http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegio ... eid=143707

Illegals roundup nets violent felons
By Casey Ross
Boston Herald Reporter

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - Updated: 06:14 PM EST

A federal immigration crackdown has netted 150 illegal immigrants from across the region, including at least two violent felons associated with the Salvadoran gang MS-13, officials said today.

The enforcement operation was part of a nationwide campaign that resulted in more than 2,100 arrests, most of them involving violent criminals and previously deported aliens who re-entered the country.

“We can no longer allow the interior of the United States to serve as a haven for illegal immigrants,” said Bruce Chadbourne, the director of the New England field office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He said 75 percent of the illegal aliens arrested in Massachusetts and surrounding states were wanted for criminal offenses.

Among those arrested were Franklin Ademir Rodriguez and Samuel Gil Martinez, two members of the notoriously vicious Salvadorian gang MS-13.

Rodriguez, 25, also known as “Hollywood” was previously convicted of helping other gang members paralyze a 13-year-old boy by stabbing him in the spine with a sharpened stake. Martinez, 24, was convicted of assault in two separate cases - one in which he beat an individual with a baseball bat and another where he attacked a man at a bus stop with a “club” automobile lock.

The final four arrests in the immigration crackdown occurred early this morning when officials apprehended illegal aliens in Somerville, Brighton, Wellesley, and Weymouth.

While lauding the enforcement effort as a success, federal immigration officials acknowledged that they are only scratching the surface of a massive illegal immigration problem in the United States.

More than 590,000 illegal aliens are currently fugitives of the nation’s immigration system, a number that is increasing at a rate of more than 40,000 each year.