Immigration and Customs Catches 30,000 Criminals

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement division reports that in 2007 it has arrested more than 30,000 criminal aliens, or immigration fugitives.

While the U.S. has many undocumented workers within its borders, a much more serious concern are known criminals who are immigration fugitives. These fugitives have committed serious crimes either in the U.S. or in their home countries. Funding to catch them has, in the last decade, been low, but has increased recently.

The number of arrests has doubled since last year, when more than 15,000 arrests were made. This increase was caused by increased enforcement, namely, more Fugitive Operations Teams were deployed around the nation.

Last year there were 52 teams; this year there are 75.

Other factors that contributed to the higher arrest rate were much better coordination between agencies, local, state and federal, and better information handling.

The improvement marks the first time since statistics have been kept when the total number of fugitives actually dropped. There are approximately 595,000 fugitives on the loose now, but the number is dropping.

A new Fugitive Operations Support Center collected and distributed 150,000 leads to ICE agents.

Teams are going after offenders who threaten local communities and/or national security: sexual predators, gang members, violent offenders.

Some examples of arrests are a man convicted of assaulting and murdering another man in Mexico who was arrested in Maywood, California and almost immediately deported; a native of Cuba convicted of murder, burglary, drug offenses, armed robbery, and assaults on police; a native of El Salvador arrested in Miami who was convicted of murder in Texas; a man from Mexico convicted of sexual assault was arrested in Philadelphia; a Dominican Republic man guilty of attempted murder, drunken driving and other offenses; and a man convicted of sexual battery of a minor.

The rise in arrests illustrates just how lax enforcement has been over previous years. For example, arrests in 2003 totaled just 1901; 2004 rose to 6584; 2005 had 7958; 2006 rose to 15,462, and 2007 thus far shows 30,408 arrests.

The ICE was formed in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security. Its goals are to secure the borders and to quickly apprehend international fugitives hiding in the U.S.

The law enforcement wings of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service were combined to create the ICE. It operates with other agencies as part of the layered defense strategy of Homeland Defense.

ICE Catches Fugitives, ICE