Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security recently revealed that arrests for child sex crimes during the first two years of Operation Predator have exceeded 6,000 and 85 percent of them are criminal immigrants.Operation Predator is Immigration and Customs Enforcement's comprehensive initiative to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, international sex tourists, Internet child pornographers and human traffickers. Operation Predator evolved out of ICE’s mission to find and deport illegal aliens, particularly those with criminal records. The majority of the arrests under Operation Predator - roughly 85% - have involved foreign nationals in this country whose child sex crimes make them removable from the United States. By matching immigration databases with state Megan’s law directories, ICE agents have arrested more than 1,800 registered sex offenders.
Since Operation Predator began on July 9, 2003, the initiative has resulted in 6,085 child predator arrests throughout the country - an average of roughly 250 arrests per month and eight arrests per day. While arrests have been made in every state, the most have occurred in these states: Arizona (207), California (1,578), Florida (255), Illinois (282), Michigan (153), Minnesota (190), New Jersey (423), New York (367), Oregon (148) and Texas (545).
Operation Predator also has an important international component, as leads developed by domestic ICE offices are shared with ICE Attaché offices overseas and foreign law enforcement for action. To date, leads shared by ICE with foreign authorities have resulted in the arrest of roughly 1,000 individuals overseas.
With an average of nearly 250 child sex predator arrests per month, ICE's Operation Predator has emerged as one of most successful efforts ever launched to protect America's children. In enforcing the nation's immigration laws, ICE is systematically targeting those who pose the greatest threats, including criminal aliens who prey on our children.
Some recent ICE arrests involving criminal aliens who committed child sex crimes include Julio Cesar Rabago-Magana, a Mexican man who raped a four-year-old child in the basement of Mercado Central in Minneapolis, Minn. Rabago-Magana pleaded guilty Oct. 23, 2002 to first-degree criminal sexual conduct. After serving his criminal sentence, he was arrested by ICE agents at his St. Paul home on March 3, 2005, and deported six days later.
To date, more than 2,100 of these foreign-born predators have been removed from the United States to their home nations. As part of this process, ICE advises the host nation governments about the criminal histories of each sex predator it is deporting to their nations. ICE also issues Green Notices through Interpol in appropriate cases. The Green Notice provides information on career criminals who have committed, or are likely to commit, offenses in several countries.
Sources: US Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, National Security Institute