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Nearly 20,000 criminal illegal aliens have been arrested and detained under the new Laken Riley act, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The Laken Riley Act was signed into law by President Trump at the end of January, in commemoration of a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered by an illegal alien in February 2024.
The Act requires the DHS to detain illegal aliens who have been arrested for theft, burglary, shoplifting or larceny. It also permits states to sue the federal government for violations of federal immigration laws that endanger American citizens.
The Epoch Times reports, “Earlier this week, DHS cited results from Operation Angel’s Honor, a 14-day nationwide operation launched in honor of Riley that targeted illegal immigrants who committed crimes that come under the purview of the Laken Riley Act.
“During the operation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested 1,030 criminal illegal immigrants, the department said.
“Some of the arrested individuals include a Cuban illegal immigrant convicted of 17 counts of larceny, a Guatemalan national charged with cruelty toward a child and convicted of aggravated assault on an officer, a Jamaican illegal immigrant convicted of sexual assault, and a Mexican national convicted of kidnapping and drug possession.”
Laken Riley’s murderer was a member of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who had been arrested and released under the Biden administration 18 months before he killed her.
“He was previously arrested by NYPD for acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and released back into American neighborhoods. He then went on to commit the heinous murder of Laken Riley,” a DHS statement said.
Riley went missing at the end of February 2024, during a morning jog at the University of Georgia. Her body was discovered after a friend reported her missing.
