Some of the illegal immigrants detained in the ICE-raids that sparked Los Angeles’ riots are convicted criminals with rap sheets 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 among dozens of illegal immigrants ICE arrested in LA over the weekend in a series of raids that prompted demonstrators to flock to the streets and demand their freedom.
Phan is a killer, convicted of second degree murder.
After he was kicked out of an LA county high school graduation party in 1994, he returned with his gang member cronies and fired semiautomatic rifles into a crowd of 30 people, killing two teens and wounding seven others, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Another criminal arrested in the weekend raids is 55-year-old Rolando Veneracion-Enriquez, from 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 reality of many of the arrested illegal immigrants’ crimes, protestors attempted to block ICE officers from carrying out the raids over the weekend, and surrounded a downtown LA detention center where they thought the detainees were being held. President Trump eventually deployed the National Guard to try to quell the protests.
Those alarming rap sheets — and more like them — have left many within the DHS and ICE shaking their heads at what they characterized as blindly misguided motives from protestors.
“That’s who they’re protesting for — the actual criminals that are being arrested, the sex offenders, the terrorists, all that,” an ICE source told The Post.
“You have criminals, gang members, terrorists, child molestors, 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,” the source added.
“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 arrested in the raids goes on.
Among them is Armando Ordaz, a 44-year-old Mexican national who is allegedly a member of the Bratz 13 gang and has a Los Angeles conviction for sexual battery.
Delfino Aguilar-Martinez, 51, is a Mexican national with a conviction for assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury. He was arrested Friday.
And 55-year-old Lionel Sanchez-Laguna, a Mexican national, was also arrested over the weekend. He has a convictions for firing a weapon at an inhabited dwelling, battery of a spouse or cohabitant, and willful cruelty to a child. He also has a DUI to his name, along 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, along with assault with a deadly weapon.
Other illegal immigrants arrested in the weekend raids have convictions for drug dealing, robbery, grand larceny and transporting illegal aliens.
California leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass have blamed Trump for inciting the riots, saying his deployment of the National Guard without the state’s permission or request created chaos.
But the DHS thinks California’s leadership has the story backwards — and cited Phan’s criminal history as the perfect example.
“This criminal illegal alien is who Newsom and Bass and the rioters in Los Angeles are trying to protect over US citizens,” a DHS spokesperson said.