Illegal Immigrant Arrests

State immigration officials say the number of
illegal immigrants arrested during the 2007 fiscal year increased
by 77 percent from last year.
Authorities also deported a record number of people who
committed crimes or were ordered to leave the country by a judge
but remained in the U.S.
The 2,579 arrests are part of a nationwide effort by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement to track and detain immigrants who stayed
after they were ordered to leave. Others may have lost their appeal
for political asylum, or other immigration benefits, and stayed on
in the United States illegally, while some are foreign-born gang
members or violent criminals.
A network of government squads arrested 30,408 people nationwide
in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Those overall numbers
nearly doubled, from 15,462 in the fiscal year 2006."