US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 77 Nigerians and six Albanians on a flight that left Niagara Falls International Airport in upstate New York on June 4 headed for Albania and Nigeria. The immigrants removed on the flight had been held at various detention facilities around the US; they were brought to the Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, shortly before the flight. ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Flight Operations Unit arranged the contract flight. ICE reported that "the majority of those removed had criminal histories and convictions" in the US.

ICE claims that in fiscal year 2007 it removed a record number of people—more than 284,000—from the US, "including over 41,000 who returned voluntarily to their country of nationality." ICE said "more than 93,000" of the deportees (less than a third of the total) had criminal histories. (ICE news release, June 6)

From Immigration News Briefs, June 22

See our last post on the politics of immigration.