596 immigrants convicted of crimes nabbed in South

[The Northerner]

Federal agents say they have arrested 596 immigrants with criminal records during a three-day immigration enforcement sweep across the Southeast.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said on Friday that the operation, dubbed Operation Cross Check, was the largest ever conducted by the agency targeting foreign nationals convicted of crimes. They said the immigrants have already served their sentences and authorities will now seek to deport them.

Atlanta ICE Field Director Felicia Skinner says that "communities around the Southeast are safer than they were before" as a result. She said three of the people arrested this week had been convicted of murder and 144 were convicted on assault charges.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/30/national/a095113D28.DTL

[Hannah Bell]

1. Feds conduct huge deportation sweeps across the US; middle-class america yawns.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Poorly written. Is it saying these are immigrants who committed crimes

in their home country, or who committed crimes and served their time in the US? If the latter, why were they not deported directly upon release from custody? Why did there have to be a 'sweep' to collect people who were known to be felons AND were in custody previously? Kind of a duplication of effort, there, isn't it? Isn't it SOP to deport felons?

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Wonder how many convicted of crimes non-immigrants are in the SE?