Immigration enforcement authorities rescued 27 human-trafficking victims in Nebraska last week. Among the victims Immigration and Customs Enforcement rescued were 10 children under the age of 12, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Our brave ICE law enforcement rescued these children and women, who were being sexually exploited and trafficked,” said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant DHS secretary.
The human-trafficking ring was being run by illegal aliens, according to the DHS.
President Donald Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “will not allow children and women to be victims of these heinous human-trafficking rings,” McLaughlin said. “Our message to human traffickers is clear: We will dismantle your networks, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That’s a promise.”
Illegal aliens were running the trafficking operation, which also included drug trafficking, out of motels and eyebrow salons in the Omaha metro area, according to the DHS.
“Victims were crammed into cockroach-infested rooms and trapped in squalor, with no basic sanitation or safety,” the DHS reported in a press release first obtained by The Daily Signal. “Children and adults were being sex-trafficked.”
Five illegal aliens have been charged in the bust and will remain in custody pending judicial proceedings and removal.
“ICE has placed immigration detainers on all five Indian illegal aliens arrested to ensure they are not released back into the community after completion of their federal criminal charges,” according to the DHS.
During the operation, law enforcement seized more than $565,000 in cash and illicit drugs.
In addition to the 27 victims and the five illegal aliens who were said to be running the trafficking ring, ICE also took 14 other illegal immigrants into custody who were reportedly living alongside the victims.
Guillermo Infante Arevalo, an illegal alien from Mexico, was among the 14 and has a “history of child endangerment, drug and firearm possession, and illegal reentry,” according to the DHS. Criminal illegal immigrants Eudis Enrique Cuellar-Martinez of Venezuela and Pablo Martinez Canas of El Salvador were also arrested.