The hundreds of illegal aliens arrested so far throughout Operation Tidal Wave in Florida can help to secure the borders of the U.S., according to former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director John Torres.
“[S]ome of the things that aren't really reported is that there's data collection ongoing. You've got pocket litter, as we call it. There's a lot of information that you can gather from these networks — phone numbers, names. It allows the agents to do a further, deeper investigation where they might be using wiretaps, where they can use undercover agents, for example,” Torres told Newsmax. “It goes beyond just arresting somebody at a location. You really want to dive down deeper and take a look at the infrastructure that is supporting this entire network, and it allows the agents to go after the cartels and use racketeering type of investigations.”
Federal officials, working with Florida police, started Operation Tidal Wave last week in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in order to find and deport about 800 illegal aliens.
Other Florida cities, such as Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tallahassee, and Fort Myers, were included in the operation as well.
Torres added that the Trump administration’s work on the southern border since January has stopped illegal crossings “incredibly quickly,” saying that “[W]e've always said, and from my experience over the years, that illegal immigration will take the path of least resistance. It's like water. If you put an obstacle in front of it, it will try to go around. So if you actually enforce the law on the southwest border, they will stop. It will close the border from illegal crossers.”
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“Now, that doesn't mean it's going to stop overall – they'll try to get across the northern border, they'll look to take boats across the West Coast, for example, or they'll even dig tunnels to go underneath – but really, what you're seeing is immediately by enforcing the laws and by sending a strong message of deterrence, [Trump officials] have gotten control of the border fairly quickly, incredibly quickly. And that's something that could have been done in the last four years but wasn't,” Torres continued.
There has been a 95 percent reduction in the number of crossings in the first 100 days of President Trump's term.
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