America is infiltrated. It’s time something was done.
And now ICE revealed massive arrest numbers that put illegal immigrants on notice.
In a single week, immigration agents arrested more than a hundred suspected gang members who were in the country illegally, including alleged members of two of the most violent criminal organizations operating in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security told Fox News Digital that ICE arrested 131 gang-affiliated people between Oct. 4 and Oct. 10, including 22 tied to MS-13 and 13 tied to Tren de Aragua, or TdA.
The week was not an outlier. DHS says ICE has made 12,018 gang-related arrests since President Trump took office again in 2025. That is a figure that would have been unthinkable under an enforcement approach that treated most illegal immigrants as low priorities, and it illustrates what an administration can do when it decides to put dangerous people first.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin praised the agents in a statement. “In less than a week, the brave patriots of ICE have arrested more than 100 gang members across the country, including members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua,” Mullin said. “The best that America has to offer are on the frontlines every day to ensure that the worst of humanity cannot threaten or harm innocent Americans.”
The department highlighted several of the week’s arrests. One was Gustavo Adolfo Flores-Ramirez, a Salvadoran national DHS identified as an MS-13 member. DHS says it is not known when he first entered the country illegally, but that he was arrested in the U.S. in September 2021 and deported to Mexico, which means he had apparently found his way back.
Another was Jose Luis Perez-Arrias, a Venezuelan national and alleged TdA member arrested in Tallahassee, Florida. DHS describes him as a suspected hitman for the gang. According to the department, he illegally entered the country in October 2023, while former President Biden was in office, and was arrested by Border Patrol agents and released into the country. He is also reported to face charges including first-degree assault with extreme indifference, first-degree kidnapping, aggravated criminal extortion, illegal discharge of a weapon and conspiracy.
A third arrest was Emerson Jossiel Calderon-Hernandez, a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 member, taken into custody in Washington, D.C. DHS says he has arrests that include attempted m*rder and armed robbery, and that he entered illegally in August 2012, during the Obama administration, and was released into the country. Two administrations, two different parties, and the same outcome: people who entered illegally and were let go, with consequences arriving years later.
Then there is the arrest that tends to stick in people’s minds. According to DHS, a 14-year-old associated with Los Piratas, a faction of TdA, was arrested while illegally carrying a Glock 48 pistol. Reporting on his alleged charges describes serious violent allegations. Whatever the final outcome, the picture of a teenager carrying a loaded handgun in the name of a transnational gang should make any parent stop and think.
Readers should keep one important caution in mind. These are arrests, and the descriptions of criminal histories and gang affiliations come from DHS. Suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and some of the details will be tested in court. But the department’s account is specific, naming individuals, dates and charges, and it is the kind of reporting that can be checked.
It is also worth noting how these arrests fit into an ongoing legal and political fight. The week’s announcement followed a controversy over U.S. District Judge Jinsook Ohta’s order releasing David Antonio Aviles Perez, an MS-13 gang member sought for aggravated m*rder in El Salvador. DHS General Counsel James Percival publicly criticized the release and defended the department’s efforts to detain gang members wanted for serious crimes abroad.
Americans who live in neighborhoods affected by these gangs do not need a seminar to understand why this matters. MS-13 and TdA are not abstractions. They have been linked to m*rder, extortion and trafficking, and in some communities they have turned apartment buildings and streets into zones where ordinary people are afraid to speak up. President Trump has talked about exactly this, recalling a notorious Tren de Aragua apartment takeover in Aurora, Colorado, and saying his administration’s crackdown has targeted the gang.
The argument against enforcement is usually phrased in humanitarian terms, and compassion for migrants who are fleeing danger is a legitimate value. But compassion for people who are victims of violence in their home countries is not the same as tolerance for the gangs that cause it. Removing violent criminals does not betray migrants; it protects them and the American communities where they settle.
None of this means the work is finished. Twelve thousand arrests is a large number, but the number of people who entered illegally and were released over the past decade is larger. The administration will be judged on whether these arrests turn into convictions, removals and, ultimately, a lower rate of violent crime where Americans live.
For now, the numbers from one week in October tell a simple story: when the government decides that public safety comes first, it can find the people who are doing the most harm. The families who live next door to them are the ones most likely to say it should have happened years ago.
