1,300 immigrants deported by feds

"It's the kind of deterrent methods that we need to be sending instead of the message of encouragement that we have been sending for two decades."

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Agents raided sites in 5 Southland counties in 2 weeks
BY RACHEL URANGA, Staff Writer
10/03/2007 09:36:27 PM PDT
In what federal authorities are calling the largest sweep of criminal and fugitive immigrants, federal agents over the past two weeks have arrested more than 1,300 Southland immigrants in their homes, in jails and at work, officials announced Wednesday.
As part of a stepped-up national crackdown on illegal immigrants, five teams of Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents raided homes in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties from Sept. 19 through Tuesday.
Some arrests were easy, while others involved agents peering into clothes dryers or squeezing deep into crawl spaces to find hidden suspects. Most of those arrested were from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala.
"Too often in the past, (deportation) orders were ignored and aliens thought that after getting an order of removal they could slip back into society," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE. "Those days are no longer."

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7077404