Border Patrol Arrest 30,000 Illegal Aliens at Local Checkpoints

This amounts to about 84 people a day from the handful of checkpoints running locally in such places as Escondido, San Clemente, Pine Valley and San Diego in addition to Temecula, according to the Border Patrol.

By Stephanie D. Schulte | 5:39pm

More than 30,000 illegal immigrants were arrested at local Border Patrol checkpoints in the last year.

During the fiscal year ending on May 31, the U.S. Border Patrol, which operates a regional station in Murrieta, arrested 30,729 illegal immigrants at the checkpoint south of Temecula and others in Southern California, according to Agent Rodolfo Zuniga.

This amounts to about 84 people a day from the handful of checkpoints running locally in such places as Escondido, San Clemente, Pine Valley and San Diego in addition to Temecula, according to the Border Patrol.

Across the nation, 215,900 illegal aliens were deported from October 2010 to April 2011, which averages to about 24,000 per month, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

During the past nine months, the number of illegal immigrants arrested in Southern California represented 9.5 percent of the number of deportations across the country.

Almost half of those deported were criminals, and these are the ones officials focus on finding, said Lori Haley, a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“ICE is focuses on sensible, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes efforts first on those serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities,â€