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| Customs Jails 1,000 Suspected Gang Members |
| By Washington Post |
| Published: 08/08/2005 |
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Federal immigration and customs officers have arrested more than 1,000 suspected gang members and associates so far this year as part of a nationwide campaign aimed at deporting illegal immigrants with suspected ties to violent criminal organizations, officials said yesterday. Much like similar efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to target suspected terrorist sympathizers, the Department of Homeland Security's anti-gang program seeks to use immigration laws to remove many alleged gang members from the country rather than pursue them through U.S. criminal courts, officials said. The campaign, dubbed Operation Community Shield and overseen by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, has resulted in arrests of 1,057 alleged gang members over the past five months -- including 582 suspects apprehended during a concerted push in the last two weeks of July. Eleven of the suspects were arrested in the Washington area, officials said. The operation got its start in March as a way to target Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a violent street organization active in Northern Virginia and other parts of the South. But the program has quickly expanded to encompass alleged members of 80 gangs in 25 states, including Latin Kings, Asian Boyz and Jamaican Posse. The crackdown comes as part of a renewed concentration on violent street gangs by the federal law enforcement agencies after several years of focusing primarily on terrorism issues. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is forming a special anti-gang task force, while Congress is debating proposals to lengthen prison sentences for gang-related crimes and to make it easier to deport suspected gang members. The Justice Department estimates that more than 750,000 gang members are active across the United States. Under the ICE anti-gang program, local and state police departments have supplied federal immigration and customs agents with the names of thousands of suspected gang members. Federal agents are comparing those lists with federal immigration databases to target members or associates who are in the country illegally or who have committed serious crimes that make them eligible for deportation, officials said. |
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