Houston Community News >> Immigration Officials Arrest 326 Illegal Immigrants in Houston
8/22/2006 Houston, TX - Authorities have arrested 326 people in the Houston area, including some accused of murder, as part of a national crackdown on illegal immigrants.
AdvertisementThey were accused of crimes including homicide, aggravated sexual assault of minors, robbery, assault, human smuggling and narcotics trafficking.
"Criminal aliens are a threat to the safety of our children, families, community and our nation," said Kenneth L. Landgrebe, field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Detention and Removal Operations office in Houston. "Our goal is to remove these threats from the United States."
Thirty of those arrested were fugitive criminal immigrants with final orders of deportation, 89 were non-criminal fugitives with final orders of deportation and 17 were illegal aliens with criminal convictions. The rest were immigration violators.
Immigration officials have deported 142 of those arrested to their home countries, which include Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, India and Pakistan.
The initiative, dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," targeted illegal immigrants who had received final removal orders from a federal immigration judge. It began May 26 and ended Monday.
(Contributed by AP)