Sweep nets immigrants with criminal charges (Washington Examiner)

Sweep nets immigrants with criminal charges
By: SCOTT MCCABE
Examiner Staff Writer
February 2, 2010

Dozens of members of street gangs who were in the United States illegally were arrested in a four-day immigration operation across Virginia and the District of Columbia, officials announced Monday.
The 36 people who were rounded up were considered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be the area's illegal immigrants who pose the biggest threat to public safety or to national security.
Immigration officials vowed to send them back to their home countries, but only after some of them face criminal charges here.
"These arrests underscore ICE's commitment to focus our enforcement efforts on ridding the streets of criminals that bring violence to our neighborhoods and threaten the safety of our children," said Enrique M. Lucero, field office director for the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Washington, D.C.
Thirty-two of the 36 arrested had been convicted of crimes ranging from robbery to embezzlement to drug dealing. Some belonged to gangs, including two who were members of the Central American-based MS-13 gang and another who was a member of the Bloods street gang.
The other four arrested did not have criminal backgrounds but were immigration fugitives, people who had already been ordered to leave country by the U.S. immigration courts, officials said.
The operation was not a job-site sweep, an ICE official said. The targets were selected from a database of hundreds of thousands of fugitive aliens in the United States, and ICE's fugitive operation team worked with local law enforcement agencies to identify the most egregious criminals, officials said.
From Monday through Thursday last week, more than 20 federal agents and local law enforcement officers fanned throughout the area, visited the homes of the targets, knocked on their doors and got permission to enter the home.
There was no busting down of doors and the suspects surrendered without any incidents, ICE officials said.
Of the 36 arrested, 30 were men and six were women. They came from 16 different nations, including countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Caribbean and Africa.
Twenty lived in Northern Virginia, five in D.C., and the rest were from the Harrisonburg, Va., area.
Three of the individuals will face further federal prosecution for re-entering the country illegally after a formal deportation and for having serious criminal histories. A conviction for felony re-entry carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Those arrested with outstanding orders of removal will be immediately deported, while others will remain in ICE custody awaiting the outcome of their case.
The operation was conducted by the Washington Field Office, which covers D.C. and Virginia. Since 2007, ICE has been conducting the operation at various field offices around the country, including in California where they picked up nearly 300 criminal aliens and fugitive immigrants last December.