News Releases and Statements

Eleven fugitive operations teams made 225 arrests in: Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Wisconsin and Missouri. ICE's Detroit Fugitive Operations Team made 85 arrests, including 66 fugitives, and 21 aliens with criminal convictions. The arrests took place throughout Metro Detroit. Those arrested are from the following countries: Albania, Bangladesh, Cuba, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mexico, Russia, Uzbekistan and Yugoslavia.

Eleven fugitive operations teams made 225 arrests in: Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, Indiana and Missouri. In Chicago, four teams comprised of ICE officers and members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force fanned out across the city and surrounding areas and arrested 30 fugitive aliens, including 24 males and six females.

Among those being targeted are illegal aliens with felony criminal records, as well as legal permanent residents of the United States whose criminal convictions make them subject to deportation. The arrests so far include people on probation for sex offenses, drug crimes, and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.

Of the 147 foreign nationals taken into custody by the Fugitive Operations Teams last month, 67 had criminal records, including prior convictions for child sex offenses, burglary, drugs, domestic violence and firearms violations.

Salvatore Dalessandro, Special Agent-In-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Michael J. Garcia, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today the arrest of Edward George Johnson, an active U.S. Army helicopter pilot, on charges relating to his sale of stolen Egyptian antiquities.

During the operation, which began Jan. 25 and ended Sunday, ICE officers arrested 20 immigration violators living in Green Bay and the surrounding counties. Of that number, 18 of those were immigration fugitives who have ignored final orders of deportation issued by federal immigration judges. ICE officers also arrested two non-fugitive immigration violators, including a Mexican national who had been previously deported.

More than 500 Missouri Highway Patrol and local law enforcement officers are scheduled to participate in the ICE Summits statewide within the next two weeks. The all-day training sessions will discuss the ICE structure, and especially the ICE programs in ICE's Office of Investigations and its Office of Detention and Removal Operations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have removed Carlos Alberto Fernandez-Mena, a Costa Rican citizen who is wanted for murder in his home country. A court in Cartago, Costa Rica issued an international arrest warrant for him in October of last year.

Ratko Maslenjak, 48, a national of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. for making false statements about his prior military service on official U.S. immigration documents.

Raul Ernesto Sarmiento Sanchez, a 48-year-old Honduran national, ignored an immigration judge's order of removal and has been a fugitive since 1997.