Immigration agency sweep wraps up with 332 arrests (Miami Herald)

Immigration agency sweep wraps up with 332 arrests
In what may be the largest Florida immigration roundup in recent years, U.S. officials arrested hundreds of foreign nationals in the area.

Posted on Mon, Apr. 07, 2008

By JENNIFER LEBOVICH
jlebovich@MiamiHerald.com

More than 300 foreign nationals accused of evading deportation and violating other immigration laws were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Florida during a two-week stretch, possibly the agency's largest roundup in Florida.

The 332 arrested, from 15 different countries, were brought in during a ''targeted enforcement'' operation by officers in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman in Miami, said Sunday.

It may be the largest roundup in Florida since the agency was created in March 2003 when the functions of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service were folded into the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE plans to announce the results of the operation during a news conference Monday with Michael Rozos, the agency's Florida field office director.

''As a nation, we must protect the integrity of our immigration system,'' Rozos said in a statement. ``While we are a welcoming country, we expect those wanting to immigrate here to do so in a safe, legal and orderly manner.''

During the latest operation, which concluded Friday, deportation officers arrested 147 immigration violators in Miami-Dade, 104 in Broward and 81 in Palm Beach.

SEVERAL NATIONS

Those arrested are nationals from several countries, including Angola, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mauritania, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Surinam, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Of those arrested, Gonzalez said, 300 were fugitives from final orders of deportation while the remaining 32 were accused of a variety of immigration law violations, including criminal convictions.

Sixty-eight of those arrested were released under supervision pending deportation or deportation proceedings.

They were placed on supervised release because of medical issues or because they were sole caregivers of children or disabled people. The rest are in detention.

Typically, fugitive operations officers in Florida arrest an average of 50 to 100 people per sweep.
Another operation in Orlando earlier this year netted 63 foreign nationals.

In a roundup last August, ICE agents arrested 187 undocumented immigrants in Miami, Tampa and Orlando during a two-week operation.

Among those arrested with criminal convictions in the latest sweep were Antonio Martínez-Romero and Ramiro Martínez of Mexico and Jean Robert Valeus of Haiti.

ORDERED DEPORTED

Martínez-Romero had been ordered deported in October 2007 because of arrests for robbery, carrying a concealed weapon and domestic battery.

Ramiro Martínez, ordered deported in October 1997, had previous convictions and arrests for driving under the influence and cruelty toward a child.

Valeus, ordered deported in October 2006, has prior convictions and arrests linked to cocaine possession, larceny and aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.

The number of deportation order fugitives in the United States is estimated at slightly less than 597,000, a decrease of more than 35,000 since October 2006.