ABOUT THE SERIES
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to deport criminal immigrants who have gone on to commit worse crimes in Colorado, a yearlong
Rocky Mountain News investigation found. But half the immigrants deported by ICE, locally and nationally, have no criminal record.
Audio slide show
Hear how Christine Goodman reacted to learning that her husband died in a hit-and-run by an illegal immigrant. "I just screamed, 'No! No! It can't be!' " she said.
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Audio slide show
Hear how Mun Jeong Song struggles to manage children and a business with her husband in detention pending his removal to Argentina.
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Audio slide show
From Social Security cards to International Driver's Licenses, Master Sgt. Lance Wheat explains what aspects of fake identification cards raise his suspicions.
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Video
Enedina Martinez and her family visit the grave of her husband. "It's divided me into pieces."
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Audio slide show
Meet Samuel Hernandez and the family he may have to leave behind if he is deported. "I put my situation in God's hands," he says.
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Video
Ride with State Patrol Cpl. Kirk Preston as he stops illegal immigrants on I-70. "It's an ongoing problem, and it's getting bigger."
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Video
Meet SanJuana Soto, who cherishes each moment with her family, hoping she won't be deported.
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Audio slide show
Ride with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they track down illegal immigrants.
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PROJECT TEAM
Reporters: Burt Hubbard,
Laura Frank,
Fernando Quintero,
John Accola,
Rosa Ramirez,
Daniel Chacón,
Myung Oak Kim
Photographer: Barry Gutierrez
Copy editors: Mark Christopher, Dianne Rose
Designer: Stephen Miller
Graphic artist: Michael Hall
Photo editor: Sonya Doctorian
Video: Sonya Doctorian,
Tim Skillern
Audio: Tim Skillern, Fernando Quintero
Web producers: Tim Skillern, Kevin Graves
Interactive designer: Ken Harper
Project editor: Carol Hanner
Spanish text translation: Jaime Rizo, Carlos My Gamboa
Spanish audio/video translation: Fernando Quintero, Rosa Ramirez, Laressa Bachelor
Korean audio translation: JuHee Song, Myung Oak Kim
Partners: CBS4 News,
KHOW radio 630 AM, KBNO radio 1280 AM
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed to deport criminal immigrants who have gone on to commit worse crimes in Colorado. But half the immigrants deported by ICE, locally and nationally, have no criminal record.
The aim of the U.S. immigration system is supposed to be squarely on foreign-born criminals doing damage in American communities. That priority, set by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is second only to terrorists. But a look at which immigrants are actually removed from the United States tells a different story.
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Won Kee Min lived and did business in Colorado for six years, taking a calculated risk he'd never show up on immigration enforcement's radar screen.
It wasn't until Feb. 21, when immigration officers arrested the 33-year-old Argentine national near Denver International Airport, that he realized how badly he'd messed up.
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For generations, the conventional wisdom about immigrants and crime has gone something like this: Immigrants commit more crimes than American citizens.
But for the past century, studies have found the opposite: Immigrants tend to commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.
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Some criminals who are legal immigrants are not deported because they can be removed only for certain serious crimes.
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Since 1929, illegal entry into the United States has been a federal crime, a misdemeanor.
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Immigration officials say they are trying to focus on criminals — especially those who've slipped through the cracks at least once already. But among the 487 fugitive immigrants captured last year by Denver immigration agents, 38 percent were noncriminals.
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So much about immigration is secret from the public that assessing the priorities and performance of this federal system is difficult.
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Congress says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been severely underfunded. ICE's 2006 budget of $3.9 billion is less than the country spends on subsidizing cotton farmers or enforcing marijuana laws.
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Foes of illegal immigration say some cities have "sanctuary policies" that discourage or prohibit police from reporting suspected illegal immigrants.
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Minor criminals and drunken drivers often fall through holes in the enforcement net and avoid removal from the country. Yet, children caught in the U.S. with coyote guides taking them to their parents face deportation.
Commit a crime, serve the time and get deported. That's how it's supposed to work for criminal immigrants, whether they are in the U.S. legally or illegally. But landing in jail in Colorado is no guarantee an immigrant will get kicked out of the country, a Rocky Mountain News investigation has found.
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After being arrested, imprisoned and deported repeatedly for more than two decades, Juan Jimenez finally figured out a way to dodge immigration laws.
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It took nearly four years, $8,000 in legal fees and the intervention of a Colorado U.S. senator. But 12-year-old Jonathan Cortez, a Denver middle schooler who faced almost certain deportation to El Salvador, can now remain in the U.S. with his mother.
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These immigrants slipped through the net before being tagged in prison for deportation.
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Drunken drivers and lower-level criminals are not always picked up by immigration agents.
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Legal and illegal immigrants have committed multiple crimes with no immigration action taken against them.
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Punishing and deporting criminals doesn’t always deter them. Twenty percent of foreign-born Colorado prison inmates facing possible deportation had been removed at least once before. Meanwhile, immigration officials rarely use the discretion given them to dismiss noncriminal cases.
To keep American communities safe, sending criminal immigrants back to their home countries has always been a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy. But the
Rocky Mountain News found cracks in the cornerstone. For some criminals, deportation is no deterrent.
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Deported criminals return to the U.S. easily and commit more crimes.
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Illegal immigrants who want a referral to immigration court so they can appeal for legal status are often turned down, immigration lawyers say.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its lawyers have discretion in which cases to prosecute, but they rarely use it.
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Deportation cases are rarely assigned to a single immigration prosecutor from beginning to end. Typically, a case goes to whichever government attorney happens be in court that day. Attorneys usually have a day or less to review the case file.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sometimes tries to deport criminally charged immigrants in Colorado before they stand trial or are sentenced.
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Prosecutors have sometimes agreed to plea bargains granting probation to foreign-born defendants because distrct attorneys know the defendants will be immediately deported.
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Local sheriffs and state troopers say they round up far more illegal immigrants than ICE can deport. At the same time, legal immigrants who make an emergency family visit to their home country risk deportation.
As more than 2,000 high school students marched to the Capitol on April 19 to rally for immigration reform, federal agents were arresting 38 illegal immigrants working at the IFCO pallet plant in Commerce City less than 10 miles away.
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Vanloads of suspected illegal immigrants are often set free because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is unable to respond.
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SanJuana Soto was facing deportation for having made a choice she believes no one should have to make: deny her critically ill mother's request to see her or jeopardize her immigration status and face separation from her husband and three U.S.-born children.
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The Garfield County Jail's 204-bed detention facility is one of 17 Colorado jails that have contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house immigrants when ICE's detention center in Aurora is full or the local jail is more convenient.
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County sheriffs vary on when they notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about foreign-born inmates in jail. A new state law requires all law-enforcement officers to report to ICE any suspected illegal immigrant who is arrested.
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The system for deporting criminal immigrants was hit or miss for many years, say district attorneys and sheriffs. Many criminal immigrants were set free after serving their sentences because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents didn't show up.
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Front Range sheriffs and prosecutors say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has greatly improved monitoring of foreign-born jail inmates in the past year, though rural jails report less consistency.
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An upcoming shift in the deployment of agents in the Denver office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could make it harder for ICE to monitor criminals in local jails.
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State Patrol troopers stop three or four vans a day in Colorado with suspected illegal immigrants - an average of 527 immigrants a week, the patrol says. But ICE is short on detention space, so state troopers release many of the immigrants.
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A state law passed this year designates a team of State Patrol troopers to crack down on human smuggling. Another law makes human smuggling a state felony.
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Nationally, ICE releases half of all the immigrants it detains from countries linked to terrorism, often due to lack of space to hold them. Meanwhile, 65,000 illegal immigrant students a year graduate from U.S. high schools and live in fear of deportation.
Immigration agents released half the people they detained who were here illegally from countries that sponsor or support terrorists, a federal study found.
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The U.S. has vacillated between welcoming and condemning immigrants over the decades.
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Before sunup, the fugitive operations team gathers at its east Denver office to plot strategy for capturing the illegal immigrants of the day.
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An estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. public high schools each year, according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.
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Deporting and identifying criminal immigrants in prisons and jails is only one of several missions for ICE agents.
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Enforcing immigration laws has been problematic for decades. Policies change every five to 10 years, and the agencies in charge are spread thin.
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Terrorists could be slipping through holes in the immigration net. Officials release nearly half the immigrants from countries with terrorist ties who are detained for immigration or criminal violations.
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With federal agencies unable to handle the influx of illegal immigrants, some states are taking matters into their own hands.
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