WASH­ING­TON–The Unit­ed States Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agency says Caribbean na­tion­als were among a large num­ber of im­mi­grants nabbed in 2016, as the agency "pro­tects Amer­i­ca from the cross-bor­der crime and il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion that threat­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty.

Dur­ing a five-week op­er­a­tion in March, dubbed "Project Shad­ow fire," ICE said 1,133 im­mi­grants, in­clud­ing Caribbean na­tion­als, were ar­rest­ed.

ICE said the sweep in­clud­ed more than 900 transna­tion­al crim­i­nal gang mem­bers and oth­ers as­so­ci­at­ed with transna­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, such as drug traf­fick­ing, hu­man smug­gling and sex traf­fick­ing, mur­der and rack­e­teer­ing.

ICE said na­tion­als from 13 coun­tries in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Asia, Eu­rope and the Caribbean were ar­rest­ed in "Project Shad­ow Fire." It said 1,001 were charged with crim­i­nal of­fences, and 132 were ar­rest­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive­ly for im­mi­gra­tion vi­o­la­tions.

In June, an uniden­ti­fied Be­lizean were among 331 in­di­vid­u­als ar­rest­ed dur­ing a month long op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing crim­i­nal im­mi­grants and oth­er im­mi­gra­tion vi­o­la­tors in six Mid­west­ern states, ICE said.

It said the op­er­a­tion was aimed at ar­rest­ing and re­mov­ing con­vict­ed crim­i­nal im­mi­grants from the US. The ar­rests were made in the fol­low­ing six states: Illi­nois, In­di­ana, Wis­con­sin, Ken­tucky, Kansas and Mis­souri.

Two Be­lizean na­tion­als were al­so among 100 im­mi­grants ar­rest­ed in the Los An­ge­les-area in Ju­ly. While the largest num­ber of those tak­en in­to cus­tody dur­ing the en­force­ment ac­tion were orig­i­nal­ly from Mex­i­co.

In Au­gust, of­fi­cers from ICE and ERO ar­rest­ed 58 in­di­vid­u­als dur­ing an op­er­a­tion span­ning the New York met­ro­pol­i­tan area, tar­get­ing crim­i­nal im­mi­grants and "oth­er en­force­ment pri­or­i­ties."

Dur­ing the five-day en­force­ment ac­tion, ERO of­fi­cers ap­pre­hend­ed im­mi­grants with crim­i­nal con­vic­tions, in ad­di­tion to oth­ers who fall un­der the agency's en­force­ment pri­or­i­ties.

Those ar­rest­ed had crim­i­nal his­to­ries with past con­vic­tions for rape, kid­nap­ping, rob­bery, bur­glary and oth­er se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences, ICE said.

The for­eign na­tion­als ar­rest­ed dur­ing the op­er­a­tion in­clud­ed cit­i­zens of 17 coun­tries, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go; Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic; Be­lize; St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines; Guyana; Philip­pines; Ja­maica; In­done­sia; Guatemala; Ecuador; Mex­i­co; El Sal­vador; Lebanon; Colom­bia; Is­rael; Ro­ma­nia; and the Unit­ed King­dom. –CMC