UPDATE: 1:45 p.m.: ICE officials told Breitbart Texas that the Home Depot parking lot was not the target of yesterday’s operation. The officers and agents were conducting a targeted enforcement operation against some identified criminal aliens in the area. As the officers drove by the Home Depot in route to the targeted alien’s location, dozens of people began to flee, giving them probable cause to intervene.
During the course of the encounters in the Home Depot parking lot, the officers and agents took approximately 40 illegal aliens into custody. More information on the arrests is expected to follow.
ICE officials previously told Breitbart their officers in the Houston area do not target the Home Depot parking lots out of concern for the safety of those they encounter.
Original Story Follows:
Breitbart Texas rode with ICE agents and CBP officers over the weekend as they worked the same area where this takedown occurred on Wednesday. Real American Voice’s Ben Bergquam rode with the task force for this operation, where approximately 120 illegal aliens were taken into custody.
At the 2:15 mark in Bergquam’s video, he walks up on an arrest where agents and officers discover a small pistol in the pocket of a Salvadoran illegal alien. The weapon was easily concealable. It is a violation of federal law for an illegal alien to be in possession of a firearm or ammunition.
Bergquam noted that they observed a U.S. citizen in the parking lot looking for work.
“Now he doesn’t have to compete against illegals,” he explained. “The reality is illegal aliens compete for just about every job in our country, but they disproportionately affect the low-income communities. If you actually care about low-income Americans, then you will support the deportation of illegals.”
The presence of U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service special agents is illustrative of the whole-of-government approach being utilized by the Trump administration in carrying out its mass deportation operations. The agents are seen chasing down and arresting the illegal aliens who are unlawfully taking work that American citizens could otherwise obtain.
ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) operations lead to the arrest of hundreds of illegal aliens per day in the Houston area. Houston Acting Deputy Director Larry Adams told Breitbart Saturday night that about 80 percent of those arrested have criminal histories. These include arrests and convictions for serious felonies like child sex assault, murder, aggravated assault, drug dealing, possession of illegal weapons, and more.
Using sophisticated software that accesses multiple federal and state databases, the officers and agents are able to target high-crime areas such as the Northeast Houston area, where Breitbart rode along with the team. In that part of the city, Adams said, We’ve identified approximately 800 potential targets within just a one-mile radius.”
Adams said the “Elite” software shows hot areas, highly populated, high crime.” He explained that the software allows officers to drill down to the country of origin, the criminality, and even its severity.
“So what we’ll do is we’ll find an area,” Adams explained. “Then we’ll choose (categories) like aggravated felons or crimes of violence, things like that, all the way down to sexual predators.” He explained this is how they develop the targeted enforcement operations that have landed thousands of dangerous criminal aliens in custody, resulting in their permanent removal from the country.
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday morning talk show. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products.
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