DHS, ICE announce results of recent enforcement actions

i don't know what it is yep the best [Music] three yeah good morning everyone we're here today to announce the success of the second phase of operation rise ice's latest operation targeting criminal aliens in sanctuary cities across the country with each and every phase of this operation we're making american communities more safe and more secure i want to commend acting director pham and the men and women of ice for their continued success in this operation particularly in light of the challenges presented by the covet 19 pandemic earlier this month we announced the results of phase one of operation rise which focused on several jurisdictions in california that have chosen to implement dangerous and irresponsible sanctuary city policies phase two of this operation was much more expansive and focused on the jurisdictions of philadelphia denver new york seattle washington dc and baltimore all of which have enacted similarly reckless policies like phase one this phase of operation rise targeted some of the most violent and dangerous criminal aliens living illegally in our communities in addition to investigating and arresting these violent criminals ice recently launched a billboard campaign here in philadelphia educating the public about the dangers of sanctuary city policies each billboard features at-large criminals who were previously arrested or convicted of crimes and pose a threat to american citizens but were inexplicably released back into our communities instead of being transferred to ice custody these billboards are important because we can no longer stand idly by while the public is being misled about the role of ice in keeping the public safe this campaign would be entirely unnecessary if local leaders would do their jobs and protect their communities by partnering with federal law enforcement when we first announced the success of phase one i outlined how and why operation rise was a necessary action and how it plays an important part in fulfilling this administration's promise to keep the american people safe and secure and uphold the rule of law i believe that explanation bears repeating today put simply sanctuary city policies are a threat to the homeland and put the safety of the american people in jeopardy so that certain local politicians can score cheap political points at the cost of american lives and safety politicians and media pundits may attempt to spin and hide the truth but the fact remains sanctuary city policies shield violent criminals criminal aliens at the expense of american lives there's simply no way around it we're not asking for local authorities to enforce immigration laws let me repeat that we are not asking local authorities to enforce immigration laws that is our job what we are asking local authorities to do is simply pick up the phone call your federal law enforcement partner and allow us to do the job that congress has mandated us to do but what happens when local politicians ignore the will of congress and unilaterally decide not to cooperate with ice well it's quite clear americans get hurt and sometimes even worse they're killed every criminal alien released back onto the streets by sanctuary jurisdiction is playing with the safety and security of the citizens they have sworn to protect every time a sanctuary jurisdiction disregards its solemn duty to protect its citizens they are creating one more preventable crime ladies and gentlemen at the end of the day this is about one thing and one thing only preventing future crime and protecting americans sanctuary jurisdictions are playing politics with your safety it's plain and it's simple there's a common misconception that sanctuary city policies will somehow stop dhs and the men and women of ice from enforcing the law nothing could be further from the truth i would encourage any political leader who believes this falsehood to read the law it is written not as you would like it to be our legal our legal obligation is to protect american citizens from illegal aliens who rape murder and otherwise commit violent crimes against our communities against our community does not stop at the borders of a so-called sanctuary city it encompasses all of america we have the legal right to investigate and detain those who break federal laws under our jurisdiction anywhere in the country and we will use that right to fulfill our moral obligation to protect the citizens of this great country we will not be deterred by any local jurisdiction that refuses to cooperate with ice any leader who believes that this will result in a decrease in local immigration enforcement is sorely mistaken ice will conduct more at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at work sites these of course will inevitably lead to additional collateral arrest instead of much safer targeted rest in jail settings again all we ask for is a simple phone call so that eyes can come to the jail and take custody of that criminal alien sanctuary city residents should understand and continue to expect a more visible ice presence in any jurisdiction covered by operation rise and let me make something clear the criminals ice lodges detainers against are not random illegal immigrants ice focuses its limited resources first and foremost on those who pose the greatest threat to public safety nationally approximately 90 percent of all individuals arrested by ice during fiscal year 2019 either had a criminal conviction a pending criminal charge had criminally re-entered the u.s after being previously removed or were an immigration fugitive subject to a final order of removal again these are not everyday people they are hardened criminals who threaten american communities and put american lives at risk thus far ice's efforts through operation rise have led to the arrest of over 300 criminals phase two alone included more than 170 arrests with 26 arrests occurring here in philadelphia in one notable example ice arrested a 33 year old brazilian citizen here in philadelphia whose rap sheet includes aggravated assault possession of an instrument of crime terroristic threats simple assault and reckless endangerment of another person in september 2020 ice issued a detainer for this individual with the philadelphia police department which subsequently ignored ultimately leading to his release back into the community this person is now in ice custody where he will remain pending removal proceedings operation rise is proof positive that we will never back down from enforcing the rule of law with or without the cooperation of local political leaders before i conclude i want to again thank acting director fam the men and women of ice for not only tracking down and removing criminals from our streets but for also educating the public about the danger they pose the time has long passed americans living in sanctuary cities deserve to know what kind of criminals their leaders are setting loose on their communities and we at dhs have an obligation to inform them for their own safety to any leaders who are enacting or proposing sanctuary policies i say once again do your job uphold and follow the constitution obey the laws protect your communities and cease these harmful policies and allow your local law enforcement officers to partner with dhs to protect your communities your country your community and your citizens deserve better the first priority of any political leader in law enforcement organizations should be to protect the american people the homeland and our communities with that let me turn it over to acting director fam we'll provide more detail regarding the success of operation rise phase two uh podium's years mr secretary thank you very much before i begin i wanted to say thank you as the director to the men and women of ice for your steadfast commitment to applying the rule of law in some of the most challenging environments that we faced today thank you so much for the work that you do thank you all for joining us here today for the past few weeks at my direction ice has increased enforcement efforts in several jurisdictions across the united states the areas of focus were those with non-cooperative policies and practices better known as sanctuary policies families in philadelphia new york denver seattle baltimore and washington dc are safer today because the men and women of ice have completed phase two of operation rise and arresting fugitive criminal aliens who are now in ice custody in awaiting removal sanctuary policies result in criminal aliens being released right back to the community where they can reoffend and prey upon innocent people including our children our message today is very clear for local leadership we have a shared responsibility to protect our nation to protect our communities and to protect the american people ice will take custody of these individuals and place them in removal proceedings and thanks to isis dedicated officers nearly 170 aliens are now in custody awaiting hearing before an immigration judge more than 84 percent of those arrested in this operation have a criminal record that includes prior convictions or charges pending and we're free to reoffend because the city's policies of non-cooperation place politics over public safety here are some examples of the individuals either convicted or arrested for the following offenses who were released back into our communities violent child sex offenders individuals convicted or charged with rape individuals convicted are charged with aggravated assault robbery and even illegal reentry after being formally removed from the united states this list goes on unfortunately this is not a new battle year after year our efforts and our warnings of the disastrous consequences of non-cooperation have been ignored we have seen too many tragic results with victims whose lives were forever impacted at the hands of criminal aliens who are in this country illegally and until things change these tragic situations will be repeated again and again to the citizens of philadelphia new york seattle denver baltimore and washington d.c ice needs your local leadership to cooperate with us so we can help protect you we battle every day to carry out our mission and take these criminals off the street when local officials refuse to cooperate by simply transferring over a criminal alien in the safe confines of a jail we must go into the community in search of these individuals make no mistake about it ice and its dedicated officers and workforce will continue to enforce federal immigration laws within with or without local cooperation because our mission is to protect the american people and our communities when we lodge a detainer we are simply asking for cooperation and tendering over an identified criminal alien in the safe confines of a jail or lockup we are not asking any local law enforcement agency to make an immigration status determination ice has already done so all you need to do is call us before you release them that's it just a phone call so we can help protect our collective communities those who politicize this issue want you the citizen to believe that you have to choose between being an immigrant friendly city or being one that cooperates with ice that is simply a false narrative the only individuals protected by such policies are those committing violent and dangerous offenses in our communities this is common sense this is a common sense and public safety issue period too often we continually hear about how local leadership and it also includes the city of philadelphia who wish to implement new strategies or new legislation intended to reduce and or prevent crimes what if i told you that there is already a mechanism available in philadelphia and other cities across the united states to help prevent crime it's called cooperation by cooperating with ice and honoring a detainer or making a phone call ice can remove a criminal alien thereby preventing any other potential crimes committed by that individual it doesn't take any increased funding from anyone and it does not take any new legislation to be enacted it just takes a simple phone call and simple cooperation a phone call would have saved carlos wolff and sander cohen who were both killed by an individual wanted by ice this wanted alien had been arrested twice by local law enforcement officials who failed to turn them over to us had he been turned over to ice mr wolf's family and mr cohen's family would still have their loved ones here today there are many other families and victims across the united states who we could have helped and born from these senseless and preventable tragedies ice developed the voice office which is victims of immigration crime engagement to provide such a voice to those silenced by crime which could have been prevented and i say this to our angel families the survivors of non-cooperative policies we hear you we see you and you will never ever be ignored again i'd like to introduce the field office director at this time simone lund who will walk us through some of the results of phase two of operation rise simona excuse me good morning thank you all for coming i am simona flores alone the field office director for immigration and customs enforcement enforcement and removal operations field office here in philadelphia it's been a distinct pleasure to host this event in our office with each of you we welcome this sort of dialogue and we look forward to continued engagement events like this in the future we've been very fortunate to have dhs acting secretary chad wolf and ice acting director tony famous i thank them both for their unyielding support of our mission here in philadelphia in pursuit of public safety and for the vital role our department plays in securing our nation against a multitude of threats each and every day my staff work around the clock to keep our community safe this work is our calling and we perform it proudly to those ends ice has continued to strengthen its operational focus on our most egregious undocumented offenders today we are announcing the results of operation rise two which took place in philadelphia new york denver seattle baltimore and washington d.c during this operation ice arrested more than 170 at-large aliens in these sanctuary cities more than 84 percent of those arrested in this operation have a criminal record that includes prior convictions or charges that were free to reoffend because sanctuary city policies placed politics over public safety in the philadelphia field office which covers three states we arrested more than 25 at-large aliens several who have been convicted of a crime or have pending charges examples of the crimes with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges include violent child sex offenses rape aggravated assault robbery illegal re-entry after removal through these targeted enforcement actions we have persevered in our efforts to combat threats posed by sanctuary policies like those practiced here in the city of philadelphia which continue to allow for the release of dangerous criminal offenders back into our communities thank you again for the contributions you make by fairly and faithfully informing the public of the hard work this agency performs each day for the deserving people of this great region thank you and i'll turn it over to you thank you we'll go ahead and take a few questions kylw newsradio uh i understand that in 2017 uh then u.s attorney jeff sessions ordered cities to allow federal authorities to question immigrants and notify officials two days before releasing an undocumented uh prisoner and then in february 2019 judge bailson's ruling was upheld that their ice has no authority to impose those conditions on the city you repeatedly talk about upholding the rule of law why do you feel that life does not have to uphold that ruling so again first and foremost i would say that the department including ice but all of our components uphold every court ruling uh that we receive we appeal many of those the but the law is clear in this regard we we have federal law uh requires ice to take certain actions and to enforce that what i do not do as acting secretary what the acting director does not do or any senior leader at the department is we simply do not ignore the law we do not choose which portion of the law we enforce and which we do not and clearly that's what some local political leaders want us to do they don't want us to enforce what congress has given us the duty to to do to enforce federal immigration law so we'll continue to do that i don't know the specific court case that you're talking about i'll let acting director fam uh reference that yes ma'am um when we talk about compliance with court orders i think the ruling of the order says that the locality does not have to do something what we're talking about here today is about mutual agreed cooperation which that court order does not prohibit a locality from wanting to do i come from a jurisdiction as a frontline prosecutor where i've seen the positive results where we have state local and federal cooperation who work in conjunction with one another in order to protect our communities so really our discussion today is really about the the ability to bridge that gap bridge that divide where where individuals are making policy related decisions that ultimately impact and have an adverse result than what they think it's going to have but they can voluntarily cooperate with us and that's all we're really asking for folks to do and that's what the discussion was about picking up the phone and giving us a call nothing requires them to do so but we ask them to do so because we have so much at stake right now in our communities where people are being released that are violent that we want to be able to help remove these individuals so we can protect our communities in 2019 the city won that ruling that they did not have to uh report to ice and also what makes you think that the city of philadelphia the city the police are a city organ of entity and ice is a federal entity what makes you think that the police have to report the ice no one's saying they have to you know the mayor signed an executive order in 2017 prohibiting that cooperation and that's the problem that's the leadership issue that we are trying to get at so the citizens of the city of philadelphia can fully appreciate and understand what leadership is doing right now to tie the hands of local law enforcement officials we i commend local law enforcement officials across the united states not just in philadelphia who do want to apply the rule of law which is what the secretary was talking about but what we're having issue is with with local politicians in in paneling and imposing their will prohibiting communication and cooperation to be able to build a relationship between state and local officials and federal officials so we can work as a team so we can really get to the root of the issue and that is removing these individuals we believe are a danger to the community so we can move forward in protecting our this communities that the city did not have to report again and you were saying you're requesting them to do that they did not want to they fought it in court it wasn't their will it was a three-panel judge i think what you're getting at is the legal requirement to do something versus a desire to voluntarily agree to do something and so not a request what you're saying is repeatedly they must uphold the rule of law if you're talking about the rule of law so at the end of the day i i guess what it comes down to is in in what world is it okay to release criminal aliens in this case back into communities to reoffend so that's what i'm talking about that's what the acting director is talking about is that cooperation is there a legal do they have a legal ability or a legal determination to make that communication to us no i think the director said that several times again it's about wanting to do the right thing wanting to have that cooperation and again it's about protecting communities and part of what we're here to talk about today is to make sure that the people and the citizens of philadelphia understand what decisions local leaders are taking releasing criminal aliens back into their communities thank you we'll take the next question we'll take the next question thank you all those arrested how many of them included violent offenses listed off examples i don't have the document to show each specific arrest but i i thought i had put over 25 but it was exactly 26 you are correct any other questions um yes ma'am thank you very much expedited removal is an authority given to us by congress over two decades ago we're prepared as an organization to move forward with pragmatic and robust training with regard to the new delegation excuse me for giving me the new policy that was put in place on october 4th the the pathway on expedited removal is just that expedited it's an authority that allows we us as the enforcer of that law to be able to quickly remove individuals that we encounter accordingly and we work through that policy to take care of that during that process though individuals who are selected and placed into er proceedings as we call it will have an opportunity to to assert a particular pathway and claim that will then have to be adjudicated accordingly um but that's an issue that we would work through with the with the hearing officer that that is faced with that particular claim and i have pathway question from the philadelphia pointer does your family think that last week's arrested philly activist nancy wren for littering and trespassing during a protest outside of his home in september was an appropriate use of police resources ice as well as myself i i respect and as an attorney believe in in the first amendment for people to peacefully assemble and for people to peacefully protest um on that note what happened in september 8th was investigated independently by the local police department there without myself or my family knowing that the investigation was going on my understanding now after having been informed with regard to the results of the investigation that the matter was turned over to the local prosecutor who made the charging decision and so they they made as the the public safety entities in the locality they made the decision to bring the two class one misdemeanor charges against did you say miss nguyen yes but i will refer all other additional questions with regard to the process and the procedures to the local police department down there yeah yes sir can we just comment further about um i would say similar incidents like this i would say that these individuals are cowards these are individuals again tony is exactly correct first amendment right protects speech the ability to to protest all you want but when you trespass when you vandalize which i believe is what occurred in this case as well as others when you dox law enforcement officers from dhs what we saw in portland when you go above and beyond exercising your first amendment rights and you start becoming into violent activity criminal activity that's where it crosses the line and i will continue although i did not uh take place or have any influence in this i'm going to encourage any local law enforcement to go after those individuals there's a right time to protest dhs actions if you chose to do so and there's a right place to do that but once you cross that line and you start committing criminal acts uh you're cowards and you need to be held accountable consider okay cities can we expect more varieties of grains of this kind here in philadelphia well again we're not going to talk about any specific enforcement actions my comment there was referencing jurisdictions that cooperate with us that allow us to come into a jail setting allow us to take custody of a criminal alien perhaps we only need one or two individuals to do that if if we don't have that cooperation and we have to send folks into a community to make at-large arrests instead of two officers it becomes 10 officers because then we have to protect those officers we have to protect others so you're going to see more of a visible presence in your community where these sorts of operations are occurring if communities and jurisdictions would simply cooperate with us you would likely not see ice in your communities because again that custody takes place in a jail setting where it should take place versus on neighborhood streets in in places of that nature so you're going to see more officers having to effectuate those types of arrests than you would otherwise see i'll let tony uh answer that specifically but what i would say about the billboards is i would rather not do billboards i would rather local communities cooperate with ice um but when that doesn't occur and we continue to see criminal aliens released into communities time and time again we have a moral obligation i need to make sure it's in the public interest that communities know that these individuals are in are being released fbi uses a most wanted poster they use newspaper ads local law enforcement does the same ice this is no different from a law enforcement perspective than what ice is doing here than any other federal or either state law enforcement uses to get the word out that you have criminal in this case criminals criminal aliens in this case in your communities and you need to be aware of that because ice is not being allowed i would say ice does not have that cooperation with local jurisdictions to pick these individuals up sure i would say operation rise again has nothing to do with politics elections democrats republicans or anything of the like we are targeting jurisdictions that have sanctuary policies and i think you've heard five or six of them are participating here in phase two phase one uh were i believe three jurisdictions in california that's obviously not a swing state not not anything to do with politics we focus on jurisdictions that have these sanctuary policies and we'll continue to do that regardless of politics but i think what you you brought up specifically is we see a lot of these policies happening in very metropolitan areas and that's very disconcerting i'll let tony talk about other billboards thank you sir you know in the context of law enforcement we try to utilize every tool and toolkit to be able to message and be able to identify so we can actually apprehend the individuals that we want the idea of billboards is nothing new you know phillymostwanted.org has a listing of all of philadelphia's most wanted the probation and parole department i think here also has the absconder list online this was an effort and a unique in in creative effort to try to educate the populace that these individuals are in the communities they were released by particular locality or jurisdiction but also provide us some information confidentially on where we can find these individuals what we're going to do at the end of phase two of operation rise is we're going to do what i call gauge the metrics we're going to look at the value and what the return was so we can make it a absolute determination as to the value of the billboards moving forward into other operations that we may or may not have in the queue right now for the rest of the few weeks we're trying new and innovative things which is really consistent with our our online opportunities to find uh wanted fugitives as well and that's why we picked maybe six or seven i believe was what was what was scrolled through on the billboards just one final question um i don't have the breakdown but adrian smith is my pao and i'll try to get that information to if you'll reach out to him okay thank you all right thank you all appreciate it thank you sir finished right now guys

Channel: wwwICEgov

Views: 1,643

Keywords: Homeland Security, DHS, ICE, Customs Enforcement, Piracy, Copyright Infringement, MPAA

Id: 6MpZXPgkNSw

Length: 33min 55sec (2035 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020