Immigration raid at California cannabis farm included violent felon

(NewsNation) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed much than 300 immigrants successful the U.S. illegally were apprehended astatine a brace of cannabis farms successful Ventura County.

The bureau said retired of the 361 and counting arrests they've made during the Thursday raid, 1 of those apprehended is simply a convicted felon with a convulsive transgression history. The raid is shaping up to beryllium the largest cognition since President Donald Trump took bureau successful January.

There were 14 children successful the group, 9 of them unaccompanied. DHS said they rescued the children from imaginable exploitation, forced kid labour and quality trafficking. One of the children was conscionable 14 years old.

Others arrested successful the radical person convictions for rape, serial burglary, hit-and-run and DUIs, DHS said.

The FBI has a $50,000 reward retired for the fishy who allegedly fired a weapon astatine agents during a protestation that broke retired arsenic a effect of the operation.

"The magnitude of assaults that we're seeing present acold outstrips the magnitude of assaults for each 19,000 Border Patrol agents nationwide," Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino told NewsNation. "That's conscionable present successful Los Angeles. We privation to apprehension atrocious radical and anyone other that's an amerciable alien, and we privation to bash that with arsenic overmuch civility arsenic we perchance can."

One of the businesses is present nether probe for violating kid labour laws. This comes arsenic a national justice ruled that DHS cannot behaviour large-scale raids and operations based connected arguable means similar contention oregon the connection being spoken. Chief Bovino said that is not happening.

"It's different fallacy and different tired, worn-out talking point. It's not based successful fact, of course," Bovino said. "We've arrested individuals from a multitude of nationalities, whether it's Chinese oregon folks from Central oregon South America, each implicit the place, truthful it's ne'er based connected tegument color, it's conscionable based connected whether oregon not that idiosyncratic is an amerciable alien oregon not."

DHS and Bovino said they volition not beryllium slowing down deportation efforts contempt the judge's ruling.