Deportations of illegal aliens spike in NW

SEATTLE – More than 10,000 illegal aliens were deported in the past year from Washington, Oregon and Alaska – an increase of more than 35 percent over the previous year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Thursday.

Immigration officials said 10,602 aliens were deported to their home countries between October 2007 and September 2008, up from 7,688.

The spike in deportations reflects a continuing nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration by ICE and other federal agencies.

Nationwide, the number of deportations in the period increased from 290,000 to more than 345,000, a 16.5 percent increase.

Immigration officials here credited part of the increase to the Criminal Alien Program, in which immigration officers hone in on illegal aliens who have been arrested and placed in local jails.

Deportations of illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds increased by 33 percent in the same period. Of the more than 10,000 deported, more than 3,000 had prior criminal convictions – however not all aliens with criminal records came from the jail canvassing program.

“The numbers indicate we’re getting these people, and removing them before they get a chance to go back to the streets,” said Neil Clark, field office director for ICE detention and removal operations in Seattle.

Immigration investigations and work-site raids also contributed to the deportations, agency spokeswoman Lori Dankers said.

According to a 2005 Pew Research Center study, more than 300,000 illegal aliens reside in Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

“It’s one thing to talk about numbers, but the thing the people have to understand is that behind the numbers, there are individuals and human beings … Many families have been torn apart,” said Jorge L. Baron of the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. “It’s a reflection of our broken immigration system.”

The immigration rights project is a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to aliens in the process of deportation.

Baron said that ICE’s emphasis on the Criminal Alien Program paints illegal aliens as dangerous when many of the people caught in the program don’t have convictions or have committed only misdemeanors.

The ongoing spike in deportations will also test the processing at a privately run Tacoma immigration lockup operated by the Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group. GEO plans to expand the facility by 50 percent, to a capacity of 1,500 detainees.

This week, an administrator in charge of hiring at the detention center pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about hiring practices at the center. An investigation found that nearly 100 security guards were hired without background checks, and ICE didn’t catch the practice for two years, court documents show.