Some of the illegal immigrants detained in the ICE raids that sparked the Los Angeles riots have prior convictions for sexual assault, gang activity, and even murder, including a Vietnamese national convicted of carrying out a mass shooting at a high school graduation party that shocked Southern California.
Cuong Chanh Phan, 49, was one of dozens of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in Los Angeles over the weekend in a series of raids that prompted demonstrators to take to the streets and demand their release.
Phan is a killer who was convicted of second-degree murder.
After being kicked out of a LA County high school graduation party in 1994, he returned with his gang members and fired semiautomatic rifles into a crowd of 30 people, killing two teens and injuring seven others, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Another criminal apprehended during the weekend raids is 55-year-old Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez of the Philippines, who was sentenced to 37 years in prison for assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object in Pomona, California.
Despite the fact that many of the arrested illegal immigrants committed crimes, protestors attempted to stop ICE officers from conducting raids over the weekend and surrounded a downtown LA detention center where they believed the detainees were being held. President Trump eventually sent out the National Guard to try to quell the protests.
Those alarming rap sheets, and others like them, have left many within DHS and ICE scratching their heads at what they see as protestors’ blindly misguided motivations.
“That’s who they’re protesting for — the actual criminals that are being arrested, the sex offenders, the terrorists, all that,” a source familiar with the case told The Post.
“You have criminals, gang members, terrorists, child molesters, sex offenders that are being arrested, but since people don’t know the background of the case or what’s going on, everybody’s innocent,” said the informant.
“It’s disappointing to see that ICE was enforcing the immigration law and actually arresting criminals, but the public sees it as everybody’s innocent, which is not true.”
The list of violent offenders apprehended during the raids goes on.
Armando Ordaz, a 44-year-old Mexican national, is alleged to be a member of the Bratz 13 gang and has a sexual battery conviction in Los Angeles.
Delfino Aguilar-Martinez, 51, is a Mexican national who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm. He was arrested on Friday.
A 55-year-old Mexican national, Lionel Sanchez-Laguna, was also arrested over the weekend. He has prior convictions for firing a weapon into an occupied dwelling, battery of a spouse or cohabitant, and willful cruelty to a child. He has a DUI and has been charged with assault with a firearm.
Victor Mendoza-Aguilar, 32, was also arrested Friday. The Mexican national has California convictions for possession of controlled substances and paraphernalia, as well as assault with a deadly weapon.
Other illegal immigrants arrested during the weekend raids have prior convictions for drug dealing, robbery, grand larceny, and transporting illegal aliens.
California leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have blamed Trump for inciting the riots, claiming that his deployment of the National Guard without the state’s permission or request caused chaos.
However, the DHS believes California’s leadership has the story backwards, citing Phan’s criminal history as a prime example.
“This criminal illegal alien is who Newsom and Bass and the rioters in Los Angeles are trying to protect over US citizens,” according to a spokesperson for the DHS.
