Making America Safe Again: DHS Arrests 17,500 Criminal Illegal Aliens with Laken Riley Act Crimes

In the statute, a “Laken Riley Act” crime is not a special new offense; it is a set of existing offenses that, if alleged against a removable non‑citizen, trigger mandatory immigration detention.

Public Law 119‑1 (the Laken Riley Act) amends INA §236(c) to require DHS to take into custody any non‑citizen who:

• Is present without lawful status, and
• Has been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of any of these crimes in the United States:
  • Theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting;
  • Assault on a law enforcement officer; or
  • Any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury (for example, a DUI that causes serious injury or death).

DHS and ICE press releases refer to arrests made under this authority as involving “Laken Riley Act crimes.”

The Laken Riley Act itself amends the Immigration and Nationality Act; it does not create a new enforcement agency. In practice:

• ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) is the primary DHS component making arrests and detaining people under the Act, including via national operations like “Operation Angel’s Honor.”
• CBP (Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations) encounters and initially arrests people at or near the border; when they identify qualifying criminal histories or charges, they transfer such individuals to ICE custody, where the LRA mandatory‑detention rules apply.
• USCIS does not make LRA arrests; it may, however, deny or revoke immigration benefits based on the same criminal grounds that trigger mandatory detention.

Operational decisions to arrest under the LRA are made by ICE ERO officers and supervisors, applying DHS/ICE policy and the statutory custody mandate in 8 U.S.C. §1226(c) as amended by the Act.

Operation Angel’s Honor was a nationwide ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) action conducted under the Laken Riley Act authority.

Key points:

• Dates & duration: ICE describes it as a 14‑day operation that concluded on December 22, 2025; it was conducted “in the last two weeks” before that date.
• Scope: Nationwide targeting of “criminal illegal aliens” who had been accused of Laken Riley Act crimes (theft, burglary, assault on a law‑enforcement officer, or any crime causing death or serious bodily injury). ICE reports more than 1,030 arrests of such individuals.
• Lead component: ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), with field offices around the country participating.
• Legal authorities: ICE states the arrests were made “under the authority of the Laken Riley Act,” i.e., the mandatory detention provision in INA §236(c) as amended by Public Law 119‑1, plus ICE’s existing arrest and detention powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. §§1226, 1357).

DHS and ICE use “criminal illegal alien” as an enforcement label, not a legal immigration status.

In practice, for DHS/ICE statistics and press releases:

• “Criminal alien” or “criminal noncitizen” generally means a non‑U.S. citizen who has at least one prior criminal conviction (in the U.S. or abroad) before or at the time of immigration enforcement.
• CBP, for example, defines “criminal aliens” as individuals with one or more criminal convictions prior to interdiction, excluding purely civil immigration violations.
• A Laken Riley Act arrest can also be based on arrests or charges without conviction, but DHS still describes such individuals as “criminal illegal aliens” if they are in the country unlawfully and have those qualifying arrests or charges.
• Noncitizens with only pending charges and no convictions may still be legally presumed innocent in the criminal system, but under the LRA they are subject to mandatory immigration detention once arrested for one of the listed offenses.

So the distinction is largely factual and operational: DHS calls someone a “criminal illegal alien” if they lack lawful status and have documented criminal arrests/charges or convictions, even if their criminal case or immigration case is still pending.

After an arrest under the Laken Riley Act, several legal tracks proceed in parallel:

1. Mandatory immigration detention

   • ICE takes the noncitizen into custody under INA §236(c) as amended by the LRA (now 8 U.S.C. §1226(c)(1)(E)).
   • Detention is without bond for the duration of immigration proceedings, unless DHS releases the person in very narrow circumstances.

2. Criminal process in criminal courts

   • Local, state, or federal prosecutors decide whether to file, pursue, or dismiss the underlying criminal charges (theft, burglary, assault on an officer, DUI causing injury, etc.).
   • The criminal case can result in acquittal, conviction, plea, or dismissal; that outcome then affects removability and potential relief.

3. Immigration court proceedings

   • ICE files a Notice to Appear (NTA) starting removal proceedings in immigration court (EOIR).
   • An immigration judge determines removability and any eligibility for relief (asylum, withholding, CAT, cancellation, etc.).
   • Because of §236(c), immigration judges generally cannot grant bond in these cases.

4. Removal or other outcomes

   • If the noncitizen is ordered removed and there is a country to accept them, ICE arranges deportation from the United States.
   • If the person wins protection or relief, they may remain in the U.S., though DHS may keep them detained or later release them under supervision, depending on the case.

Thus, an LRA arrest is primarily about mandatory immigration custody; it does not replace the separate criminal prosecution process, but it makes detention mandatory while the immigration and criminal cases play out.

Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan-origin transnational criminal organization that began as a prison gang in Tocorón prison in Aragua state and expanded across South America. It is involved in activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, and violent crimes. The U.S. has designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization / transnational criminal organization, and U.S. police agencies have linked some recent violent crimes to its members.

In relation to the Laken Riley case:

• DHS and ICE state that the man who killed Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was a Venezuelan national and a member of Tren de Aragua; they repeat this claim in the December 2025 DHS release announcing 17,500 arrests under the LRA and in ICE’s Operation Angel’s Honor release.
• Separate reporting (e.g., NewsNation/Newsweek summaries) cites unnamed federal sources or investigative documents saying suspect Jose Antonio Ibarra was a documented Tren de Aragua member.

Open-source evidence about his exact level of gang involvement is limited to government statements and media reporting; no independent public court finding has formally litigated his Tren de Aragua membership as of the dates referenced.

In this DHS release, the phrase “released again by sanctuary policies” refers specifically to jurisdictions that limit cooperation with ICE detainers and notifications, particularly New York City:

• DHS and ICE have stated that the Laken Riley murder suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, was arrested by the NYPD in September 2023 for “acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17” and a license offense, and that he was released without ICE taking custody.
• New York City is widely described (by Congress, advocates, and the city itself) as a “sanctuary city” whose laws (e.g., Local Law 228 of 2017 and related sanctuary‑city ordinances) generally prohibit honoring ICE detainers or notifying ICE of release except in narrowly defined serious‑crime circumstances.

DHS is therefore pointing to New York City–style sanctuary policies—limits on detainer compliance and release notification—as the policies under which Ibarra was released prior to the later killing of Laken Riley.

The DHS press release states that “more than 17,500 criminal illegal aliens were arrested and detained with Laken Riley Act crimes” but does not give an explicit date range or methodological description.

From available information:

• The Laken Riley Act was signed into law on January 29, 2025.
• ICE’s Operation Angel’s Honor release (Dec. 22, 2025) reports 1,030 arrests in the preceding 14 days; the DHS Dec. 24, 2025 release says those arrests are a subset of a total of 17,500+ such arrests under the Act.
• It is therefore reasonable to infer DHS is counting arrests made between late January 2025 and late December 2025, but DHS has not published the underlying dataset, time series, or component‑level breakdown.

Publicly, the only sources for the “17,500” figure are DHS’s own Dec. 24, 2025 press release and derivative media reports; no independent database or detailed methodology has been released that would allow external verification of the exact time window or counting rules.