson said before the surge, his office got maybe 150 calls a day. But beginning on Jan. 5, when the surge kicked into high gear, the calls hit 600 a day, and it hasn’t dropped below that level since.
“There’s no way we’re having 3,000 calls a week, on average, that are all criminals,” he said.
White House border czar Tom Homan, who deployed to Minnesota earlier this week to oversee a drawdown in federal personnel, told reporters on Thursday that immigration officers aren’t looking to make indiscriminate arrests.
“When we hit the streets, we know exactly who we’re looking for [and have] a good idea where we may find them,” he said. “Targeted, strategic enforcement operations.”
But he said if, during an operation, they encounter someone else in the country illegally, that person is subject to arrest.
Nationally, about 57% of migrant arrestees ICE booked in between Oct. 1 and Jan. 7 — the latest data available — had criminal convictions or pending charges against them. By contrast, at the end of the Biden administration, that rate hovered around 94%.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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