Fox News’s Bill Melugin and his team accompanied Border Czar Tom Homan and numerous agencies as they raided Colorado apartment complexes, including the infamous Aurora, CO, apartment complex overrun with the Venezuela gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).
“Several hundred federal agents from ICE, HSI, DEA, FBI, ATF, and CBP, all targeting alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” said Melugin.
They expected over 100 arrests. They only arrested 30 people and 1 TdA member.
“The goal today is to send a message to TDA that we’re going to eradicate from this country,” explained Homan. “There’s no safe harbor. There’s no sanctuary for them folks.”
Acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello thinks media leaks tipped off the gang members and other illegal immigrants:
BILL MELUGIN: It seems like they were tipped off. They knew this was coming.VITELLO: So, yeah, I do get the impression that there were some intel leaks here, and I think that probably they did know we were coming, but we’re still coming. And just because something leaks now and then, it’s not going to stop us.
The agents arrested a previously deported Honduran illegal alien who faced “local charges for strangulation, kidnapping, and possession of fentanyl.”
Sounds like they need to tighten these raids:
MELUGIN: And guys, officials told us they were planning to net triple digit arrests as a result of this operation, possibly upwards of 200 people. ICE officials told me at the end of the end of the day yesterday, they only had 30 arrests, only one of which was a confirmed TdA ang member. It certainly felt like everybody knew this was coming, including the targets and the local media. We’ll send it back to you.DANA PERINO: And did the local media, did they get ahead of the operation?MELUGIN: They were everywhere, were sometimes ahead of us it felt like, along with some of the local activists. This raid was initially supposed to happen last week, guys. But two media outlets wrote articles announcing it. It got leaked to them. They wrote articles announcing that ICE was coming to the Aurora area to conduct a huge operation. ICE canceled that raid, moved it to this week, and everywhere we went, the local media was there, followed quickly by those anti-ICE activists.
On Thursday morning, Harris Faulkner asked Homan about the people protesting in the street since it seems like they’re impeding. Homan answered:
You’re exactly right. When they come to the cross line of impediment and that’s why I’m working very close, starting this morning with Department of Justice. And where do they cross that line of impediment? So they may find themselves sending pair of handcuffs very soon. So we’re working with DOJ on that, get some legal guidance on it. I’m not an attorney. I know what Sec Ops is about. I know what crosses that line is, but getting DOJ backup on that, so it’s something we’re looking at right now, Harris. We’re not going to tolerate it anymore. This is not a game. When we show up these sites, this is a dangerous job for the men and women of ICE and border patrol and all the DOJ agencies to have that type of interference puts our offset great risk. Not only the officers, it puts the aliens at great risk because anything can happen when we take our eyes off the goal here, so we’re addressing that immediately today.
Homan also said he is also going to address “operational security” and “how these leaks are happening.” He said:
We’ve already identified how this operation got leaked. I’ll deal with that today. It’s all about controlling the message. I try to be transparent. I promise American people to be transparent operations. But it’s obvious we can’t be having all these different news outlets out there with us on various raids. Bill Malugin, great guy, but we got a lot of OPSeC concerns we’re dealing with right now. But the leak who we identified today will deal with that today. But, it’s not a game. I want to put it out to whether it’s [New Jersey] Governor Phil Murphy, the rest of people that want to game this. It’s not a joke. This is serious business and they need to stop or we’ll prosecute them through the Department of Justice.
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