ICE arrests 650 in West Virginia in January; state hails ‘professionalism’ of agents

ICE quietly surged personnel into West Virginia in January and arrested 650 illegal immigrants, all without the violent pushback and chaos that erupted in places such as Minnesota.

The surge lasted from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19, a little more than two weeks, and included extensive cooperation between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state and local police, who hailed their federal counterparts’ “professionalism” throughout the operation.

State and local law enforcement accounted for more than 550 of the arrests. They were working under cooperative agreements through the 287(g) program, which trains willing state and local law enforcement officers to assist with immigration enforcement.

Federal and state officials hailed Operation Country Roads as proof that immigration enforcement can be carried out calmly and effectively when local authorities cooperate with the feds.

Jefferson County Sheriff Tom Hansen cited the “professionalism and work ethic” of the ICE officers and “how well they interacted with the citizens.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey celebrated the “collaboration” shown.

“I want to thank the men and women of ICE for their outstanding partnership with various state entities, including the State Police, and their tireless work here in West Virginia,” he said in a statement announcing the arrests.

The operation went off with far less fanfare, attention and clashes than Operation Metro Surge, the Minnesota deployment that has resulted in three federal shootings, two dead U.S. citizens, countless confrontations and a stream of invective from both sides of the immigration debate.

Indeed, even though the two operations overlapped, ICE and its local partners tallied more arrests in West Virginia on some days than 3,000 federal agents did in Minnesota.

Jessica Vaughan, who tracks sanctuary jurisdictions at the Center for Immigration Studies, said it was a “Tale of Two Cities” moment.

“What we’ve seen in West Virginia is the way it’s supposed to work,” she said. “This not only shows how ICE’s work can and should be done but also how unusual the situation is in Minneapolis.”

She said the cooperation extended beyond law enforcement, without the sort of orchestrated resistance from residents and outsiders that has plagued the operation in Minnesota.

Those disruptions also explained why the Homeland Security Department needed to deploy 3,000 ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers.

White House border czar Tom Homan said an arrest in Minneapolis requires not just the arrest team but also a force protection team to stave off the angry mobs that assemble. He said it can take 15 people to make an arrest.

ICE said the West Virginia arrests included serious criminals and rank-and-file migrants who were in the country without firm permission.

The two cases the agency highlighted out of the more than 600 arrests were Sagar Singh, a citizen of India, who was arrested when he failed to stop for a mandatory brake check in his commercial vehicle, and Ling Yan, a Chinese citizen, who had two convictions for child endangerment. Both had previous deportation orders.

Court documents detail other arrests.

In one case, that of Antony Segundo Larrazabal-Gonzalez, a Venezuelan citizen, he was arrested during a highway traffic stop on Jan. 13 as he traveled through the state. A judge said federal authorities were unable to defend the stop or justify the detention.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, ordered Mr. Larrazabal-Gonzalez’s immediate release.

“Despite what some may have been led to believe, immigrants illegally in this country enjoy protections guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment,” the judge wrote. “This detention-first and hearing-sometime-later practice finds no support in the Constitution.”

Lesley Marie Nash, a lawyer at Mountain State Justice who was part of Mr. Larrazabal-Gonzalez’s legal team and has filed similar “habeas corpus” petitions for others snared in the ICE surge, didn’t respond to an inquiry.

Jonathan Sidney with the Climate Defense Project, Ms. Nash’s fellow attorney in the cases, declined to comment.

One difference between West Virginia and Minnesota was the Trump administration’s lower-profile approach.

In West Virginia, the feds didn’t even confirm the operation until more than 10 days after it concluded. In Minneapolis, President Trump made a point of demanding action against Somali immigrants, and Homeland Security went in with public declarations and a heavy show of force.

“They wanted this to be an in-your-face operation, and that did not turn out well,” Ms. Vaughan said. “The problem is, it’s caused them not just political problems in Minnesota and nationally but complicated now the passage of the [Homeland Security Department] spending bill and probably other things they want to accomplish.”

One casualty is the 287(g) program that seemed to make the West Virginia operation successful.

In Virginia, newly inaugurated Gov. Abigail Spanberger canceled the state’s cooperative agreement with ICE. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul has just proposed legislation to void the 14 existing 287(g) agreements that localities in her state have reached with ICE.

West Virginia counts 25 jurisdictions with 287(g) agreements, ranging from local police and sheriff’s departments to state police and the National Guard.

In Minnesota, where federal agents are in the middle of a similar immigration enforcement surge, just nine agencies, all local, are enrolled in the 287(g) program.

Florida leads the nation with more than 330 jurisdictions that have signed 287(g) agreements. Texas has nearly 290. Nationwide, 1,373 agreements are in force, up from just 135 at the end of the Biden administration.

Ms. Vaughan said ICE surges in Florida and Louisiana have played out the same way as West Virginia, with little of the chaos and violence seen in Minneapolis and, before that, Chicago and Portland, Oregon.