Thread: Deportations up in region that includes Nebraska

Deportations up in region that includes Nebraska
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SponsorBy JEAN ORTIZ / The Associated Press
Thursday, Nov 06, 2008 - 06:07:37 pm CST
OMAHA — Federal officials deported and arrested record numbers of illegal immigrants over the past year in a five-state region that includes Nebraska, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data released Thursday.

The Bloomington, Minn., ICE field office that oversees Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota deported more than 4,900 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2008. The figures for Oct. 1, 2007 to Sept. 30 are up nearly 20 percent from 4,100 the previous year.

About 2,100 of those returned to their native countries in fiscal 2008 had prior criminal convictions.

ICE spokesman Tim Counts said the agency is unable to breakdown the figures by state.

ICE attributes the increases to heightened enforcement efforts.

A raid of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa earlier this year contributed to the deportation figures, but not significantly, Counts said. Officials have said the May raid when nearly 400 illegal immigrants were arrested was one of the largest single-site immigration busts in U.S. history.

The Minnesota office likely deported about 30 people arrested at the Postville plant, he said. More than 300 others charged criminally and convicted were sent to other areas of the country — specifically Louisiana, Kansas and Florida — to serve their sentences.

Most had served their time by the beginning of October and were released to local field offices for removal. Those deportations will be reflected in next fiscal year’s data, Counts said.

ICE also has stepped up efforts to go after illegal immigrants who defy court-issued deportation orders to leave the country. That has resulted in more than 1,050 arrests in the five-state region this year. That’s up from 900 last year.

ICE does not estimate how many illegal immigrants are living in the region, said Counts, who called such a task difficult, if not impossible.

The Pew Hispanic Center released a state-by-state breakdown report in 2005, making it one of the most recent estimates available. That report estimated Nebraska could have had between 20,000 and 35,000 illegal immigrants.

The Pew report estimated that Iowa and Minnesota both had between 55,000 and 85,000 illegal immigrants. The Dakotas, meanwhile, are estimated to have fewer than 10,000 illegal immigrants in each of their states.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also released year-end figures Thursday for the Nebraska Service Center. Among its highlights, the Lincoln facility processed more than 960,000 applications for immigration benefits and more than 178,000 naturalization applications in 2008.

http://journalstar.com/news/nebraska/do ... 486135.txt

They need to come over to Grand Island, NE and deport a bazillion of them!

Originally Posted by partwerks

They need to come over to Grand Island, NE and deport a bazillion of them!

They could get a bazillion of them in the Lexington, NE area too. The numbers the article gave "between 20,000 and 35,000" is way too low!

How are these people getting into the country? Flying on planes? Driving in a vehicle? Boats? Walking?