More than 2,900 convicted criminal immigrants arrested, ICE says

[alp227]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- In a huge, seven-day operation covering all 50 states and four U.S. territories, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 2,901 convicted criminal immigrants as part of the "Cross Check" enforcement operation, ICE officials announced Wednesday.

ICE officials trumpeted the arrests at a news conference designed to highlight "the Obama administration's ongoing commitment to prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators."

ICE Director John Morton said all those arrested had prior criminal convictions, including 1,282 who had multiple convictions. More than 1,600 of those arrested had felony convictions including manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors and aggravated assault. Forty-two of them were gang members and 151 were convicted sex offenders, officials said.

ICE officials acknowledged that despite the large number of arrests, there were still an estimated 1 million convicted criminal aliens in the United States. Morton said one of the issues ICE is trying to deal with is the lack of notification to immigration authorities when offenders are released from jail.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/us/immigration-sting/index.html