Few details released on more than 100 immigration arrests

Federal agents have arrested more than 100 people in Hawaii so far this year for alleged violations of immigration law, but information on exactly how many over 100, where they were arrested and for what was not made public.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests for Enforcement and Removal Operations’ statistics for Hawaii for the past five years.

Specific data on the number of immigration arrests and deportations nationwide this year is not available. Statistics on DHS’s website end in November 2024.

“HSI Honolulu has made over 100 arrests this year. We know there’s a lot of scrutiny on immigration enforcement right now, and we understand the concerns people have. But our job is to uphold ALL the laws that protect the U.S. and Hawaii’s trade, travel, and financial systems. Keeping these systems secure is key to protecting our safety and economy,” read a statement to the Star-­Advertiser from an ICE spokesperson. “Everyone should be banking, trading, and traveling in and out of the country the right way — lawfully. We’re working hard every day to do this fairly, responsibly, and by the book.”

Enforcement of U.S. immigration law is top of mind under President Donald Trump, who campaigned on the promise of using law enforcement to find and deport anyone illegally in the country. Trump’s team has publicized and posed for pictures at deportation detention centers in South America.

On Monday, Trump took to his Truth Social media account to decry what he said was the “warped radical left minds who allowed 21,000,000 people to illegally enter our country.”

Earlier this month ICE officials announced 50 arrests in Hawaii.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Marshals Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and U.S. Coast Guard coordinated on an operation on Maui, Oahu and Hawaii island.

Among those arrested was a Vietnamese national convicted of second-degree murder and a Mexican national convicted of drunken driving in 2020 and 2015 and driving without a license in 2011 and 2020.

Others arrested or targeted during the operation included people convicted of do­mestic violence, car theft, murder, theft, probation violations, drug possession and gun crimes, according to ICE officials.

Information on where their crimes occurred, when and on what islands the 50 people were arrested was not made public. The states where the criminal convictions occurred and details of the crimes were not shared.

Federal agents use “statutory law enforcement authority” to identify and arrest aliens who might present “threats to national security or public safety, or who otherwise undermine the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

ICE most commonly arrests immigration violators with convictions involving DUI, drug possession, assault and criminal (noncivil) traffic offenses such as hit-and-run or leaving the scene of an accident.

Federal agents execute “targeted, intelligence-­driven operations to prioritize its enforcement actions” that require significant investigation, preparation and coordination.

As of Dec. 31, 561 immigration arrests occurred in ICE’s San Francisco Area of Responsibility, which includes Hawaii. Statistics for Hawaii were not made public by DHS.

Of those arrested, 517 were removed from the country. The U.S. is divided into 25 areas of responsibility policed by immigration enforcement agents.

Allies in Resistance, a newly formed group that stands against “all attempts to degrade and damage our civil society, our environment, and our people,” is demanding transparency from immigration officials.

“The failure of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to understand the protection provided to immigrants by the doctrine of Habeus Corpus underscores the need for a full, person-­by-person accounting of alleged transgressions,” said Chuck Freedman, a member of Allies in Resistance. “We continue to be concerned that individuals who have a right to be in the United States are swept up without any hearing in a wide and unfair net, and once captured are not able to return to their lives, their families and their livelihoods.”

The ICE operation that nabbed 50 alleged immigration law violators included 10 to 12 teachers on Maui after ICE agents armed with assault rifles executed a search warrant at a Kahului home looking for a Mexican national who had not lived at the multifamily residence in more than a year.

The teachers, all but one of whom are from the Philippines and employed through the U.S. Department of State’s J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program, were brought out of the home at gunpoint by about a dozen ICE agents dressed in black at about 6:15 a.m. May 6.

The J-1 program allows qualified educators from other countries to work in the U.S. legally as part of a cultural and educational exchange.

More than two dozen Hawaii organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights, League of Women Voters in Hawaii, Japanese American Citizens League, United Filipino Council of Hawaii Foundation and Hawaii Friends of Civil Rights released a joint statement Thursday to “vehemently object to the federal government abusing its power in unlawfully detaining teachers of Filipino ancestry.”

The teachers’ families and their children were also detained outside their home. Many of them were not properly dressed, and many were crying and visibly shaken. “The ICE agents did not show a warrant until after they conducted the search of the home,” read the statement. “This abuse of power by the federal government not only impacts teachers or members of the Filipino community. If left unchecked, these actions have a harmful effect on all professions, all groups, all ethnicities, all communities, all people.”

The group lauded U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono’s floor speech where she called the May 6 incident “terrorizing people, plain and simple.”

The organizations, in their statement, called on state and county lawmakers including the governor, attorney general and mayors to provide an “explanation of what is being done to protect our communities and prevent future raids.” “And we demand that the federal government immediately desist from illegally detaining citizens and lawful residents, from conducting unlawful searches, and from terrorizing and traumatizing families and children,” the advocacy groups said.