MT. HOPE, The Bronx (PIX11) -- In at least three locations in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan on Tuesday, federal agents from ICE, DEA, ATF, and other agencies worked with the NYPD to carry out raids that they said targeted undocumented people suspected of violent crimes, as well as drug-related and gun-trafficking offenses.
The raids started early on Tuesday morning, with the Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, being on hand, from Washington, for the enforcement activity.
Noem addressed a large group of the agents involved, all of whose agencies fall under her purview. Then, she went out with them on the mission. She even recorded a short video showing her at one of the raid locations.
"We're getting the dirtbags off these streets," she said in the video.
Her department and other sources confirmed that among the people taken into custody, they nabbed Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco, in their first raid of the day. DHS suspects that he's a leader in the Tren de Aragua terrorist gang from Venezuela. He was allegedly involved in burglary and menacing incidents in Aurora, Colorado last year.
The first raid was on Ogden Avenue in the Bronx, near West 170th Street. Some residents there said that Zambrano-Pacheco was part of a group making life in their building dangerous by attracting drugs and prostitution to the location.
"I have a newborn," said Jonathan Sierra, a building resident. "It was hard to get to the stairs because of them. I was planning on calling ICE [myself] to be honest with you. So they got here before I was able to call them."
Another resident, however, who gave only his first name, Anderson, said that the situation is complicated. He warned about agents picking up the wrong people.
"It is concerning," he said, "just in case they get the address mistaken."
However, he added, that if undocumented people who are engaged in criminal activity are apprehended, it's actually a help to the community.
"If they have the right guy," he continued, "if they had a reason to do so, [it's okay]," he said.
In addition to the Ogden Avenue raid, there were raids at 2065 Creston Avenue in the Bronx and 530 Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights, in Upper Manhattan.
At the Creston Ave. location, witnesses said agents took a man who goes by the name Caballito into custody. Others are also subdued, they said, including a man who gave only his first name, Estevan.
"They put me in handcuffs," he told PIX11 News. "They were going to take me, but because I showed them because I was able to show them my papers, they left me alone," he said.
Early on Tuesday evening, Homeland Security sources confirmed to PIX11 News that a suspect taken into custody on Audubon Ave. is a suspect in a double homicide in the Dominican Republic.
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