By Guillermo Contreras : August 9, 2013 : Updated: August 9, 2013 9:50pm
mysanantonio.com

Jose Arinaga-Ramirez and Bernardino Rivera-Infante, both serving federal time for re-entering the United States illegally, face a certain fate after their prison terms end: They'll be given the boot back to Mexico.

They are two of nearly 1,700 sex offenders in Texas, and among more than 400 in San Antonio, who are foreigners and targeted for deportation this fiscal year, officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Friday.

ICE officers routinely detain convicted sex offenders during targeted enforcement operations, or other agencies turn them over to ICE custody when local or state jails or prisons release them after they serve their sentences.

“One of our priorities is targeting sex offenders ... not only in jails but those living within our community,” said Enrique Lucero, director of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations field office in San Antonio.

“What's new is ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety have begun to share data regularly on sex offenders,” he added. “This partnership allows ICE to cross-reference the list of sex offenders provided from the state to determine if they are removable aliens. That relationship is very beneficial, and the coordination is happening seamlessly.”

Arinaga-Ramirez and Rivera-Infante, both 46, were both convicted of sexual offenses against children. They failed to follow sex-offender registration requirements, had previously been deported, but found their way back to Texas, records show. Arinaga-Ramirez was sentenced in December to 41 months in prison, while Rivera-Infante was sentenced in January, also to 41 months.

Nationwide this fiscal year, ICE has removed about 300,000 immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, which includes about 165,000 with criminal convictions.

Of those, 1,685 were sex offenders in Texas, and a fourth of those were in the San Antonio field office, which includes the border area from Del Rio to the Rio Grande Valley, ICE said.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...or-4721407.php