|
Twenty-five "fugitive aliens" and immigration violators were arrested in Grand Island and elsewhere in central and eastern Nebraska on Wednesday and Thursday as part of an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement initiative.
Members of the ICE Fugitive Operations Team arrested 13 illegal immigrants in Grand Island, along with others in York, Gibbon, Shelton, Sutton, Hastings and Lincoln, according to ICE spokesman Tim Counts.
"Fugitive aliens" is ICE's term for illegal immigrants who fail to appear for their immigration hearings or who flee after being ordered by a judge to leave the country.
"We think it is absolutely unacceptable that there are some 580,000 people who have essentially been convicted, ordered to leave the country by a federal judge, and then skip out," Counts said Friday. "It's not fair, and it's not American."
Of the 25 arrested, 19 were fugitives and six were immigration violators whom officers encountered while arresting others. Seven have criminal convictions along with their administrative immigration violations.
Counts said federal privacy restrictions allowed him to release the names of only the seven with criminal convictions, which included:
* Salvador Rocha-Portillo, 43, of Mexico, convicted in federal court of smuggling illegal immigrants and in Hall County Court of third-degree assault;
* Hugo Galaviz, 19, of Mexico, convicted in Hall County Court of attempted possession of burglar's tools;
* Ruben Perez-Mora, 35, of Mexico, convicted in Nebraska and Georgia of drunken driving;
* Rodolfo Vega, 18, of El Salvador, convicted of marijuana possession;
* Antonio Soto-Pizzaroh of Mexico, convicted of robbery;
* Hamzeh Niroumand of Iran, convicted of fourth-offense DUI;
* Another male wanted for failure to appear on an assault charge whose name was not immediately available.
Those arrested are now being detained for ICE in the Phelps County Jail pending deportation, Counts said. They will not be given a hearing.
Counts said some immigrants were arrested at home and others at work after investigative efforts to locate them.
Soto-Pizzaroh and Niroumand, both fugitives with outstanding detention orders, were in the Lancaster County Jail. Soto-Pizzaroh was released to ICE; Niroumand will be released to ICE when his sentence is completed.
Counts said ICE did not work with any local law enforcement agencies in this week's initiative.
The initiative was carried out by a team based in Omaha as part of ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which was established in 2003 to eliminate the nation's backlog of immigration fugitives.
The program includes 75 teams across the country who have arrested more than 72,000 illegal immigrants since its inception.
About 585,000 fugitives remain in ICE's databases, but that number declined for the first time in history last year, according to the news release.
Fifteen of those arrested this week are from Guatemala, along with eight from Mexico, one from El Salvador and one from Iran. Eighteen are men, and seven are women.
Want to comment on this article?
Register on our forums and post your thoughts.
It's free and easy to do!
independentforums.com
|
