Agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency arrested 39 illegal immigrants last week in the Boston area who have criminal records, including 20 people with felony convictions for charges including sexual assault and assaulting a police officer, authorities said.

The suspects, who range in age from 18 to 52, were arrested for being in the US illegally but were targeted because of their criminal histories, and most of them are now in federal custody pending deportation proceedings, ICE said in a statement.

Among those arrested was an El Salvador national with 24 adult arraignments who has convictions for assaulting a police officer, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and trespassing, ICE said.

Another suspect from the Dominican Republic has been convicted twice for assaulting an officer, and a Mexican ­national has two prior ­convictions of assault and ­battery with a dangerous weapon, according to the statement.

Another person who was arrested is a convicted sex offender, ICE said, and some have drunken driving and drug convictions.

The suspects, who range in age from 18 to 52, were targeted because of their criminal histories, and most are now in federal custody.

All but two of the suspects are men.

An ICE spokesman said some have been deported multiple times.

The spokesman, Ross Feinstein, said he could not identify the suspects due to privacy policies surrounding deportation proceedings.

“This operation, and our daily targeting of aliens with criminal convictions, are some of the many tools that ICE uses to effectively reduce crime at the street level in communities throughout New England,” said Dorothy Herrera-Niles, Boston’s field office director for ICE enforcement and removal operations, in the statement.

The suspects are from ­Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, ­Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, ­Lebanon, Liberia, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, and Sudan, ICE said.