EXCLUSIVE: 17,500 illegal immigrants arrested under Laken Riley Act in Trump's second term

The act is named for Laken Riley, a Georgia college student murdered by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant who had been previously arrested and released before her death. 

Qualifying crimes include theft-related offenses, DUI or DWI, and violent crimes including murder, rape, sexual abuse, assault on police and firearms infractions.

That operation alone netted an average of dozens of criminal illegal immigrants per day.

"In honor of Laken Riley, ICE launched Operation Angel's Honor - in the last 2 weeks alone arresting more than 1,000 criminal illegal aliens under the authority of the Laken Riley Act," Noem told Fox News Digital.

Noem credited Trump for empowering her agency to go after millions of criminal illegal immigrants residing in the U.S., including those "unleashed" into the interior by previous administrations.

"We can never bring Laken back, but we can do everything in our power to bring these heinous criminals to justice," Noem said.

Jersson Andrey Poveda Delgado of Colombia was convicted of assaulting a police officer, while Dominican national Yaser Garcia Ramirez netted a slew of charges, including conspiracy to manufacture and distribute heroin, domestic violence and obstruction of law enforcement.

An Iraqi national named Hamid Abdulimam Al Nassar was captured during Operation Angel's Honor after he was convicted of procuring a prostitute who is a minor, several drug offenses, fraud, embezzlement and aggravated assault.

Mexican national Omar Barojas-Arenas' recent arrest also fell under the Laken Riley Act, after he was convicted of kidnapping, while Jorby Joel Escuraina-Suarez from Venezuela was convicted of aggravated assault with a weapon.  

While DHS has called the Laken Riley Act's enforcement a success, several critics have said the law forces deportation proceedings on people who may not pose safety risks - with some pointing to the law's usage of arrest versus conviction as a pretext for the feds to take custody of a subject.

"This bill does nothing to improve safety or fix our broken immigration system," said Nayna Gupta, policy director for the American Immigration Council.

"Under the guise of preventing violence, the bill forces immigration officers to indefinitely detain and deport non-citizens who pose no public safety risk, without access to basic due process," she said in a statement after the law passed.

"The bill also gives state attorneys general unprecedented power over immigration policy. The bill strips people of their basic rights and upends how the U.S. government enforces immigration law," Gupta concluded.