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ICE has publicly announced arrests of multiple individuals described as 'worst of the worst' including those convicted of sexual assault of a child, assault, and human trafficking.
The claim states that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced arrests of multiple “worst of the worst” criminal illegal aliens, including individuals convicted of sexual assault of a child, assault, and human trafficking, around January 7, 2026.
An official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release dated January 7, 2026 confirms that ICE “announced the arrest of more worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from across the country including those convicted of sexual assault of a child, assault, and human trafficking.” The same release lists five named individuals and specifies their prior convictions: sexual assault of a child (Starr County, Texas), second-degree sexual conduct against a child (Kings County, New York), assault (Brooklyn, New York), human trafficking (Miami, Florida), and second-degree burglary (Iredell County, North Carolina).
The press release’s text is reproduced in full on multiple independent platforms that syndicate official DHS content, showing consistent names, dates and offense descriptions, which supports that the announcement occurred as described rather than being altered post hoc. These reposts match the original DHS wording about targeting the “worst of the worst” and highlight the same categories of crimes, including child sexual assault and human trafficking.
Regional and diaspora outlets further corroborate the arrests and offense profiles. Caribbean National Weekly reports on January 13, 2026 that ICE arrested several undocumented immigrants with serious criminal convictions, explicitly naming Randolfo Agusto Diaz‑Cabrera (second-degree sexual conduct against a child), Brett Archer (assault in Brooklyn) and David Llama‑Lopez (human trafficking in Miami), and attributing the information to ICE and Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
Local Spanish-language outlet Qué Pasa, on January 8, 2026, reports the North Carolina arrest of Jimena Vaglio‑Navarrete as part of a national ICE operation targeting noncitizens with criminal records, noting her 2024 convictions in Iredell County for repeated theft and second-degree breaking and entering. The same article lists the other four individuals by name and links them to crimes of sexual assault of a minor, assault, and human trafficking in Texas, New York, and Florida, mirroring the DHS release.
Separate mainstream U.S. reporting predating the ICE action confirms the underlying human trafficking conviction for at least one of the named individuals. NBC Miami (2014) and CBS Miami (2016) document the arrest and subsequent conviction of David Llama Lopez in Miami on human-trafficking-related charges involving high-school girls, aligning with DHS’s characterization of him as convicted of human trafficking.
There is some public pushback on ICE’s broader “worst of the worst” branding and on individual cases, including a commenter quoted by Qué Pasa disputing details of Vaglio‑Navarrete’s immigration status and characterizing the arrest as abusive. More broadly, a 2025 NBC Chicago investigation shows that many people labeled “worst of the worst” in earlier DHS communications had little or no verifiable criminal history, underscoring that the phrase is political framing rather than a legal category.
However, the narrow factual claim being assessed here is whether ICE did in fact announce arrests of multiple noncitizens it described as “worst of the worst” criminals, including individuals convicted of sexual assault of a child, assault, and human trafficking. Multiple consistent official and independent reports confirm that such an announcement was made on January 7, 2026 and that at least some of the named arrestees have documented convictions for those crimes, so the claim is best assessed as complete.