ICE agents to search for immigrant fugitives
Team will be stationed in county before year is over
By John Scheibe
Saturday, November 1, 2008


Federal immigration authorities will place a team of agents in Ventura County before the end of the year that will focus on finding and repatriating immigrant fugitives.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has 95 "Fugitive Operation Teams" in place across the nation. California has 17 teams, including seven in the Southland. Ventura will be the eighth.

"The main thing we'll be doing is looking for individuals who are defying" court orders to leave the country, said Jim Pilkington, an assistant field office representative in Los Angeles.

Commonly known by its acronym, ICE, the agency was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to eliminate weaknesses along the border and in other areas, including the nation's transportation network.

The announcement about the new Ventura team came as agents arrested 1,157 alleged immigration violators across California during a three-week operation in September, including 420 in the Southland.

Nearly a third of those arrested "had criminal histories in addition to being in the country illegally," ICE said.

The arrests included two alleged gang members in Ventura County, Jose David Rodas-Ramos, 28, and Jesus Perez-Ortega, 19, both of Thousand Oaks, ICE reported.

Rodas-Ramos is a Honduran national and suspected of belonging to a gang with members throughout the United States, Mexico and Central America, authorities said. Additional information on Perez-Ortega was not available.

The United States deported 282,548 illegal immigrants in 2007. Of these, 136,069 were sent to Mexico, making it the top destination for deportees, according to ICE. Honduras came in second, with 29,273 deportees, followed by Guatemala with 24,765 and El Salvador with 20,862.

Pilkington would not say how many agents will be assigned to the Ventura County team, or exactly where it will be located. "We're looking for a place for them now," he said.

ICE has four teams in Los Angeles County, two in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and one in Orange County, Pilkington said. In addition, it has several teams in San Diego County, he said. The teams are deployed to places where the need is greatest, he said.

Authorities estimate the number of undocumented immigrants who have been ordered to leave but remain in the United States is fewer than 560,000, some 34,000 fewer than in October 2007. Immigration officials are looking at overhauling the system to deport them more quickly and efficiently.


www.venturacountystar.com