Inside the first week of Trump’s mammoth migrant round up… and the rapists and murderers heading home

President Trump aggressively forged ahead with his pledge to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in US history in his first week back in power, arresting over 2,000 people in a widespread crackdown. 

A senior official in the Trump administration revealed exclusive deportation and arrest numbers to DailyMail.com to cap off Trump’s frantic first week back in power, including details of the worst criminals that had slipped through the net. 

On Friday alone, ICE authorities arrested 445 illegal migrants with criminal records, with a further 148 migrants without rap sheets also taken into custody ready for deportation. 

There were a further 449 detainers lodged – requests to local police forces to hold arrested individuals until ICE can pick them up – 468 removals or repatriations, and 15 gang-related arrests across the nation. 

Almost 5,000 Homeland Security and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers have been deployed by the Trump administration to carry out raids, particularly targeting sanctuary cities where dangerous criminals were previously unable to be tracked by ICE under weak Biden-era immigration policies. 

Among the worst of the worst to be picked up by ICE on Friday included Cesar Augusto Polanco, 59, a Dominican Republican national who was living free in Boston despite a criminal conviction for second-degree murder. 

In San Antonio, Texas, Venezuelan national Nestor Jose Mendoza-Garcia was picked up after being identified as an active member of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, and was found with a handgun related to an unsolved murder from November 2024. 

Like many others in the unmasked deportation list, Mendoza-Garcia was initially arrested during the Biden administration in October 2023, but was merely handed a notice to appear and released into society – and lived free for over a year until he was taken into custody this week. 

In New York, where buses and flights of migrants under Biden’s administration topped over 10,000 people at their peak, a number of raids led to arrests of known gang members and criminals. 

Jose Tito Reyes, 54, a citizen of El Salvador, was picked up on Friday by ICE and was found to have a previous conviction for forcible touching, receiving a sentence of 90 days imprisonment and 3 years’ probation, the White House official revealed to DailyMail.com on Friday. 

ICE in New Orleans snared Juan Miseal Canales-Garcia, another El Salvador citizen who had a previous conviction of robbery and kidnapping. 

Mexican national Edgar Rivas-Rodriguez was also detained in Chicago, as he was walking the streets despite past convictions for possession of methamphetamine and leaving the scene of an accident-causing injury. 

Just like Mendoza-Garcia, a wave of suspected members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang have been arrested this week – with the gang known to have gained a foothold in the United States in recent years. 

This terrifying development made headlines last year as Tren de Aragua gangsters took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado.  

Suspected gang member Elmer Aparicio-Castillo was taken into custody in Nashville alongside another unnamed Tren de Aragua loyalist, 36, with both men holding rap sheets including evading arrest, prostitution, and drug possession. 

And in Buffalo, New York, known sex trafficker Julio Cesar Diaz Martinez was arrested by ICE, where authorities said they rescued a female Dominican national who he was actively victimizing at the time of his detainment. 

The terrifying slate of arrested illegal immigrants are just some of the known murderers, rapists and pedophiles who were taken into custody in Trump’s first week back – also including a Haiti gang leader with 17 past convictions who was seen erupting into a wild rant as he was hauled into a cop car on Wednesday. 

It comes as Mexican authorities blocked a US military plane from deporting illegal migrants on Thursday. 

US officials told NBC News that a jet filled with illegal immigrants bound for Mexico never took off after authorities south of the border rejected the move.

The flight was one of three that were set to take off on Thursday, alongside two Guatemala-bound Air Force C-17s carrying over 150 people, as part of what Trump has described as the largest mass deportation effort in US history. 

Trump’s hardline Border Czar Tom Homan said on Thursday that of the 1,300 migrants that had been arrested at the time, ‘over 1,000 of them were criminals.’

He slammed sanctuary city policies for having allowed migrants with long rap sheets remain in US cities as they declined to alert ICE of their whereabouts during the Biden-era.

‘I don’t care if Republican or Democrat, Independent, why not let law enforcement go into a county jail, taxpayer county jail, to arrest the guy that you locked in a jail cell so obviously, the public safety threat that will solve a lot of this problem,’ he said.

‘And I hope the sanctuary cities come around.’

Thursday morning also marked the start of Trump’s move to deploy the US military to the southern border, with 1,500 active-duty troops arriving early in the day.

The Pentagon confirmed the 1,000 Army soldiers and 500 Marines deployed south include those from Military Police units as well as combat engineers and intelligence specialists to aid in detection and monitoring of illegal border jumpers.

The additional active forces, which adds to the roughly 2,500 already currently stationed along the border, will also aid in constructing barriers along the border and providing the air power for deportations.

Over 5,400 migrants who are currently in detention in the US will be flown out of the country by the military forces, as a show of force for Trump’s early days back in the White House.

As part of the effort, four C-17 and C-130 military aircraft were moved to El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California this week, an official told Task & Purpose. One of those C-17’s was the jet rejected by Mexican authorities on Thursday.

Trump is planning to send a total of 10,000 active-duty military to the border.