Federal sweep rounds up 2,900 illegal immigrants

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have made 2,901 arrests over the past week in a law enforcement surge designed to round up illegal immigrants who’ve been convicted of crimes.

It’s the third “Cross Check” operation aimed at criminal aliens since December 2009, and the largest so far, according to ICE Director John Morton, Reuters reports.

During this seven-day round-up, illegal immigrants in all 50 states and four U.S. territories were arrested.

According to Reuters:

All those arrested had criminal convictions and will be deported, Morton said. More than 1,600 had felony convictions, including manslaughter, attempted murder and drug trafficking.

Forty-two of those arrested were gang members, and 151 were sex offenders. Those arrested included nationals of the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Mexico, Panama and Honduras.

"The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system," Morton said in a statement released before the news conference, CNN reports.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek:

The Obama administration has made it a priority to arrest and deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. The strategy is a departure from immigration policies of Obama’s predecessor as president, George W. Bush, who emphasized raids on businesses suspected of hiring illegal immigrants.

The Obama administration has “come up with a rational set of priorities” for deporting illegal immigrants, the director of ICE, John Morton, said at a Washington news conference. “The best place to start is criminal offenders.”

ICE officials said that despite the large number of arrests, there were still an estimated 1 million convicted criminal aliens in the United States, CNN reports.