Thread: 900 illegal immigrants caught and sentenced

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900 illegal immigrants caught and sentenced
1/31/2006 10:27 AM
By: Associated Press

Border authorities are claiming some success in slowing illegal immigration with a new "zero-tolerance" initiative.

Under Operation Streamline 2, the U.S. Border Patrol is working with other agencies to press charges against all illegal border crossers caught in the highly trafficked area of Eagle Pass in West Texas.

The border city is about 130 miles southwest of San Antonio.

Authorities usually only prosecute a small fraction of the more than 1 million illegal crossers apprehended each year along the Mexican border, partly because there's not enough jail space to detain the offenders.

But in the first six weeks of the new program, 917 immigrants were prosecuted and sentenced to an average of 90 days in prison.

And in the last month, border agents in the area saw an average of fewer than 20 non-Mexican illegal crossers a day. That's down from more than 40 non-Mexican daily crossers in January 2005.

917 DOWN, 10 MILLION TO GO.