Operation Return to Sender
Encyclopedia
Operation Return to Sender is the name for a massive sweep of illegal immigrants
Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration into a nation in violation of the immigration laws of that jurisdiction. Illegal immigration raises many political, economical and social issues and has become a source of major controversy in developed countries and the more successful developing countries.In...

 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security , responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nation's border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security...

 (ICE) agency that began on May 26, 2006.

According to ICE, the campaign has focused on individuals deemed to be the most dangerous, including convicted felons and gang members, particularly those of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha
Mara Salvatrucha
Mara Salvatrucha is a transnational criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans and active in urban and suburban areas...

 (MS-13) gang, as well as repeat offenders, some of whom had already been deported
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...

. As of late April 2007, over 23,000 illegal immigrants had been arrested.

Overview

On Sept. 19, 2006 ICE conducted a sting operation and arrested 11 immigrants in Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....

 who came to be known as "The Danbury 11." A federal agent disguised himself as a contractor and enlisted the men to work on a construction site before handing them over to ICE. 9 of the 11 were later released on bail.
In January 2007, due to a major push within Operation Return to Sender, raids in the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 Metro area netted 338 illegal immigrants who were arrested at their homes and apartments and 423 who were identified in area jails since Jan. 17. Those already jailed will be transferred to federal custody when they finish serving their state sentences, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security , responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nation's border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security...

.

The sweep netted illegal immigrants from 14 countries in all, including Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 and Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

.

An ICE press release from June 14, 2006 claims that Operation Return to Sender ended June 13, 2006 and brought in "More Than 2,100 Criminal Aliens, Gang Members, Fugitives and Other Immigration Violators". However, this is contradicted by numerous citations that the operation is ongoing, including one from the Contra Costa Times newspaper dated March 9, 2007, which quotes ICE as having arrested 13,000 more people from mid-June 2006 through January 2007, and also outlines the ACLU of Northern California's involvement in filing FOIA requests to find out more information about how ICE is conducting this operation. Raids in Marin County, California under "Return To Sender" occurred in early March 2007, showing that the operation continues. On June 6, 2007 ICE arrested 29 individuals in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

 as part of Operation Return to Sender and arrested a few days later in nearby North Haven
North Haven
North Haven may refer to:Places in United Kingdom:* North Haven, Shetland, an inlet on the east of Fair IslePlaces in Australia:* North Haven, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide* North Haven, New South Wales, a small town near Port Macquarie...

. Some of these individuals had no criminal or immigration history.
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