Immigration News

ICE Apprehends Immigration Violators In 4-day Louisville Operation

LOUISVILLE, KY. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that ICE officers apprehended 12 criminal aliens, fugitives, and other immigration violators here as part of a four-day interior immigration enforcement operation that began July 17.

This initiative, which concluded yesterday, is a continuation of "Operation Return to Sender," a nationwide operation executed last month that netted 2,179 illegal aliens. Grayson County Sheriff's Department, Leitchfield, Ky., assisted ICE in this week’s local operation.

"ICE is out in full force to keep our communities safe by removing criminal aliens from our streets," said Deborah Achim, who heads ICE’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Chicago. "Operation Return to Sender is improving public safety across the country, while restoring integrity to our nation’s immigration system. Illegal aliens who evade our laws will be identified, arrested and quickly removed." Achim’s area of responsibility includes: Kentucky Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Those arrested were citizens of the following six nations: El Salvador, Gambia, Guatemala, Mauratania, Mexico, Mexico and the Philippines. Nine of those arrested in this operation were fugitives who had final orders of removal from a federal immigration judge.

Among those arrested was Reynante Balmores, a 37-year-old Filipino national. ICE officers arrested him July 19 at his residence in Louisville, Ky. Balmores was convicted of felony theft in Bexar County, Texas, and sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing a tractor-trailer full of wine valued at over $20,000 in 1999. Balmores was ordered deported by an immigration judge, but he failed to surrender for deportation and was deemed a fugitive. He remains in ICE custody pending deportation to the Philippines.

These arrests are the latest enforcement actions under the interior immigration enforcement strategy that was announced April 20 by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers. A critical element of this interior enforcement strategy is to identify and remove criminal aliens, fugitives, and other immigration violators from the United States.

This interior enforcement strategy is part of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI), which is the Department of Homeland Security's comprehensive, multi-year plan to secure America's borders and reduce illegal migration. SBI's border security efforts are focused on gaining operational control of the nation's borders through additional personnel and technology, while re-engineering the detention and removal system to ensure that illegal aliens are removed from the country quickly.

The interior enforcement strategy complements the Department's border security efforts by expanding existing efforts to target immigration violators inside this country, employers of illegal aliens, as well as the many criminal networks that support these activities. The primary objectives are to reverse the tolerance of illegal employment and illegal immigration in the U.S.

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