650 Arrests in 14 Days: West Virginia’s ICE Surge

Border patrol agents inspecting group of individuals in line.

West Virginia didn’t “find” 650 people in two weeks—it built a machine that could.

Story Snapshot

ICE’s “Operation Country Roads” ran January 5–19, 2026 and produced more than 650 arrests statewide.
The operation leaned on 287(g), a federal partnership model that trains and authorizes local agencies to help with immigration enforcement.
Teams deployed across multiple hubs, including Charleston, Martinsburg, Beckley, Moorefield, Morgantown, and Huntington.
Officials highlighted public-safety cases, including a prior removal order and a child endangerment conviction.
West Virginia leaders claimed the state led the nation in ICE arrests on multiple days, with no reported protests during the operation itself.

Operation Country Roads: A two-week statewide surge with a clear purpose

ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations out of Philadelphia coordinated “Operation Country Roads” from January 5 to January 19, 2026, making more than 650 arrests across West Virginia. The state’s small population and rural geography make that number feel almost unreal, which is exactly why it matters. This wasn’t a single-city sweep; teams worked multiple communities and treated the state like a connected enforcement map, not isolated pockets.

Officials framed the mission as public safety and national security enforcement, not random churn. That distinction matters for readers who care about law-and-order outcomes rather than political theater. The public examples offered by authorities weren’t abstract: a prior removal order encountered during a traffic stop tied to commercial-driver enforcement, and a Chinese national with an Ohio conviction for child endangerment. Those case choices telegraph a strategy: justify the surge with hard-to-defend offenders.

The infrastructure behind the headline number: 287(g) and a governor’s directive

West Virginia’s surge didn’t start on January 5. The runway began in August 2025, when Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a memorandum of agreement with ICE tied to 287(g), the program that authorizes trained local officers to perform certain immigration functions. After his inauguration, Morrisey followed with an executive order directing state law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration efforts. That sequence turned cooperation from an option into a mission.

Supporters of enforcement sometimes talk about “just enforce the law” as if enforcement appears on command. It doesn’t. 287(g) matters because it substitutes standing capacity for improvised heroics. State police, corrections, the National Guard, sheriffs, and city departments can plug into a common playbook and a common set of federal rules. West Virginia State Police leadership even told lawmakers they had assisted in roughly 250 arrests since September 2025 without errors—an argument for competence that critics will need specifics to rebut.

Fourteen partners, many towns, one coordination problem solved

The operation’s partner list reads like an organizational stress test: state police, the National Guard, corrections leadership, and multiple county and city agencies across places such as Cabell, Fayette, McDowell, Nicholas, Putnam, and Wood counties, plus city departments including Hurricane, Oak Hill, Richwood, Fayetteville, and Summersville. ICE deployed teams into regional centers—Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Martinsburg, Beckley, Moorefield—so arrests could happen where people actually intersect with government systems.

The conservative, common-sense argument for that model is simple: local agencies already encounter offenders during stops, bookings, and jail intakes. When local officers can identify immigration violations under a formal federal framework, they reduce the odds that a dangerous person cycles back onto the street because of a paperwork gap or a handoff that never happens. Critics worry about overreach; the answer should be rigorous rules, clear training, and documented accountability, not pretending the problem disappears.

Why there were no protests during the operation, and why that detail matters

West Virginia officials and reporting emphasized something rare in modern immigration enforcement: no reported protests during the two-week operation, even though rallies were planned after results became public. That timing suggests the effort moved faster than the opposition could mobilize, but it also reflects the state’s political climate and the operation’s design. Coordinated, multi-jurisdiction work spreads activity across many sites, making it harder for activists to stage the single dramatic confrontation some groups prefer.

Supporters will read the quiet as public consent; opponents will read it as lack of visibility. Common sense says it’s neither a blank check nor a scandal by default. Low-friction enforcement can signal professionalism, especially when local sheriffs publicly praise ICE agents as “high-caliber” and when state police assert accuracy. The real test arrives later: removal processing, court challenges, and the inevitable political push to either expand the model or choke it off.

The uncomfortable debate: enforcement capacity versus civil-liberties skepticism

A smaller but persistent critique surfaced alongside the praise: concerns about constitutional limits and “raid” tactics, with at least one outlet pointing to court skepticism. That debate deserves daylight, because any system that expands government power must prove it can also limit itself. Conservatives should demand that proof, too: law enforcement works best when it obeys strict boundaries and can demonstrate clean procedures, not when it relies on slogans.

The facts available from the operation’s public descriptions stay mostly at the programmatic level—numbers, dates, partners, and selected examples. That leaves unanswered questions that serious readers should keep open: How many arrests involved serious criminal histories versus status-only violations? How many were located through jail screening versus field encounters? West Virginia’s leaders argue the partnership made communities safer; transparency will determine whether the public keeps believing it.

This is what happens when local law enforcement are given the ok to do their job and help ICE. NO ISSUES!!!

ICE arrests over 650 illegal aliens across West Virginia with state, local police backinghttps://t.co/NyweXBe1Pa

— Slugoman (@Slugoman1) February 2, 2026

West Virginia’s operation offered a preview of what immigration enforcement looks like when a state stops treating it as Washington’s hobby and starts treating it as a shared responsibility. The headline number grabs attention, but the deeper story is the architecture: a legal framework, training, interagency trust, and a governor willing to own the policy. Whether other states copy it will depend on what happens next—court scrutiny, measurable crime impacts, and whether officials keep the focus on public safety instead of politics.