472 Arrested Including 219 Immigrants in Statewide Operation

The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Arkansas and the Department of Justice held a press conference on Thursday, Feb. 27, to notify the public about a statewide operation that led to the arrests of 472 people.

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Arkansas Statewide Operation

According to 5NEWS, 219 arrested were undocumented immigrants living in the state and individuals allegedly involved in drug and gun crimes. This operation is part of the ongoing Department of Justice with federal and state agencies to remove illegal immigrants from our country and violent crime offenders. This operation ran between Feb. 5 and Feb 26, those arrested were from 23 different countries.

Some of these arrests were people with no criminal charges but were either living or around someone who was a targeted suspect or had recent contact with the police in the past three years. Officials say that a majority of the immigrants are not being charged with violent criminal offenses and it was hard to determine just how many were arrested for a violent crime out of the 219 immigrants.

Other Arrested Were U.S. Citizens

Additionally, illegal immigrants weren't the only ones arrested in the statewide operation 253 were U.S. citizens. Approximately 43 guns, 14, 542 pounds of marijuana, 65 pounds of cocaine, 90 grams of fentanyl powder, 2,681 fentanyl pills, and 225 pounds of methamphetamine were confiscated in the operation.