Federal agents pulled nearly 2,200 illegal aliens off New York streets in a single month — including convicted murderers, child rapists, and drug traffickers — proving enforcement works when the will exists, and raising the question of how many more walk free because the political class refused to act.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Tuesday that ICE arrested 2,197 people between July 27 and Aug. 29 as part of "Operation Rotten Apple" — and did it with zero cooperation from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
"Operation Rotten Apple did what sanctuary politicians in New York City and the state of New York refuse to do: made the Empire State safer," Mullin said.
The sweep netted some genuinely dangerous people. According to DHS, those taken into custody include Bogdan Detrovich Gren, a Ukrainian illegal alien convicted of murder, kidnapping, and abduction resulting in death; Andreas Bernal Chiquito, a Colombian national with arrests for sexual conduct against a child; Palvinder Singh, an Indian illegal alien convicted of rape in Germany; and Carlos Mendez-Acosta, a Venezuelan migrant convicted of rape.
"These arrests included gang members, rapists, murderers and child predators — which I believe there is a special place in hell for," Mullin told reporters.
Here's the part the establishment press won't dwell on: this had to be done despite elected officials actively working against it. Mamdani signed an executive order in January reinforcing sanctuary protections against what he called "abusive immigration enforcement," and later pushed additional legislation making it harder for local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE. Hochul, for her part, rammed through the Local Crimes, Local Cop Act, which went into effect Aug. 25, forcing county sheriffs to cancel their ICE contracts and barring state police from cooperating with federal authorities. Fifteen county sheriffs are now suing the state over the law, Breitbart reported.
The result of these sanctuary policies, per DHS: more than 13,000 criminal aliens released back onto New York streets.
Border czar Tom Homan didn't mince words: "Democratic politicians in New York and elsewhere say that they care about public safety, but won't let immigration law enforcement officers into their jails to take criminals into custody; instead they release them to their streets. It makes no sense."
Mullin was asked whether more federal agents would be sent to New York. "Absolutely," he said. "Because they refused to work with us … we will send as many people as we have possible to make sure we are restoring law and order."
Two thousand two hundred criminals off the streets in 30 days, in one state, with local politicians throwing every barrier they could at federal agents. The operation worked. The open question: how many thousands more are still out there — and how long did the political class know?
