28 Arrested in Illegal Immigration Sweep

Agents from a regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, team arrested 28 illegal immigrants in northeastern Wisconsin over the past five days. A spokesperson for the agency says all but two of those detained had previous felonies on their records.

Most of the arrests were made in Green Bay, Manitowoc and Appleton. Twenty-three of the 28 arrested were Mexican nationals. Two were from Honduras, and three were from Laos.

ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro says one of the Mexicans arrested in Sheboygan had previous convictions for battery with a dangerous weapon and domestic abuse. Montenegro says four of those arrested had already been deported once before, and two others who had no previous criminal convictions were picked up for illegally crossing the border for the first time. “They had illegally crossed the border within the past two years, and ICE is focusing its priorities on criminals, on egregious immigration violators which would include the fugitives and the illegal re-entries, as well as recent border crossers.”

The last time ICE made a similar sweep of arrests was in February of 2010 when 49 people were arrested. The agency also conducted two other sweeps in the last two years. Those targeted illegal immigrant gang members in the Milwaukee area.