116 Immigrant Ex-Convicts Arrested in Joint U.S.-State Effort : Deportation: Most are Mexican nationals living in the L.A. area. The operation, termed a success, is the first of its kind. Further coordination is vowed.

In the first operation of its kind, U.S. immigration agents and California parole officers have arrested more than 100 ex-convicts, most of whom returned illegally to the United States after being deported, officials said Friday.

Since Monday, law enforcement authorities participating in the joint federal-state operation have arrested 116 parolees statewide, mostly Mexican nationals living in the Los Angeles area.

The suspects’ previous convictions ranged from second-degree murder to child molestation to burglary and drug possession, authorities said. Most arrestees had served prison terms, been deported and subsequently returned to the United States illegally, officials said.

Proclaiming the operation a great success, authorities vowed further coordination in an arena that has been filled with political mudslinging between federal and state authorities. The public dispute has been one of many immigration-related tiffs between the Wilson and Clinton administrations.

But differences were hardly in evidence Friday during a harmonious joint announcement at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“With the state’s cooperation we will continue to develop effective and consistent procedures to ensure the swift and efficient identification, prosecution and removal” of all deportable criminals, said Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner.

In May, California Atty. Gen. Daniel E. Lungren wrote publicly to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, harshly criticizing the INS for not aggressively pursuing more than 1,200 returned deportees whom he identified as being under state parole supervision. Many had committed new crimes, Lungren wrote, including murder, robbery, rape and assorted drug offenses.

Reno rejected the criticism and responded that California parole authorities had even refused to turn over the names of deportable parolees. Privately, Clinton Administration officials accused Lungren of political grandstanding and said the 1,200 number was greatly inflated.

On Friday, the mutual pledges of future cooperation seemed to turn attention back to the central issue.

“It is our hope that this enforcement and the subsequent prosecution of these returning criminals will send a clear message . . . that we are not going to turn a blind eye to their scofflaw antics anymore,” said Jose Sandoval, Secretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency.

The 116 parolees, according to federal officials, are the only ones now subject to INS arrest and deportation of the more than 1,200 cited by Lungren.

The most egregious violators, numbering more than one-third of all arrested, will face federal prosecution for illegally re-entering the United States, officials said. If convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison.

But most will once again face deportation back to their homelands, which, along with Mexico, include El Salvador, Honduras, Canada, Vietnam and Peru.

The INS has special deportation units in place at Los Angeles County Jail and in the California state prison system, where about 15% of the 131,000 inmates are believed to be subject to deportation upon completing their terms.

The initiative comes as the Clinton Administration is touting its ongoing efforts nationwide to arrest, deport and, in some cases, prosecute “criminal aliens.”

Earlier this week, INS and New York authorities ballyhooed the deportation of 86 Colombian drug offenders from New York prisons under a new New York law.