ICE turns up the heat

Authorities recorded a record number of arrests of criminal aliens and fugitives this year in the Los Angeles area, federal officials said today.

Some 2,667 immigration violators have been taken into custody between Jan. 1, 2007 and Sept. 31, 2007 - a 63 percent increase over last fiscal year, according to the latest statistics available. Of those arrested, 576 had criminal histories in addition to being in the country illegally.

Among the criminal aliens taken into custody recently by the Fugitive Operations Teams was a Maywood man convicted of beating another man to death here more than a decade ago. Luis Medina Gonzalez, 34, was arrested Oct. 24 at his home and deported to Mexico the following day.

Medina was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in August 1996 on charges stemming from a fist-fight that left another man dead. He was ordered deported based upon his criminal conviction, but failed to comply with the immigration court's order. Medina also has a prior conviction for narcotics charges.

"As a country, we welcome law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crimes against our citizens should be on notice that ICE is going to use all of the tools at its disposal to find you and send you home," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and removal operations.

ICE established its Fugitive Operations Program in 2003 to eliminate the nation's backlog of immigration fugitives and ensure that deportation orders handed down by immigration judges are enforced. Today, ICE has 75 Fugitive Operations Teams deployed across the country. In fiscal year 2007, those teams accounted for more than 30,000 arrests nationwide.

This year, for the first time, the nation's fugitive alien population showed a decline, officials said. Estimates now place the number of immigration fugitives in the United States at slightly under 597,000, a decrease of more than 35,000 since October 2006.