The num ers are staggering..
An AP Investigation: 500,000 Criminal Deportees From America Wreak Havoc in Many Nations
By Randall Richard
The Associated Press
The U.S. government calls them criminal aliens, but they are as American as drive-by shootings and crack cocaine.
Many came to the United States as children, often in the arms of men and women fleeing poverty and war. They went to school here, but usually not for long. They came of age on city streets from Los Angeles to New York. Eventually they broke the law.
In 1996, Congress banished them from America for life and directed immigration agents to hunt them down. The biggest dragnet in U.S. history is now well underway. Already, more than 500,000 have been rounded up and deported, according to government figures, and this year they are being banished at a rate of one every seven minutes to more than 160 countries around the world.
