ICE announces criminal immigrant roundup; 60 arrested in El Paso

Times staff, wire report
Posted: 09/28/2011 10:45:41 AM MDT

Federal authorities arrested 2,900 undocumented immigrants with criminal records during a seven-day nationwide sweep, the biggest of its kind, immigration officials said Wednesday.

The arrests include 60 people in West Texas and New Mexico, said officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in El Paso.

ICE officials said the operation, which it dubbed "Cross Check," "led to the arrest of more than 2,900 convicted criminal aliens."

The operation was carried out over a one-week period in all 50 US states and overseas territories, as part of the US administration's strategy to focus on people with criminal records who are in the country illegally.

"The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those who game our nation's immigration system," ICE director John Morton said.

Of those detained, 1,282 had multiple convictions to their name, and more than 1,600 had served sentences for crimes like armed robbery, attempted murder, kidnapping or drug trafficking, the agency said.

It said 681 of those detained had been expelled from the United States after being convicted of crimes but returned to the country illegally, it said.

The United States has expelled 350,000 undocumented immigrants a year on average over the past three years -- a record high -- and about half of them had criminal records.

The agency has carried out operations like "Cross Check" before, but this was the first time it has done so simultaneously throughout the country. About 1,900 agents took part in the sweep, it said.
An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, a majority of them Hispanics, according to official estimates.

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