Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that federal agents have arrested over 10,000 undocumented immigrants from Los Angeles.
Noem did not say when the arrests occurred, but immigration enforcement began in large scales on June 3 when three workplaces in the downtown LA area were raided.
The announcement was made on her social media, as she blasted Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying they “FAILED the people of California.”
“They have let murders, kidnappers. and sexual predators, and roam free,” Noem said in the social media post.
NBC Los Angeles was not able to independently confirm how many of the 10,000 people had criminal history although the Trump administration has been boasting that it’s “removing illegal immigrant killers, rapists, gangbangers, drug traffickers and other violent criminals off (the) streets – and sending them back.”
According to new data NBC News received this week, more than one third of people immigration officials arrested during the first nine months of the Trump administration had no criminal histories.
Among 220,000 people who were arrested by Immigration Customs Enforcement officers between Jan. 20 and Oct. 15, nearly 75,000 people had no criminal records, according to the data shared by the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project
The office of Gov. Newsom Thursday called the Trump administration’s immigration policy a “sick game of cruelty and chaos that President and Stephen Miller are playing” in response to NBCLA’s request for comment.
“The reality is that their obsession with mass arrests, detention and deportations is spurring indiscriminate and racially-motivated immigration raids with serious societal and economic consequences,” the governor’s office said. “They are arresting American citizens, hardworking parents and contributors to our economy, while also wasting taxpayer money to go after those who are legitimately going through the legal immigration process, like the spouses of U.S. citizens.”
The governor’s office also said California is trying to “ensure bad criminals have no place in our society, including coordinating with ICE when these people get out of our prisons.”
“We support public safety, while the Trump agenda is all for inflating headlines,” Newsom’s office added.
NBCLA has reached out to the office of Mayor Bass for comment.
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