Operation Patriot, the greatest ICE operation ever, resulted in the arrest of approximately 1,500 illegal immigrants, including murders, rapists, drug traffickers, and child sex predators, in the deep blue sanctuary city-heavy state of Massachusetts.
Operation Patriot ended on Saturday, with 1,461 illegal aliens apprehended throughout the Greater Boston area and the state of Massachusetts, which includes several sanctuary jurisdictions.
ICE sources informed Fox News that 790 of those apprehended had criminal records or charges, while 277 had final removal or deportation orders. According to the sources, all of the targeted criminals were freely wandering the streets of Massachusetts cities prior to their arrest.
The operation took place throughout May and involved ICE teams from other Northeast states as well as FBI, DEA, and ATF agents.
Fox News was embedded with ICE Boston on Thursday as part of this investigation. While Fox News was infiltrated with ICE, agents apprehended a murderer, two child rapists, one of whom lived near to a playground, a fentanyl trafficker, an adult rapist, and a child sexual assaulter all within a few hours.
Before this, the largest ICE operation was Operation Tidal Wave in Florida, which resulted in 1,120 arrests. Fox News was told that Operation Patriot was substantially more challenging because, unlike in Florida, ICE obtained no local support from Massachusetts sanctuary jurisdictions.
According to sources, the operation was launched in direct retaliation to Boston and Massachusetts authorities’ refusal to cooperate with ICE.
According to reports, “hundreds” of the apprehended targets were freed by local sanctuary jurisdictions, while ICE detainers were ignored. ICE reportedly reported regular meddling from anti-ICE protester groups across Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has expressed outrage at ICE’s actions in her state. Healey turned to social media on Sunday evening to demand an explanation after ICE officials detained 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes, an illegal and a junior at Milford High School in Milford, Massachusetts.
In her article, Healey expresses her “disturbed and outraged” feelings and demands prompt explanations as to why the student was detained by immigration officials.
According to Healey, “the Trump Administration continues to create fear in our communities, and it’s making us all less safe.”
During a press conference on Monday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons commented on Massachusetts leaders’ opposition, saying: “If sanctuary cities changed their policies and turned these violent criminal aliens over to us into our custody instead of releasing them into the public, we would not have to go out to the communities and do this.”
Lyons claimed that the raid “just showed we need to come back and we’re going to keep coming back because ICE is going to make sure that we keep our community safe and keep our neighborhood safe from these sex offenders and these criminal aliens.”
The press conference took place on the same day when Lorenzo Lopez Alcario, an illegal alien in Massachusetts, was charged with forcibly raping a kid. A document of the accusations obtained by Fox News Digital states that the child was bound during the rape.
Jon Fetherston, a former Massachusetts migrant shelter director, told Fox News Digital that Democratic Governor Maura Healey’s opposition to federal immigration enforcement operations is “not only unsafe for ICE agents, it’s unsafe for all of us.”
Fetherston also claimed that Healey’s policies are “creating a climate of lawlessness, where even convicted criminals are shielded from federal enforcement.”
“That’s not compassion — it’s recklessness,” he told me.