Deportations from SD area nearly doubled

Around 33,000 expelled in last fiscal year

Por: Alexandra Mendoza 20 Octubre 2011 @ 8:00 am
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The San Diego ICE office had the third most deportations in the country in the last year. Agencia EFE

The United States deported a record of nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the last fiscal year, which included 33,006 expelled from San Diego County, also a record, new figures show.

The local number nearly doubled from the previous fiscal year, when 18,086 were deported from an area that includes the Imperial Valley.

The San Diego office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had the third most deportations, under San Antonio (63,000) and El Paso (36,000).

The figures were released this week by ICE and cover the period from Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30, 2011. They are sure to further fan passions on all sides of the political spectrum, from GOP presidential candidates who blast the Obama Administration for not doing enough to discourage illegal immigration to leading Latino organizations that condemn his government for stepping up deportations without advancing immigration reform.

The new figures indicate that nearly half of the 33,006 migrants deported from the San Diego region, 14,412, had a criminal conviction.

In August, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano stressed that the agency gave “maximum priorityâ€