Comments are being left after this story at the source link.

~~~~~

Friday, June 22, 2007
New immigration team makes 175 O.C. arrests
The week-long operation marks the start of a team focused on tracking down illegal immigrants who avoid court orders leave.
By AMY TAXIN
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANAImmigration agents arrested 175 people this week in Orange County in an operation aimed tracking down illegal immigrants who skirt court orders to leave the country.

Revealed to the public today, it was the first action taken by a new seven-member Orange County fugitive operations team whose primary goal is to find and arrest undocumented immigrants who fail to leave when told or re-enter the country illegally after they were previously removed by authorities.

In the hours before dawn Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wearing T-shirts over bulletproof vests huddled in a parking lot in downtown Santa Ana. An agent pulled out a list of "targets" the team would try to find -- a convicted rapist, a woman convicted of child cruelty and a man who was issued a bench warrant after failing to pay his traffic tickets.

"By deploying this team in Orange County, we can continue to enhance the public safety in Orange County," said Jim Hayes, ICE field office director for greater Los Angeles.

The week-long operation drew mixed reactions in Santa Ana's densely packed neighborhoods. Residents welcomed ICE's efforts to rid the area of criminals but shuddered when their loved ones – many without criminal records -- were arrested in the process.

Of the 175 arrests in 13 cities across Orange County, 27 people had criminal records and 26 were people who had ignored deportation orders, according to ICE.

Rocio Martinez said her husband was arrested by ICE agents Monday, leaving her alone to care for her two young children in Santa Ana. He was convicted a few years ago of making and using fake identification but had no outstanding deportation order, according to ICE.

"Why don't they take the drug dealers and the thieves?" Martinez said. "We work and I pay taxes and I don't know why people who do bad things in this country and mock the justice system can get away with it."

The arrests are part of a nationwide ICE initiative dubbed "Operation Cross Check", which aims to reduce the number of people who fail to heed court orders to deport. Hayes said the number of people skirting their deportation orders fell for the first time ever in the last eight months to 632,189. For three years, the population grew by more than 5,000 a month.

ICE now has five fugitive operations teams in the greater Los Angeles area, including the one in Orange County.

According to statistics from the Executive Office for Immigration Review – which oversees the country's immigration courts – judges issued deportation orders for 220,057 immigrants during the last fiscal year. About four times out of 10, immigrants failed to attend court when a judge ruled on their cases, according to EOIR.


Santa ana, Anaheim, Irvine, garden grove, Tustin, Huntington beach, costa mesa, Buena park, placentia, fullerton, brea, orange, westminster

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ho ... 741263.php