Feds arrest 761

[Soldier4Christ]

Feds arrest 761
in illegals sweep 
Authorities tout series of raids
as among biggest in U.S. history

Describing it as one of the biggest illegal immigrations sweeps in U.S. history, authorities arrested 761 in the Los Angeles area in a week-long series of raids.

The raids targeted illegal immigrants who previously had been deported for crimes or had ignored final deportation orders, the Associated Press reported.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told AP 338 illegals were arrested in their homes and another 423 were identified in local jails. The jailed illegals will be transferred to federal custody after serving their state sentences, said Virginia Kice.

The raids were part of a major crackdown called Operation Return to Sender, which has resulted in 13,000 arrests nationwide since June. Another 3,000 illegals identified in state and local jails will be deported.

Last June, federal authorities announced the arrest of 2,100 in a two-week sweep nationwide. Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the immigration section of the Department of Homeland Security, said at the time the agency was "watching the country's borders from the inside."

In June, officials estimated there were more than 500,000 "fugitive aliens" who had been deported by judges and either returned to the country or never left.

However, that number apparently has jumped, with Kice estimating now 600,000 illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders are still at large.

The Southern California sweep this week netted illegal immigrants from 14 countries, including Mexico, Honduras, Ukraine, India, Japan, Poland and Trinidad, AP said.

As WND reported, more than 9,000 sex offenders have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials through a series of stings called Operation Predator in three years of operation, a 2006 Department of Homeland Security Report says. But some experts are wondering if the efforts are enough to protect innocent American children from being preyed on by returning criminal alien sex offenders.

Foreign nationals account for roughly 85 percent of child sex offenders arrested by the operation, which was launched by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in July 2003, officials say. And as WND previously has reported, authorities also have linked illegal aliens to a wave of gang-rapes across the U.S.

The program was designed to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers and international sex tourists, and in the first year alone, ICE arrested more than 3,200 child predators in the U.S. who committed forms of child exploitation.

But Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, a researcher of violent crimes and criminal profiler who consults with FBI, state and local police, told WND, "Illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes first cross the U.S. border illegally, then gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported. Those who were deported simply returned illegally again. There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation. From misdemeanors such as assault or DUI, to drug offenses, illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes break U.S. laws repeatedly."