Illegal Immigrants With Criminal Records on the Rise

LOS ANGELES, California - Immigration agents assigned to track down people who have ignored deportation orders have increasingly arrested immigrants with criminal records during the past year, new data show. Data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement show a shift from the prior three years, when more than 70 percent of immigrants arrested by fugitive operations teams had no criminal histories. About 45 percent of the 35,000 immigrants arrested by the teams during the 2009 fiscal year had criminal convictions. The figure is up from 23 percent during the prior year.--...More