About two dozen illegal aliens were detained by ICE in and around Fresno last week, according to sources familiar with the operations. People in the area are already calling it the election surge. MSN first reported the detentions.

The Fresno activity comes a little over a week after DHS announced it was surging resources into interior enforcement. That word, surge, gets thrown around a lot in this business. Most of the time it means a few extra bodies and a press release. What sources describe here sounds like the real thing: arrests in Fresno proper and out into the surrounding area, per their accounts. ICE hasn't confirmed the scope.

Details are thin because ICE hasn't put out the numbers yet. When the agency goes quiet on an operation, it usually means one of two things. Either the operation is still running and they don't want to tip targets, or the paperwork is still being squared away before the official tally drops. The count is coming either way. It always does.

Two dozen arrests won't break any records. Fresno is a smaller footprint. But the Central Valley matters for a simple reason: it's agricultural country with a large illegal workforce and, until recently, not much enforcement pressure. Arrests there tell everybody that no jurisdiction is a safe harbor.

What we don't know yet is the criminal breakdown. I watch that number first. Are these aliens with rape convictions, drug trafficking histories, prior removal orders? Or is this a clean catch-all operation where anybody in the country illegally was fair game? Under current policy, both categories are on the table, and the White House has said as much plainly. The press release, when it comes, will tell us whether Fresno got the criminal-alien focus or the broader net.

Expect the usual chorus from the sanctuary crowd. California's state government has spent years building walls between local law enforcement and federal immigration officers. A detainer, for those who don't eat this stuff for breakfast, is the notice ICE files asking a local jail to hold an alien for up to 48 hours so agents can come pick them up. California law largely forbids honoring them. So ICE has to make street arrests instead of picking people up at the jail door, which is more dangerous for agents, more dangerous for the alien, and more expensive for everybody. The people who wrote those laws will then complain about the street arrests they caused. They don't see a contradiction. They see a strategy.

The timing angle is real. Enforcement tempo always climbs ahead of an election because everybody in Washington suddenly remembers the count exists. I spent 26 years watching that cycle from the inside. The difference now is the pace holds between elections too, and that's what actually matters. One good month is a press release. Sustained tempo is a policy.

I'll update when ICE confirms the final number and the criminal histories. Until then, the scoreboard reads roughly two dozen in the Fresno area, sources say, official tally pending. I've kept count for 26 years. I can wait a few days for the box score.