More than 650 people were taken into custody across one state in two weeks. Federal officials call the operation a model of cooperation. The public still does not know who most of them are or exactly what they are accused of.
According to a Fox News report summarizing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement press release, ICE and 14 partner agencies arrested more than 650 people across West Virginia in a coordinated effort that ran from January 5 to January 19. Officials say some of those arrested had criminal convictions or outstanding removal orders. Others, they say, were detained solely because they were in the country without legal status.
What ICE Says Happened
ICE described the two-week surge as a statewide operation conducted with federal, state, and local partners in cities including Charleston, Martinsburg, Beckley, Moorefield, Morgantown, and Huntington, according to the Fox News account of the agency statement. The report states that the effort involved traffic stops and other encounters that allowed officers to check immigration status and outstanding orders.
Federal officials told Fox News that the operation focused on people ICE classified as threats to public safety or national security, as well as others who had entered the United States without authorization. The reported arrest total was described only as “more than 650,” without a public breakdown of how many people fell into each category.
In comments summarized by Fox News, Michael Rose, acting field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Philadelphia, framed the arrests as the result of long-term partnerships with local agencies. ICE ERO is the division responsible for locating, detaining, and removing people who are subject to immigration enforcement, according to the agency’s official site.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, states on its website that such enforcement operations are intended to prioritize individuals who have criminal convictions, pose security concerns, or have ignored final orders of removal. The Fox News reporting indicates that this West Virginia operation followed that general template, but the agency has not publicly released case-level information to allow independent review.
Who Was Targeted
One specific component of the surge, referred to in the Fox News story as “Operation ICE Wall,” focused on people without legal status who were operating commercial vehicles. On January 8, officers stopped a commercial driver identified as Sagar Singh, a citizen of India, after he allegedly failed to stop at a mandatory brake check station.
During that traffic stop, Singh was cited for multiple vehicle infractions, including operating what officials called an unsafe commercial vehicle, according to the Fox News account of ICE’s statement. ICE told the outlet that Singh had previously been ordered removed from the United States. As described, his case combined traffic violations with an existing civil immigration order.
Singh was one of more than 25 people arrested under the Operation ICE Wall portion of the two-week campaign, Fox News reported. The article does not specify how many of those commercial drivers had prior criminal convictions, how many had prior removal orders, or how many were stopped for vehicle safety issues that then led to immigration checks.
The same report names another person taken into custody, Ling Yan, also known as Yang Ning, a citizen of China. According to Fox News, ICE said Yan had been convicted of two counts of endangering the welfare of children in Ravenna, Ohio. ICE also reported arresting a convicted child sex offender, a person with drug possession convictions, and “numerous other offenders” during the operation, but did not provide names or detailed case information for those individuals.
Outside these few examples, the agency has not publicly disclosed charges, conviction histories, or immigration case statuses for the hundreds of other people taken into custody. Without that information, it is not possible from the public record to determine how many of the more than 650 arrests involved people with recent or serious criminal convictions, and how many involved people whose known violation was limited to immigration status.
The Role of Local Police
Fox News reports that 14 federal, state, and local agencies took part in the two-week operation. One of the named partners was the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Tom Hansen offered an unqualified endorsement of the effort in comments to the outlet.
“The Sheriff’s Office was impressed with the professionalism and work ethic of the agents and how well they interacted with the citizens and local law enforcement officers,” Hansen said. “Working with such a high-caliber group of agents who were assigned to Jefferson County made the decision to support the initiative worthwhile.”
Hansen added, “We are also gratified that through this program, we have had the opportunity to remove numerous dangerous criminals from our community.”
The Fox News story states that the operation occurred “without protests,” an assertion that refers specifically to the two-week period of enforcement. The report does not describe any outreach to community groups, immigrant advocacy organizations, or public defenders in West Virginia. It also does not indicate whether local elected officials were briefed in advance about the scale of the arrests.
We didn’t see any trouble over this on the 24/7 news cycle..why? Because it’s a red state that cooperates with Federal officials.
ICE Arrests Over 650 in West Virginia During 15-Day Immigration Surgehttps://t.co/YsG0nu94oM pic.twitter.com/GIjP5u3vF5
— P. J. Lofland (@pamjlofland) February 2, 2026
Partnerships between ICE and local law enforcement are not new. DHS describes a range of formal and informal collaborations that allow local officers to identify people for potential immigration enforcement. Those programs have drawn sustained debate nationwide, including concerns from some legal experts and advocates that such collaborations can discourage immigrants from reporting crimes or can sweep in people with minor or nonviolent records.
The public documents tied to this West Virginia operation, as reflected in the Fox News report, do not indicate whether participating agencies collected data on the race, ethnicity, or primary language of those arrested, or on whether arrestees had access to legal counsel during initial processing.
What Remains Unclear
The basic numbers of the operation are large and clear. More than 650 people arrested in two weeks across one state. At least 25 detained under a commercial driver focused initiative. A handful of named cases involving prior convictions and at least one prior removal order.
What remains unclear from the available public reporting is how those numbers break down. ICE has not, as of the information reflected in the Fox News article, released a detailed tally showing:
Item 1: How many arrestees had felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions, or no prior criminal record beyond immigration violations?
Item 2: How many had outstanding final orders of removal before the operation began?
Item 3: How many are being held in detention in West Virginia or transferred to out-of-state facilities, and for how long?
Item 4: How many are parents or primary caregivers for children living in the state?
There is also no public information in the Fox News account about whether any of the people arrested had pending asylum claims or other lawful applications that might affect their immigration status. In past enforcement campaigns, those details have sometimes emerged only through court filings or records requests.
For residents of the affected West Virginia communities, the official message is straightforward. Federal and local officers worked together. People described as “dangerous criminals” were removed. Daily life continued without visible protest.
Absent a fuller public accounting, though, the question of exactly who was swept up in those more than 650 arrests, and how their cases will move through the immigration and criminal legal systems, remains unanswered by the record that is currently available.
