Unclear If Operation Talon Was Ever Implemented
The Claim
“Operation Talon” was canceled by the Biden Administration.
News posted on
Emerging story
Trending on social media this week is something called “Operation Talon,” a Trump administration program that aimed to remove immigrant sex offenders who had illegally entered the US. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mentioned the program during a February 8th segment on Biden’s overall immigration policies. He posited that suspending Operation Talon implied that “Illegal alien sex offenders are now a protected class.”
Fox News’ Sean Hannity also addressed Operation Talon, sharing an editorial from Human Events. The editorial cites a group of attorneys general who wrote a letter to President Biden arguing against the cancelation.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found this claim to be suspicious. On February 7th, The Washington Post reported that ICE officials themselves had canceled Operation Talon, and the Biden Administration was not directly involved in the decision. According to a senior ICE official, it was suspended due to changes in immigration policy, and while they awaited new instructions under the new presidency.
Additionally, Operation Talon had only been proposed during the final weeks of the Trump administration, and there is little evidence that it was ever put into action. It's also unclear whether it was responsible for actual arrests or deportations. The same ICE official told the Post that Homeland Security Investigations, a wing of ICE that conducts criminal investigations, has continued investigating sex offenses involving U.S. noncitizens.
The letter from attorneys general who argued against the cancelation does not address any impact that Operation Talon may have had. Biden’s overall approach to immigration is starkly different from that of the previous administration, and the writers of the letter urge Biden to “adopt an aggressive enforcement policy against illegal aliens convicted of sex crimes, and send a message to sexual predators that they are not welcome in the United States of America.”
