Evidence from credible sources supports the statement as accurate. Learn more in Methodology.
Official records, arrest reports, or ICE case files corroborate that 118 individuals were arrested by ICE Los Angeles in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties during December 26–31, 2025 and that the detainees included the listed categories of offenders.
The claim states that ICE’s Los Angeles field office arrested 118 people it labels “illegal aliens” in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties during a six‑day “surge operation” from December 26–31, 2025, including individuals described as pedophiles, registered sex offenders, burglars, domestic abusers, and serial drunk drivers. This is a retrospective factual assertion about a concluded enforcement action, so the key question is whether it happened as described.
An official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release dated January 5, 2026 explicitly reports that “ICE Los Angeles arrested 118 illegal aliens in California’s San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties during a six-day surge operation between December 26 and December 31,” and specifies that those arrested included “pedophiles, registered sex offenders, burglars, domestic abusers, and serial drunk drivers.” The release also lists named individuals, with prior convictions such as lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, battery, domestic-violence‑related offenses, DUI (including those causing injury), assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, and alien smuggling, which fits the categories cited in the claim.
A secondary report by Federal Newswire, published January 5, 2026, independently summarizes the same operation, citing ICE and repeating the core details: a six‑day operation from December 26–31, 2025 in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, 118 arrests of people in the country illegally, and convictions among them for sexual crimes against children, burglary, battery, domestic abuse, and multiple DUIs. This outlet’s account appears to be derived from the DHS/ICE release, but it confirms that these specifics were officially communicated to the public.
Inquisitr, a general‑interest news site, published an article on January 7, 2026 likewise describing a six‑day ICE operation from December 26–31, 2025 in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties that resulted in 118 arrests of undocumented immigrants, citing DHS officials. It echoes DHS’s characterization that among those arrested were individuals convicted of sexual assaults against children, domestic abuse, DUIs, and related offenses, again matching the categories in the claim, though the piece also notes broader criticism of such raids.
Local coverage adds contextual confirmation of the operation’s scale and timing. New Times San Luis Obispo, a regional outlet, reported in early January 2026 that ICE “reported arresting 118 ‘illegal aliens’ in Santa Barbara and SLO counties” between December 26 and 31, and quoted the same DHS language about targeting the “worst of the worst” criminal non‑citizens. This indicates that local observers and advocates understood the enforcement action to have occurred on the scale and in the timeframe ICE described, even as they raised concerns about impacts on immigrant communities.
No credible reporting or official correction has emerged disputing the headline facts of the operation: the six‑day duration, the two counties, the total of 118 arrests, or the presence among those arrested of individuals convicted of offenses such as child sexual abuse, burglary, domestic violence, and serial drunk driving. Independent outlets largely rely on DHS as the primary source, which introduces an incentive to emphasize the most serious cases and frame them politically, but there is no evidence that the basic numerical and categorical claims are inaccurate.
It is important to distinguish between DHS’s political framing and the factual claim under review. The rhetoric about “worst of the worst” and attacks on California officials reflects institutional and partisan incentives, but the underlying operational facts—timeframe, location, number of arrests, and examples of offenses—are specific, documented, and consistently reported. Given the convergence of official and independent accounts and the absence of contradictory evidence, a reasonable assessment is that the described arrests did occur as stated.
On this basis, the claim that ICE Los Angeles arrested 118 people during a December 26–31, 2025 surge operation in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, including individuals convicted of child sexual abuse and other serious offenses like burglary, domestic abuse, and repeat drunk driving, is best assessed as accurate and fully realized.