More than 50 foreign nationals who escaped deportation after committing horrific child sex crimes were captured yesterday in a series of dawn raids in the New York area.
But another 16 sex predators who committed crimes locally are still on the loose, despite a renewed drive by the feds to catch and deport convicted criminals who fell through gaping security holes under the now-disbanded Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Among the 56 people busted in New York and New Jersey were a citizen of Ecuador who sexually assaulted a 2-year- old child and a Salvadoran who abused his 10-year-old daughter for two years.
Others had been convicted of sodomy, distribution of child pornography and endangering the welfare of a child – but never deported.
Asa Hutchison, undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security, admitted many sex predators had “escaped through the system.”
A Salvadoran captured in New York yesterday sexually abused a 6-year-old boy in 1998 but disappeared before the INS tried to deport him after he served a six-month sentence.
In another case, a Trinidadian who raped his 7-year-old niece and threatened her with a machete in 1988 was sentenced to six years in prison, but couldn’t be deported at the time due to softer laws.
“These are dangerous criminals,” Hutchison said. “These people have been taken off the streets of America and American streets are safer because of it.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting assistant secretary Michael Garcia described sex predators as the “worst of the worst” – but he admitted that, until recently, immigration officers’ computer systems weren’t connected to all prisons.
This resulted in some prisoners who should have been deported being released before the INS made contact.
Garcia said 1,300 convicted sex predators who escaped deportation had been captured across the United States since a new initiative, Operation Predator, began in July.
“Never have so many child predators been taken off America’s streets in such a short period of time,” he said.
He said his reconfigured office, which replaces the INS, has 5,500 federal agents at its disposal.
“We now have powerful tools that can be used to protect children – the point is to use them,” Garcia said.
He said recent Supreme Court rulings had made it easier for the government to make sure foreigners convicted of sex crimes were held in jail until deportation.