4 minPolitics
LA ICE Director Says Officers Followed Home, Harassed as Local Police Decline Help
ICE Los Angeles Field Office Director Thomas Giles says California's sanctuary policies force agents into riskier public arrests and that local police refusal to cooperate is a public safety threat. He described officers being followed home and harassed during a Fox News Digital ride-along.
The top federal immigration enforcement official in Los Angeles says his agents are being followed home, harassed on social media, and confronted in public while local police in California's sanctuary cities decline to assist them. Thomas Giles, field office director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles, made the comments during an early morning enforcement operation Thursday that resulted in the arrest of six people in the country illegally.
Giles told Fox News Digital that California's sanctuary policies complicate every stage of an operation. Because of ongoing litigation in the state, ICE officers are barred from knocking on a target's door or stepping onto the property surrounding it. That forces agents to apprehend individuals in public spaces or through potentially dangerous vehicle stops, rather than in the controlled setting of a jail or courthouse.
«The sanctuary policies definitely impact our operations in terms of it'd be a lot easier for us to have that transfer of custody in a secure environment,» Giles said. «So, what it does for us is it sends our officers out into the community, putting our officers at risk and other community members at risk to go out and try to apprehend this individual.»
Giles said the change in policy has been dramatic. Before California's sanctuary laws took effect, he said, «we were picking up hundreds of people a day at the local jails and bringing them in and processing them.» Now, local law enforcement «can't even work with us,» which he described as «definitely a big, huge public safety threat.»
One of Thursday's targets illustrated the problem. Julio Alberto Aroca-Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Honduran national, had been arrested the previous week by local police for assault with a deadly weapon using a baseball bat. Aroca-Rodriguez entered the U.S. at an unknown date and location and has been under a removal order since 2019. Local authorities declined to honor ICE's request to hold him and released him back into the community.
When ICE officers encountered Aroca-Rodriguez on Thursday, they also detained four other people identified as illegal immigrants who were present at the scene. After the arrests, the team quickly relocated because a crowd of anti-ICE agitators had begun to form, according to the report.
Giles described the treatment of his officers by some California politicians, media figures, and members of the public as «degrading to the work that the men and women of ICE do.» He said his officers have been followed home, harassed personally, and targeted on social media. He also criticized agitators who wear masks while «complaining about us wearing masks but they look the same as we do as well.»
Despite the difficulties, Giles praised his officers as Americans who «love this country» and «want to support the Constitution.» He said the agency remains committed to its mission. «We're out doing our job; we are sworn law enforcement officers. We're out trying to keep the community safe just like other law enforcement officers,» he said. «I just think there's a lot of rhetoric out there that a lot of people don't know exactly what we do and we're trying to portray that out to the public.»
Fox News Digital witnessed ICE process Aroca-Rodriguez and was told he would remain in custody pending removal to Honduras. Five other illegal immigrants were also processed for removal proceedings during the operation.
