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EXCLUSIVE: Despite stunning news about the return of illegal alleged gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia Friday afternoon, the White House is celebrating a "blockbuster" week for President Donald Trump's immigration agenda.
"It’s a bad day to be an illegal alien and a great day to be an American," a spokesperson said.
On the heels of "Operation Patriot," the largest ICE operation ever, which saw the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegal aliens in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, ICE arrests surged this week, with agents making over 2,000 arrests Tuesday and nearly 2,500 Wednesday.
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Overall, ICE has arrested over 100,000 illegal immigrants since Trump took office.
Over the weekend, ICE officials and local authorities in South Carolina raided a "cartel after-party" where 80 illegal aliens were arrested, including two alleged "high-level cartel members" of the Mexican cartel Los Zetas and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to The Post and Courier.
The White House is celebrating a "blockbuster" week for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. "It’s a bad day to be an illegal alien and a great day to be an American," a spokesperson said. (Win McNamee/Getty Images and ICE)
According to the outlet, one of the individuals arrested, a Honduran national, has been named in an international murder case.
The New York Times also reported that deportation flights rose to the highest level yet under the Trump administration. This comes as ICE announced this week that it had deported 142 criminal aliens to Mexico from the Houston area, including child predators, gang members, human traffickers and one individual convicted of making terroristic threats.
On Monday, ICE announced that, working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, it had made a "game-changing" seizure of 50,000 kilograms of meth ingredients destined for the Sinaloa Cartel.
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Sixty-on bundles of seized meth (San Diego County Sheriff's Office)
Chad Plantz, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations Houston, said the collaboration provides authorities "with a game-changing method to stay one step ahead of the cartels by disrupting the flow of chemicals that they depend on to produce illicit narcotics."
A source familiar with the operations shared with Fox News Digital a listing of some of the arrests made by ICE this week.
These arrests included a Salvadoran national arrested in Los Angeles for sodomy of a child, a Mexican national arrested in Chicago for criminal sexual assault of a child, a Mexican national arrested in Houston for indecent sexual contact with a child, a Honduran national arrested in El Paso for possession of child pornography and a Laotian national arrested for murder and attempted murder.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents May 23 arresting a Tajikistan-born Russian national. (ICE)
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson called this week "a blockbuster week for President Trump’s immigration agenda."
"President Trump is doing exactly what he promised the American people — securing the Southern border and deporting illegal aliens," said Jackson.
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"The President is cracking down on cartels, cutting the flow of fentanyl coming across our border by over half in the last year," she added. "Under President Trump’s America First leadership, it’s a bad day to be an illegal alien and a great day to be an American."
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
