Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Officials to Deport Immigrant Inmates

More than 100 illegal immigrants serving criminal sentences in Florida will be released early and deported under an agreement approved by Gov. Lawton Chiles. Under the program, believed to be the first in the nation, officials will release for deportation 113 nonviolent offenders, the bulk of them from nations in South America and the Caribbean. Roughly two-thirds of the offenders were scheduled for release within three years. The group is being deported to make room in the state’s prisons for the perpetrators of more violent crimes, officials said.