Andreas Bernal Chiquito is a Colombian national living in New York City. His prior arrests include sexually assaulting children. He was walking free until ICE picked him up.
He wasn't the only one. Palvinder Singh, an Indian national convicted of rape in Germany, was also grabbed. So was Carlos Mendez-Acosta, a Venezuelan migrant convicted of rape. All three were living in a city whose government has spent years making sure federal immigration officers couldn't touch them.
Between July 27 and August 29, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 2,197 people in the five boroughs under an operation the Department of Homeland Security named — and this is real — "Operation Rotten Apple." Of those, 2,100 were illegal migrants. The feds literally named the operation after the city's decay, and nobody at DHS even tried to be subtle about it.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn't mince words. "Operation Rotten Apple did what sanctuary politicians in New York City and the state of New York refuse to do: made the Empire State safer," Mullin said. He followed that with a warning: "We won't let sanctuary politicians stand in our way. If you're a state or local politician, your best bet is to cooperate with us so we can all make America safe again."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a self-described communist who signed a law in January barring city agencies from cooperating with ICE — has turned the five boroughs into a magnet for exactly the kind of people Bernal Chiquito, Singh, and Mendez-Acosta represent. The city won't let ICE into Rikers to pick up criminal aliens. So ICE has to find them on the street, in their homes, in the communities where they've been released to reoffend.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan laid out the absurdity. "Democratic politicians in New York and elsewhere say that they care about public safety, but won't let immigration law enforcement officers into their jails to take criminals into custody," Homan said.
Think about that operational reality for a second. ICE knows a convicted rapist is sitting in a city jail. They ask to pick him up in a controlled, secure environment. The city says no. So the rapist gets released back onto the street, and ICE agents have to go find him in a neighborhood — less safe for the agents, less safe for the public, more expensive for the taxpayer. All so a politician can say he stood up to the federal government.
Governor Kathy Hochul hasn't exactly been a profile in cooperation either. New York state's sanctuary posture has been a rolling invitation for years, and the results are now quantified: 2,100 arrests in a single month in a single city.
The Local Crimes, Local Cop Act took effect on August 25 at the state level, but the damage from years of non-cooperation is already baked in. The 287(g) program — which lets county sheriffs contract with ICE to help enforce immigration law — has been rejected by New York City leadership at every turn. The result is that federal agents are doing alone what local law enforcement could help accomplish in half the time.
To date about the Trump administration has captured and deported about 950,000 illegal aliens. But closer to 2 million illegals have left the country voluntarily since this administration started cracking down on illegal immigration.
A child sex offender from Colombia. A convicted rapist from Germany. Another convicted rapist from Venezuela. All living freely in the largest city in America, protected by policy.
The operation was called Rotten Apple. Nobody had to explain why.
