Tyche Hendricks, SF Chronicle Staff Writer

On a quiet East Oakland street in the hour before dawn Tuesday, Tony Aiello and the five members of his fugitive operations team parked their unmarked SUVs and approached a red-trimmed bungalow. Two of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents cased the sides of the building, while the other three marched onto the front porch, rapped on the door and announced themselves: "Police!"

The agents were after an illegal immigrant: a convicted felon who had served time for assault with a deadly weapon, then slipped out of sight when he was ordered deported. But the address was old, the house had been abandoned and all Aiello's crew found was a homeless man who had broken in a back door to sleep for the night.

At the next address, a modest house bordered by red roses and a row of towering corn stalks, another targeted alien - with a record for hit-and-run DUI and weapons possession - had already left for work. His 20-year-old son was arrested when he couldn't produce proof of legal residency, but was later released.

And so it went. Over five hours and six addresses the agents, in their navy blue windbreakers with ICE POLICE emblazoned on the backs, came up empty-handed Tuesday. In one case, a business had moved. Another was a case of mistaken identity. Undaunted, Aiello and his crew continued their shoe-leather investigations through the morning, chasing down leads and staking out new addresses.

The agency's fugitive operations teams have arrested 40,000 illegal immigrants nationwide since Oct. 1 - more than double last year's figure - 1,199 of them in Northern California, according to ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley.

Stung by criticism of the way it conducts its enforcement operations, the agency invited reporters along on Tuesday's operation in the East Bay, a first for Northern California.

"You can see these guys are nice guys," said Haley of Aiello and his team.

Among the charges leveled by civil rights attorneys and immigrant advocates is that while agents carry warrants for specific individuals who have absconded from deportation, they often sweep up other undocumented immigrants who happen to be at a targeted home or in the area. Such "collateral" arrests have accounted for slightly less than half the people caught by fugitive operations teams in Northern California this year.

Aiello defended the practice. "We have our priorities: national security and criminal cases. But my officers are federal agents; they enforce immigration law. If they see someone, they have to take action," he said.

Though his crew came up empty-handed in the East Bay, a second team made three arrests in Santa Clara County - two convicted sexual predators and one fugitive convicted of narcotics possession. All three of them were targeted on arrest warrants.

Immigrant advocates have also criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement for unnecessarily traumatizing children - either by separating them from their parents, as occurred in a New Bedford, Mass., workplace raid in March, or taking them into custody, as they did with a 6-year-old San Rafael boy in March. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued on behalf of the boy, Kebin Reyes, a U.S. citizen.

But those who want to restrict illegal immigration say it's about time the government went after scofflaws, and some say the course should not be softened with any new law that would offer illegal entrants a path to citizenship.

"Those law enforcement actions are long overdue," said Yeh Ling-Ling, director of the Oakland-based Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America. "But those actions alone are not going to seriously curb illegal immigration if leaders of both parties are promising amnesty."

Earlier this month - after a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law that would have included a provision allowing illegal immigrants to earn legal status failed to make it through a divided Congress - President Bush announced he would step up workplace immigration enforcement and continue to tighten border security.

The administration has requested $5 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the coming fiscal year, up from $3.5 billion three years earlier.

In spite of the beefed-up enforcement, illegal immigration has been persistent. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have identified 600,000 fugitive aliens across the country.

As the sun rose over Oakland's Foothill Boulevard, Aiello's agents strode into the yard of an air conditioning business hoping to arrest a Hell's Angels associate with a burglary and assault record. But the man they thought was their fugitive turned out to be the wanted man's uncle, who had "borrowed" his name and Social Security number. The nephew, he insisted, had returned to his native Portugal.

So it was back to square one for Aiello's agents, who are investigating about 100 cases each at any one time and have a backlog of 18,000 fugitives to track down across Northern California.

"It's important for my guys to do it for the sake of deterrence," said Aiello. "People need to know that the law is there and it will be enforced, and if you're breaking the law you will face the penalties."

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