Thousands of Foreign Sex Offenders Deported

Federal authorities have deported several thousand foreign child-sex offenders who were in the United States illegally during the last two years, the Homeland Security Department said Tuesday.

Additionally, department investigations have led to at least 1,200 arrests in the United States and overseas on Internet child pornography charges, officials said.

In all, more than 7,000 accused and convicted sex offenders reportedly have been swept up in the department’s sting, which began targeting foreign pedophiles, international sex tourists, Internet child pornographers and human traffickers in July 2003.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the operation “one of the most successful efforts ever launched to protect America’s children.”

The investigations were coordinated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the department, which has federal jurisdiction over international crime crossing U.S. borders.

About 85% of the arrests, mostly on immigration charges, were of foreign nationals who had already been convicted of sex crimes but were still in the country.

U.S. law requires the deportation of convicted foreign child-sex offenders.

So far, an estimated 2,100 foreign offenders have been sent back to their home countries, and thousands more are awaiting deportation, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the immigration agency.

The sting also focused on people who manufacture, distribute and possess online child pornography in the United States.

Possession of child pornography is a crime that carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.