Posted by The Associated Press on
NIAGARA FALLS, New York: U.S. immigration officials deported 107 people to Nigeria, Egypt and Jordan in a mass "removal operation" this week from Niagara Falls.
NIAGARA FALLS, New York: U.S. immigration officials deported 107 people to Nigeria, Egypt and Jordan in a mass "removal operation" this week from Niagara Falls.
The group included 94 Nigerians, among them 55 with U.S. criminal convictions for embezzlement, forgery, fraud and other crimes. The rest had immigration violations.
Also on the flight from Niagara Falls Airport Tuesday were 11 Palestinians, one Moroccan and an Egyptian.
The Canadian government added 10 Nigerian deportees to the flight, seven of them criminals.
The flight was staffed with 20 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, six Canadian officers and three Nigerian consular officers from the country's embassies in the U.S. and Canada, the agency said Friday.
Such flights are regularly arranged by ICE after staging the deportees from around the country at a federal detention facility in Batavia, east of Buffalo.
Charles Mule, acting field office director for ICE detention and removal operations in Buffalo, said more than half of the individuals on the latest flight have criminal records.
In fiscal 2007, ICE removed more than 278,000 people, including more than 41,000 who returned voluntarily to their home countries. More than 91,000 had criminal histories.