Illegal immigration topped the list of federal arrests between 2005 and 2009, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The bureau’s
report released Wednesday shows a 23 percent increase each year in the arrest of illegal immigrants, with half occurring at the
U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
In 2009, the most recent year for which complete numbers were available, some 84,749 people were arrested and charged strictly with immigration offenses. In 2005, that figure was 38,041.
Federal authorities arrested a total of 183,986 people in 2009 on various charges, ranging from violent crimes, to weapons possession, to drugs.
That figure was also up from 140,200 in 2005, according to the bureau.
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