117 Immigrants Arrested In Fugitive Sweep, Officials Say

Federal officials say they have arrested 117 immigrants in Florida accused of being fugitives or committing immigration law violations.

The arrests during a five-day operation last week include 11 people in the Tampa area, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Five of the 11 arrests involved suspects with prior criminal convictions, according to ICE spokeswoman Nicole A. Navas. Those include charges of cocaine possession, assault, fraud, driving under the influence, prostitution and illegal entry into the United States.

The suspects' countries of origin include Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Honduras, Haiti and Ivory Coast.

Navas said she cannot release the suspects' names.

Coincidentally, the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, released a report today critical of the fugitive arrest program.

The report says the federal program, established in 2003 to apprehend fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community, has instead focused on arresting unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions.

The report states that 73 percent of the nearly 97,000 undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE fugitive operations teams through early 2008 did not have criminal records.

According to ICE, the Miami Fugitive Operations Teams - which include Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands - have arrested 1,894 fugitive aliens, including 504 criminal aliens, since October.

"ICE will continue to arrest and deport aliens who have ignored an immigration judge's order to leave the country," said Michael Rozos, field office director for the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Florida. "We will conduct these targeted fugitive operations to ensure that removal orders are carried out and locate these immigration violators who potentially pose a threat to public safety."

Asked for comment on the Immigration Policy Institute report, ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said in an e-mail: "Roughly 20% of immigration fugitives have been convicted of a crime in the United States, but all have proven their refusal to comply with immigration law. It is not good public safety policy to wait until immigration fugitives, who have already defied the U.S. laws, commit a violent crime before we target them for arrest and removal even though the risk-based model that ICE uses places the highest priority on the dangerous criminal fugitives who pose a potential threat to the community."