{"id":94550,"date":"2025-07-26T16:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94550\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T16:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:52:14","slug":"trump-boasts-of-deporting-the-worst-of-the-worst-l-a-raids-tell-a-far-different-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94550\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump boasts of deporting the ‘worst of the worst.’ L.A. raids tell a far different story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They called them the \u201cworst of the worst.\u201d For more than a month and a half, the Trump administration has posted a barrage of mugshots<\/a> of L.A. undocumented immigrants with long rap sheets.<\/p>\n

Officials have spotlighted C<\/a>uong Chanh Phan<\/a>, a 49-year-old Vietnamese man convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder<\/a> for his role in slaying two teens at a high school graduation party.<\/p>\n

They have shared blurry photos on Instagram of a slew of convicted criminals such as Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez<\/a>, a 55-year-old Filipino man convicted in 1996 of sexual penetration with a foreign object with force and assault with intent to commit a felony. And Eswin Uriel Castro<\/a>, a Mexican convicted in 2002 of child molestation and in 2021 of assault with a deadly weapon.<\/p>\n

But the immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security showcase in X posts and news releases do not represent the majority of immigrants swept up across Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

As the number of immigration arrests in the L.A. region quadrupled from 540 in April to 2,185 in June, seven out of 10 immigrants arrested in June had no criminal conviction \u2014 a trend that immigrant advocates say belies administration claims that they are targeting \u201cheinous illegal alien criminals\u201d who represent a threat to public safety.<\/p>\n

According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of ICE data from the Deportation Data Project<\/a>, the proportion of immigrants without criminal convictions arrested in seven counties in and around L.A. has skyrocketed from 35% in April, to 46% in May, and to 69% from June 1 to June 26.<\/p>\n

Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement, said the Trump administration was not being entirely honest about the criminal status of those they were arresting. <\/p>\n

Officials, he said, followed a strategy of focusing on the minority of violent convicted criminals so they could justify enforcement policies that are proving to be less popular. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think they know that if they were honest with the American public that they\u2019re arresting people who cook our food, wash dishes in the kitchen, take care of people in nursing homes, people who are just living in part of the community \u2026 there\u2019s a large segment of the public, including a large segment of Trump\u2019s own supporters, who would be uncomfortable and might even oppose those kinds of immigration practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Los Angeles, the raids swept up garment worker Jose Ortiz<\/a>, who worked 18 years at the Ambiance Apparel clothing warehouse in downtown L.A., before being nabbed in a June 6 raid; car wash worker Jesus Cruz<\/a>, a 52-year-old father who was snatched on June 8 \u2014 just before his daughter\u2019s graduation \u2014 from Westchester Hand Wash; and Emma De Paz<\/a>, a recent widow and tamale vendor from Guatemala who was arrested June 19 outside a Hollywood Home Depot.<\/p>\n

Such arrests may be influencing the public\u2019s perception of the raids. Multiple polls show support for Trump\u2019s immigration agenda slipping as masked federal agents increasingly swoop up undocumented immigrants from workplaces and streets. <\/p>\n

ICE data shows that about 31% of the immigrants arrested across the L.A. region from June 1 to June 26 had criminal convictions, 11% had pending criminal charges and 58% were classified as \u201cother immigration violator,\u201d which ICE defines<\/a> as \u201cindividuals without any known criminal convictions or pending charges in ICE\u2019s system of record at the time of the enforcement action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The L.A. region\u2019s surge in arrests of noncriminals has been more dramatic than the U.S. as a whole: Arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions climbed nationally from 57% in April to 69% in June.<\/p>\n

Federal raids here have also been more fiercely contested in Southern California \u2014 particularly in L.A. County, where more than 2 million residents are undocumented or living with undocumented family members<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA core component of their messaging is that this is about public safety, that the people that they are arresting are threats to their communities,\u201d said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. \u201cBut it\u2019s hard to maintain that this is all about public safety when you\u2019re going out and arresting people who are just going about their lives and working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump never said he would arrest only criminals.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as he retook office on Jan. 20, Trump signed a stack of executive orders<\/a> aimed at drastically curbing immigration. The administration then moved to expand arrests from immigrants who posed a security threat to anyone who entered the country illegally.<\/p>\n

Yet while officials kept insisting they were focused on violent criminals, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a warning<\/a>: \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation\u2019s borders are off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

As White House chief advisor on border policy Tom Homan put it: \u201cIf you\u2019re in the country illegally, you got a problem.\u201d <\/p>\n

Still, things did not really pick up until May, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered ICE\u2019s top field officials to shift to more aggressive tactics: arresting undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had a criminal record.<\/p>\n

Miller set a new goal: arresting 3,000 undocumented people a day, a quota that immigration experts say is impossible to reach by focusing only on criminals. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t enough criminal immigrants in the United States to fill their arrest quotas and to get millions and millions of deportations, which is what the president has explicitly promised,\u201d Bier said. \u201cImmigration and Customs Enforcement says there\u2019s half a million removable noncitizens who have criminal convictions in the United States. Most of those are nonviolent: traffic, immigration offenses. It\u2019s not millions and millions.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Trump celebrated six months in office, DHS boasted<\/a> that the Trump administration had already arrested more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants. <\/p>\n

\u201c70% of ICE arrests,\u201d the agency said in a news release, \u201care individuals with criminal convictions or charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that claim no longer appeared to be true. While 78% of undocumented immigrants arrested across the U.S. in April had a criminal conviction or faced a pending charge, that number had plummeted to 57% in June.<\/p>\n

In L.A., the difference between what Trump officials said and the reality on the ground was more stark: Only 43% of those arrested across the L.A. region had criminal convictions or faced a pending charge.<\/p>\n

Still, ICE kept insisting it was \u201cputting the worst first<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As stories circulate across communities about the arrests of law-abiding immigrants, there are signs that support for Trump\u2019s deportation agenda is falling.<\/p>\n

A CBS\/YouGov poll<\/a> published July 20 shows about 56% of those surveyed approved of Trump\u2019s handling of immigration in March, but that dropped to 50% in June and 46% in July. About 52% of poll respondents said the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than expected. When asked who the Trump administration is prioritizing for deporting, only 44% said \u201cdangerous criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have repeatedly accused Trump of conducting a national experiment in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government is using California as a playground to test their indiscriminate actions that fulfill unsafe arrest quotas and mass detention goals,\u201d Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Times. \u201cThey are going after every single immigrant, regardless of whether they have a criminal background and without care that they are American citizens, legal status holders and foreign-born, and even targeting native-born U.S. citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

When pressed on why ICE is arresting immigrants who have not been convicted or are not facing pending criminal charges, Trump administration officials tend to argue that many of those people have violated immigration law. <\/p>\n

\u201cICE agents are going to arrest people for being in the country illegally,\u201d Homan told CBS News earlier this month. \u201cWe still focus on public safety threats and national security threats, but if we find an illegal alien in the process of doing that, they\u2019re going to be arrested too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigration experts say that undermines their message that they are ridding communities of people who threaten public safety. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big backtracking from \u2018These people are out killing people, raping people, harming them in demonstrable ways,\u2019 to \u2018This person broke immigration law in this way or that way,\u2019\u201d Bier said. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration is also trying to find new ways to target criminals in California.<\/p>\n

It has threatened to withhold federal funds<\/a> to California due to its \u201csanctuary state\u201d law, which limits county jails from coordinating with ICE except in cases involving immigrants convicted of a serious crime or felonies such as murder, rape, robbery or arson. <\/p>\n

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department requested<\/a> California counties, including L.A., provide data on all jail inmates who are not U.S. citizens<\/a> in an effort to help federal immigration agents prioritize those who have committed crimes. \u201cAlthough every illegal alien by definition violates federal law,\u201d the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release, \u201cthose who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation\u2019s safety and security.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Americans are bombarded with dueling narratives of good vs. bad immigrants, Kocher believes the question we have to grapple with is not \u201cWhat does the data say?\u201d <\/p>\n

Instead, we should ask: \u201cHow do we meaningfully distinguish between immigrants with serious criminal convictions and immigrants who are peacefully living their lives?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s reasonable, or helpful, to represent everyone as criminals \u2014 or everyone as saints,\u201d Kocher said. \u201cProbably the fundamental question, which is also a question that plagues our criminal justice system, is whether our legal system is capable of distinguishing between people who are genuine public safety threats and people who are simply caught up in the bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The data, Kocher said, show that ICE is currently unable or unwilling to make that distinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t like the way that the system is working, we might want to rethink whether we want a system where people who are simply living in the country following laws, working in their economy, should actually have a pathway to stay,\u201d Kocher said. \u201cAnd the only way to do that is actually to change the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the rush to blast out mugshots of some of the most criminal L.A. immigrants, the Trump administration left out a key part of the story.<\/p>\n

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its staff notified ICE on May 5 of Veneracion\u2019s pending release after he had served nearly 30 years in prison for the crimes of assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force.<\/p>\n

But ICE failed to pick up Veneracion and canceled its hold on him May 19, a day before he was released on parole.<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, as ICE amped up its raids, federal agents arrested Veneracion on June 7 at the ICE office in L.A. The very next day, DHS shared his mugshot in a news release titled \u201cPresident Trump is Stepping Up Where Democrats Won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same document celebrated the capture of Phan, who served nearly 25 years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree murder.<\/p>\n

CDCR said the Board of Parole Hearings coordinated with ICE after Phan was granted parole in 2022. Phan was released that year to ICE custody.<\/p>\n

But those details did not stop Trump officials from taking credit for his arrest and blaming California leaders for letting Phan loose. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sickening that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass continue to protect violent criminal illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of American citizens and communities,\u201d DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n