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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s immigration raids throughout Los Angeles and surrounding counties have been splashed all over television and social media feeds for nearly a month.
There were the two women nabbed outside the Airport Courthouse on La Cienega Boulevard on Tuesday after a hearing in a local criminal case.
There was the raid at a Hollywood Home Depot on June 19, in which crews of armed, mostly masked agents converged on a parking lot, blocking gates and surrounding the laborers and vendors.
For all the attention created and fear induced, the results of the operations remained opaque — until recently, when numbers on the actual arrests were released by Homeland Security.
My colleague Andrea Castillo provided the figures, which offer new insights into the size and scope of the operations.
What the numbers say
From June 6 to June 22, enforcement teams arrested 1,618 immigrants for deportation in Los Angeles and surrounding regions of Southern California, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The “area of responsibility” for the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes the L.A. metropolitan area and the Central Coast, as well as Orange County to the south, Riverside County to the east and up the coast to San Luis Obispo County.
As immigration arrests have occurred across Southern California, demonstrators have protested the federal government’s actions and bystanders have sometimes confronted immigration officers or recorded their actions.
During the same time span, 787 people have been arrested for assault, obstruction and unlawful assembly, a Homeland Security spokesperson said.
How many arrested…