From the Star-Ledger:

Raids nab twice as many illegal immigrants

Wednesday, December 05, 2007 BY BRIAN DONOHUEStar-Ledger Staff  Federal immigration fugitive teams in New Jersey arrested 2,079 illegal immigrants in the year ending Sept. 30, nearly twice the total of the previous year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said yesterday.  The four teams assigned to the state search for people who had been ordered deported for immigration or criminal violations but had not left the country. They also arrest anyone they encounter in their raids on fugitives' homes who are in the country illegally.  The increase reflected a nationwide trend that has seen deportations skyrocket. Nationwide, 30,408 people were arrested in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from 15,462 the previous year. It is the first time in the controversial five-year effort to cut down on the number of fugitive aliens living in the country that the number has decreased, ICE officials said.  When officials launched "Absconder Initiative" in the months after Sept. 11, 2001, they said there were more than 314,000 people in the country who had ignored deportation orders. By last year, more than 600,000 remained unaccounted for.  The quicker pace of deportations this year, however, has reduced the number to 595,000. ICE officials credited greater participation and better information provided by local law enforcement.  The effort has been widely criticized by immigrant rights groups for breaking up families, often deporting parents and spouses of U.S. citizens and removing the family member earning wages.  "These raids terrorize entire communities and do nothing to remedy the failure by the federal government to provide a comprehensive immigration policy," said Charles "Shai" Goldstein, executive director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network. "The raids are exercises in futility and counterproductive." Scott Weber, Newark field office director of ICE detention and removal operations, said fugitives targeted in the raids had already had their day in court, but chose to ignore a judge's orders.  "As a nation we cannot allow people to defy the lawful orders of a judge," he said in a press release. The latest New Jersey figures mark a dramatic increase over fiscal year 2006, when 1,094 people were arrested. Of the 2,079 arrested last year, officials said 270 had criminal histories and 1,220 have already been deported.