121 arrested in North Texas gang roundup

06:51 PM CDT on Monday, July 23, 2007
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Associated Press

DALLAS - Federal agents and local police rounded up 121 members of street gangs during a series of coordinated raids in North Texas cities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Monday.

More than half of the arrests were for criminal charges. The others were taken into custody on administrative, or immigration, violations, said ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok.

They represented members of 27 gangs, including the Asian Boyz, Latin Kings, Eastside Locos, Northside Locos, Westside 12, 18th St., 28th St., Love Field Players, Mexican Mafia and MS-13.

Some of the gang members illegally in the country have already been returned to their home countries or are being processed for deportation. Others are being prosecuted for re-entering the United States following deportation, said John Chakwin Jr., special agent in charge of the Office of Investigations for ICE in Dallas.

Those arrested during the seven-day operation also included 45 U.S. citizens with pending charges, ICE said.

"Working in close partnership with federal and local law enforcement agencies, we removed from our communities many fugitive criminals and violent street gang members," Chakwin said.

Arrests were made through Sunday morning in Arlington, Irving, Fort Worth, Dallas, Gainesville and Wichita Falls with the help of police in each city. Farmers Branch police, the FBI, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also participated, ICE said.

The arrests came as part of Operation Community Shield, a national initiative targeting gangs. It was launched more than two years ago after federal officials identified the MS-13 gang, or Mara Salvatrucha, as one of the largest and most violent in the country. Federal officials found many of that gang's members were foreign-born, were in the country illegally or had criminal convictions. Some were involved in crimes the brought them under the scrutiny of ICE.

Those arrested under the operation are either removed from the country or prosecuted criminally, making the eligible for deportation if they are not U.S. citizens. To date, the federal initiative has yielded more than 4,500 members of 532 gangs, ICE said.