The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency arrested 50 illegal aliens who are suspected of drug dealing and trafficking in a raid that spread across the New England area’s sanctuary cities.

ICE agents arrested the illegal aliens in a raid targeted at getting drug traffickers off the streets who had been previously released by sanctuary cities in the region. Federal agents were also able to arrest three illegal aliens who are wanted for murder in Brazil, according to the Boston Herald.

An ICE official told the Boston Herald that the raid resulted in the seizure of enough fentanyl to “kill half the state” of Massachusetts.

Officials said many of the illegal aliens arrested in the ICE raid had been convicted on drug violations or had cases pending in the courts, making them eligible for deportation. But, because of a multitude of sanctuary city jurisdictions, where illegal aliens are shielded from deportation, the individuals were never handed over to ICE and were instead released back into the general public.

“ICE Boston stands committed to work with local and state law enforcement and respects the rulings and sovereignty of the Massachusetts Supreme Court,” a Boston ICE official Todd M. Lyons said in a statement to the Boston Herald. “While some within the criminal justice system seem not to grasp the threat when criminal aliens are released back to the street, the men and women of ICE, through efforts like the one we have completed this week, remain committed to apprehending those dangerous criminal aliens who threaten our communities.”

As Breitbart News reported, six MS-13 gang members — four of which are illegal aliens — have been arrested and accused of butchering a 17-year-old boy to death in the region of Lynn, Massachusetts, a suburb outside of Boston.

One of the six suspects, a 19-year-old Salvadorean national named Henri Salvador Gutierrez, had evaded deportation the month before the murder after convincing an immigration judge that he was not violent and was not a part of the MS-13 gang.