Federal immigration officials said Wednesday they have arrested several individuals who are in violation of immigration laws as part of an ongoing operation in the Los Angeles area that began Sunday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they are focusing on “individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

“This means that, ideally, we are working with local police and county jails to identify public safety threats in their custody, who are also in the country illegally, for deportation,” ICE officials said in a statement.

But, they added, in “uncooperative jurisdictions” like Los Angeles, they are being forced to “focus additional resources to conduct at-large arrests in the community, putting officers, the general public and the aliens at risk and increasing the incidents of collateral arrests.”

ICE officials also said that they are no longer following a priority criteria for arrests, so “all of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that federal officials had arrested more than 100 individuals since Sunday, in an operation that spanned seven Southern California counties. ICE agents are seeking out as many as 400 immigrants who could face deportation. ICE told the Journal that most of them have serious crimes on their record, some are suspected of crimes and others were previously ordered to leave the country.

ICE’s Los Angeles-area fugitive operations teams conduct enforcement operations across Southern California, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.

More to come…