PHILADELPHIA, W.Va. — An ICE enforcement officer says a recent surge in West Virginia that included 600 arrests of people allegedly illegally in the U.S was part of a nationwide effort.
“I don’t think there are many places in the country that are not impacted by it,” ICE Philadelphia Enforcement and Removal Operations acting Field Office Director Michael Rose said Monday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
Rose said he’s not surprised by the number of arrests.
“West Virginia is in the crossroads of everything. There are a lot of highways, a lot of folks traveling through and in some of the cities in West Virginia, particularly in the Eastern Panhandle it’s pretty populated. A lot of people coming in from Virginia and Maryland spending time in West Virginia,” Rose said.
Teams were sent to Charleston, Huntington, Martinsburg, Moorefield, Morgantown and Beckley.
ICE Philadelphia said the West Virginia surge included the arrest of a man identified as Sagar Singh, a citizen of India, who was allegedly operating a tractor trailer that was unsafe. ICE said it also arrested a Chinese criminal illegal alien Ling Yan, also known as Yang Ning. He had been previously convicted in Ohio of two counts of endangering the welfare of children. He had a final order of removal.
“They’re going to be removed from the country much more quickly. There are other folks, who maybe have not gone through the whole immigration process, and so, they will have the full slate of hearings before an immigration judge to decide their status,” Rose said Monday.
Rose praised the help of state police, county sheriff’s deputies and other West Virginia law enforcement in the two-week surge that took place Jan. 5-19. Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE last August on the 287-G programs, which trained law enforcement, military, and corrections leaders assist ICE with identifying and removing illegal aliens found in the state.
The state Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill Monday that would require West Virginia law enforcement to immediately transfer any person identified as an undocumented immigrant to federal authorities for deportation.
Senate Bill 615 next heads to the full Senate for consideration.