400 illegal immigrants arrested in San Diego County

By Amy Isackson / Border Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published June 14, 2006 at 9:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Federal immigration agents arrested more than 400 illegal immigrants in San Diego County during a six day period last month.

Federal immigration agents arrested more than 400 illegal immigrants in San Diego
County during a six day period last month.

Federal officials say they were targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records. But hundreds who do not have criminal pasts were arrested. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack says agents spent hours doing background work to locate the more than 5000 illegal immigrants with criminal histories in San Diego. She says when agents went out into the field, they found very few of them- but arrested hundreds of other people in the

Many times the addresses where we're looking for targeted individuals happen to be in the heart of immigrant communities. And when we're in those environments, we locate other people and arrest them if they're here in violation of immigration laws as well.

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Mack says the operation was a success, though the majority of the people agents targeted were not arrested.

Amy Isackson

Amy Isackson was the border reporter at KPBS from 2004 to 2011. She covered breaking news and feature stories on California-Mexico border issues and immigration, for local and national broadcast. Amy got her start in public radio by pitching a series of stories about rural New Zealand - horse dentistry and sheep sheering - to Radio New Zealand's "Country Life" program. She then worked with Peabody Award-winning radio producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, to help create the Sonic Memorial, a series of stories on the World Trade Center before, during and after 9/11. Amy's work has been recognized with awards from the Associated Press Television-Radio Association of California and Nevada, the California Chicano News Media Association, and the San Diego Press Club. She won the Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism in 2009 from the Society of Professional Journalists for her story about high school students smuggling people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to venturing into the wonderful world of public radio, Amy worked for Yahoo! Inc. for nearly five years as an editorial surfer, associate producer and broadcast communications manager. She majored in Latin American History at Williams College. She grew up in San Diego and made frequent trips south of the border.

See stories by Amy Isackson