‘Operation Rotten Apple’: ICE Nabs Hundreds Of Illegals Released By Sanctuary New York

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quietly conducted raids across New York dubbed “Operation Rotten Apple” that yielded the arrests of more than 2,100 illegal immigrant criminals.

Among those arrested were murderers, kidnappers, rapists, robbers, burglars, child predators, drug traffickers, and other violent criminals released onto the streets by sanctuary authorities, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced during a press conference on Tuesday. The raids took place between July 27 and August 29 and targeted more than 13,000 criminal illegal immigrants who were released from local jails despite having ICE detainers lodged against them.

“Operation Rotten Apple was an operation we decided to take on because you have a very liberal slash socialist mayor here in New York City that instead of working with law enforcement tries to cut NYPD’s budget by $22 million and refuses to work with federal law enforcement. You have a governor that refuses to work with us,” Mullin said.

“These are your rapists, your murderers, your child predators, these are gangbangers, these are terrorists. 13,000 individuals that the state of New York had locked up and we said ‘Hey, they’re in this country illegally,’ … We targeted those 13,000. That’s where we got those 2,100 and we’re not done, we’re still moving forward,” Mullin said.

During Tuesday’s announcement, Mullin took swipes at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for adopting the sanctuary policies that forced ICE to take to the streets.

“These individuals should’ve never been on our streets, but while the radical left sanctuary states protect illegals, underneath Trump’s administration and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE officers … are out there every day protecting Americans. Let’s not forget earlier this summer when the mayor of New York City, the socialist Mamdani, said he believes that ICE raids are cruel, inhumane, and they do nothing to serve to protect the interests of the public safety,” Mullin said.

“You want to tell me that these individuals here that was arrested off your streets mayor, that’s in the interest of public safety,” Mullin said, adding that Mamdani is “extremely out of touch” when it comes to public safety and the wants of the American people.

He went on to criticize Hochul for recently banning local police from entering into agreements to work with ICE.

“Recently, your liberal governor of the great state of New York … got behind a podium that read ‘Keeping New Yorkers Safe.’ At the same time, she’s announcing that she’s ending 287g agreements and banned individuals in New York from working with us,” Mullin said.

Mullin listed several of the criminal illegal immigrants ICE nabbed during the operation, which included an Indian man wanted in Germany for rape who was released into the country during the Biden administration. ICE also arrested a Ukrainian murderer, a Colombian national arrested for sexually assaulting a child, and a Dominican heroin trafficker.

Ken Genalo, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in New York City, called the operation “deliberate,” “precise,” and “effective.”

“These are not the people New York’s sanctuary policies should be protecting from federal immigration enforcement,” Genalo said.

The officers who took part in the raids faced harassment from outside agitators as they worked to arrest the illegal immigrant targets, Genalo said, adding that his agents remain undeterred.

“While our officers were removing public safety threats from the New York streets, they were also being harassed, threatened, targeted, and terrorized,” he said. “And when elected officials excuse, minimize, or even celebrate the behavior as they did in this case, they place a target on the back of the officers who are doing their jobs. ICE officers will not be intimidated by political rhetoric, sanctuary policies, or street-level threats.”