ICE raids mostly nab non-criminals, files show
Program was supposed to target dangerous fugitives
By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 4, 2009, 11:04PM

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement program designed to target the most dangerous immigration fugitives has swept up mostly non-criminals in recent years, newly released documents show.

The National Fugitive Operations Program, created in 2003 with the mission of locating and deporting fugitives who are national security or public safety threats, resulted in the arrests of more than 62,000 people through the end of the 2007 fiscal year.

Of those arrests, roughly 18 percent involved fugitive immigrants with criminal records, according to a report released Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington D.C., which obtained the data from ICE. Roughly 48 percent of the arrests involved immigrants with outstanding deportation orders and no criminal record. The remaining 34 percent were simply identified during a raid and arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally, the report said.

ICE officials have said the fugitive operations program gives top priority to cases involving violent fugitives, including gang members and child sex offenders. A series of internal directives, however, shows the agency steeply increased an annual arrest quota for the fugitive teams in 2006, while relaxing a requirement that 75 percent of targets have criminal records.

The result, critics say, is that ICE shifted focus and went after “low-hanging fruit,â€