U.S. agents trying to find 400,000 for deportation

Posted on Sun, Mar. 14, 2004

IMMIGRATION


U.S. agents trying to find 400,000 for deportation

Federal authorities are beginning an extensive search for illegal immigrants who evade U.S. deportation orders.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

achardy@herald.com


Federal immigration officials, in a significant strategy shift that is sending shudders through immigrant communities, are for the first time aggressively tracking down foreign nationals who have been ordered deported but who have managed to evade capture.

Under a plan dubbed Endgame, teams of federal agents are being deployed to hunt down more than 400,000 illegal immigrants so they can be expelled from the United States.

Since the program began eight months ago, more than 7,000 people have been detained across the country, including 427 in Florida. Federal officials have set an ambitious goal: to deport all ''absconders,'' as immigration agents refer to them, within 10 years.
(snip)

They say that faulty information in old immigration files, backlogs in processing applications, misplaced records, wrong addresses and misspelled names have led agents to arrest people who were not even aware that final deportation orders had been issued against them and others who had become legal residents.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/8181986.htm