ICE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: 'WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU'.

Byline: Rachel Uranga

Staff Writer

Immigration officials expect to ramp up their crackdown on criminal and fugitive illegal immigrants in Los Angeles over the next year -- including raids Monday in the San Fernando Valley -- saying they're already on track to break last year's record arrest numbers.

"The message here is that if you are an individual that has entered the country illegally, who has been ordered removed and not departed, we are coming after you," said Brian DeMore, deputy field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention and removal operations.

"And if you are a criminal who has committed crimes against our citizens, we are going to come back after you with more vigor."

Between October 2006 and September 2007, agents arrested 2,667 immigration violators in the L.A. area, a 63 percent increase from the same time the prior year.

Citing arrests between October and December of last year, ICE officials say the number this year will be even larger. In those three months, agents arrested 700 illegal immigrants, including 130 with criminal records.

On Monday, agents continued their efforts, arresting two Valley men during early morning warrant checks. With five teams dedicated to the Southland, agents are arresting immigration violators almost daily, ICE officials said.

One of those arrested Monday, Salvador Martinez, said he expected that immigration would eventually track him down.

"It was always in my mind all the time," said the 38-year Nicaraguan immigrant.

Martinez had been warming up his car waiting to take his children to school when agents arrested him. Though he is a legal resident, he was convicted in 2002 in the oral copulation of a minor -- his wife's younger sister -- and sentenced to three years' probation.

He shares a one-bedroom Sun Valley apartment with his wife; two daughters, ages 10 and 6; and his 4-year-old son.

"We have to take charge and responsibility for what we did," said Martinez, who came to the United States at age 15 to escape the violence of his country's civil war. "My big concern now is my kids. Who is going to take care of them?"

Martinez said he is likely to return to the ranch his mother owns in Nicaragua. There is no running water or electricity there.

"I feel more American now," he said, "because I have lived here half of my life."

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

818-713-3741

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers knock at a door at 6 a.m. in the 13000 block of Rangoon Street in Arleta on Monday. They found the fugitive they were seeking and he was taken into custody.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer