Administrations are usually judged by what they do over the first 100 days. Forget that metric after what we’ve been seeing from Donald Trump. Future administrations may well be judged on what they get accomplished in the first 100 hours.
We are almost at three full days of the second Trump administration, and the promises that were made are being kept at a record pace. For months, we heard that illegal criminals would be the first to be arrested and taken off the streets. So far, Fox News is reporting over 460 arrests by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the first two days of Trump taking office.
Information obtained by Fox News Digital, shows that between midnight Jan. 21 and 9am Jan 22, a 33-hour period, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrests over 460 aliens that include criminal histories of sexual assault, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, drugs and weapons offenses, resisting arrest and domestic violence.
Agents arrested nationals from a slew of countries including Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Senegal and Venezuela.
Arrests took place across the U.S. including Illinois, Utah, California, Minnesota, New York, Florida and Maryland.
Meanwhile, ICE issued more than 420 detainers – requests ICE be notified when a national is released from custody. The nationals were arrested for crimes including homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, battery and robbery.
Bill Melugin, the Fox News reporter who has reported faithfully on the state of the southern border for years, tagged along in Boston as ICE began making arrests.
SNEAK PEEK: We embedded exclusively w/ ICE Boston today as they targeted egregious criminal aliens. We witnessed 8 arrests, including multiple MS-13, Interpol Red Notices, murder & rape suspects, & a volatile Haitian gang member w/ 18 convictions in recent years who told our… pic.twitter.com/LgerOp8dU8
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 22, 2025
His post reads in part:
SNEAK PEEK: We embedded exclusively w/ ICE Boston today as they targeted egregious criminal aliens. We witnessed 8 arrests, including multiple MS-13, Interpol Red Notices, murder & rape suspects, & a volatile Haitian gang member w/ 18 convictions in recent years who told our cameras he “ain’t going back to Haiti” and “f**k Trump, Biden forever!”.
We also witnessed a “collateral” arrest, where ICE arrested an illegal alien who wasn’t their initial target – but was with a MS-13 gang member who had been released by a sanctuary jurisdiction yesterday with an ICE detainer not honored. These collateral arrests are something that border czar Tom Homan has warned would happen in sanctuary jurisdictions. At one point, a woman yelled out “thank you” to ICE as a violent illegal alien was being arrested in her neighborhood.
Tom Homan, Trump’s bulldog of a border czar, is showing exactly what can be done to safeguard the American public when the restraints on ICE are removed.
Homan also pointed out during the above interview that the number of illegals interacting with Border Patrol has dropped like a rock. The numbers being reported make it obvious: everyone knows that with a new president comes new rules.
#EXCLUSIVE Border Patrol has less than 500 encounters today 🤯
Encounter numbers at the southern border plummet in @realDonaldTrump first days back in office according to data obtained through DHS sources—Who say, “This is what it is supposed to look like…”
“Welcome to the…— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) January 23, 2025
The post reads:
#EXCLUSIVE Border Patrol has less than 500 encounters today
Encounter numbers at the southern border plummet in @realDonaldTrump first days back in office according to data obtained through DHS sources—Who say, “This is what it is supposed to look like…”
“Welcome to the Trump effect…”1/17-1/19:
BP: 4,000
OFO: 4,9401/20-1/21:
BP: 1,940
OFO: 9301/22 (as of approx 8pm)
BP: 440
OFO: 45OFO encounters are often CBPOne app appointments—As you can see, those numbers nearly vanished after President Trump scrapped the app. The app was considered a “legal pathway” under the Biden administration—Nearly 1M people entered the country using the CBPOne. Trump promised the app would be gone and within 15 minutes of being sworn in, it was inoperable.
For the record, “BP” means “Border Patrol” and “OFO” refers to “Office of Field Operations,” meaning interactions at “non-land” points of entry (like airports).
It turns out that when an American president says “don’t come” and rolls up the welcome mat, people respond. The fact that ICE is out doing the work that they are supposed to be doing – catching criminals who should not be loose on American soil – is going to deter even more people from trying to come in illegally.
While all of this was happening, the House of Representatives passed the very first piece of legislation that will be sent for President Trump’s signature – the Laken Riley Act.
The legislation, aimed at clamping down on people in the U.S. illegally who commit nonviolent crimes like theft, is expected to be the first bill President Donald Trump signs into law after returning to the White House this week.
The House vote was 263-156, with 46 Democrats joining all Republicans in support of the measure. The bill passed the Senate on Monday by a vote of 64-35, winning 12 Democratic votes. Among them were Sens. Gary Peters, of Michigan; Jon Ossoff, of Georgia; Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire; and Mark Warner, of Virginia, all up for face re-election in 2026.
In November, Jose Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan citizen who was in the United States illegally, was found guilty of kidnapping, assaulting and murdering Riley while she was out for a jog near the University of Georgia campus in Athens. Ibarra was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump and Republicans highlighted that Ibarra had been cited for shoplifting by a Georgia police department, but that Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not issue a detainer for him and he was not taken into custody.
The Laken Riley Act, written by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., would require ICE to take custody of and detain undocumented immigrants who are charged, arrested or convicted of committing acts of “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.”
“It’s bittersweet,” Collins said after the vote, adding that he had spoken to Riley’s family earlier in the day. “For a young lady that wanted to dedicate her career and her life to saving lives, now her name will live on forever and it will save lives.”
It is fitting that after Joe Biden completely mangled her name during his final State of the Union address, the first law that Donald Trump will sign will bear Laken Riley’s name. Even some Democrats – especially those in re-election races or in border states – have realized that this law, and border enforcement by ICE, is not the hill they should die on.
Ruben Gallego didn’t run to be the next John McCain or Kyrsten Sinema — a new party-crossing maverick senator from Arizona.
But that’s exactly how he’s starting out.
Just days into his Senate career, the Democrat threw his support behind the Laken Riley Act — lending crucial momentum to the GOP-authored immigration bill that would force the incarceration of many undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.
In an interview, Gallego said it could be just the first of many votes he takes with Republicans on immigration and border issues — the reason he believes Democrats lost so broadly in 2024.
“I’m bringing the perspective of working class Latinos from Arizona,” he said. “And that perspective, I think, has been missing.”
The mood of the nation has shifted, and Donald Trump correctly interpreted the shift during his campaign, making promises about how he would use ICE for their intended purpose – enforcement. Now his administration is moving at record speed to take criminal illegal aliens off the streets, keeping those promises. While 460 arrests is not a lot, this is not the end – only the beginning. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not tired of winning yet.
Featured image: ICE arrest in January 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain
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