30,000 Illegal Aliens Arrested at Local Checkpoints

More than 30,000 illegal immigrants were arrested at local Boarder Patrol checkpoints in the last year.

During the fiscal year ending on May 31, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested 30,729 illegal immigrants at the Temecula checkpoints and others in Southern California, according to Agent Rodolfo Zuniga.

This amounts to about 84 people a day from the handful of checkpoints running locally in such places as Escondido, San Clemente, Pine Valley and San Diego in addition to Temecula, according to the Border Patrol.

Across the nation, 215,900 illegal aliens were deported from October to April 2011, which averages to about 24,000 per month, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

During the past nine months, the number of illegal immigrants arrested in Southern California represented 9.5 percent of the number of deportations across the country.

Almost half of those deported were criminals, and these are the ones officials focus on finding, said Lori Haley, a spokesperson for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“ICE is focuses on sensible, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes efforts first on those serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities,” Haley said.

Out of the 215,900 deported, 109,700 were criminals; 585 were convicted of homicide, 3,177 were convicted sex offenders and 24,593 were convicted of serious drug offenses, according to Haley.

The agency keeps track only of deportations and not arrests, she said.

Saying how many illegal aliens were arrested in Temecula – or even the county – is impossible, according to sheriff's Sgt. Joe Borja.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department keeps no records on whether the suspect is a legal citizen, the sergeant said.

“We don’t categorize if someone we arrest is an illegal immigrant. We categorize the people we arrest as male or female,” Borja explained.

When asked why the department does not keep that information, he said it just doesn't.

Determining how many illegal immigrants live in Temecula was equally impossible since the census asks nothing about citizenship.

The Temecula Valley School District likewise keeps no records on whether students are legal citizens, said Karen Hayes, the principal of Margarita Middle School.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was written in response to Temecula Patch’s “Assign a Reporter” contest.

On June 5, Temecula Patch published an article asking readers to give us an assignment. To read that article, Patch chose the one they found most compelling, and then researched and wrote the story.

This assignment came from Claire White, a new resident of Temecula. To read about her assignment, .