Published: June 22, 2009 07:02 pm      

Three more put on ICE holds

Three more people were arrested in Dalton and Rome on Saturday and put on hold for deportation by the Detention Removal Unit of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They are currently in the Whitfield County Jail.

Arrested were Maximiliano Hernandez Alvarado, 47, of Old Grade Road, Apt. 1, in Dalton, formerly of El Salvador; Angel Santizo-Perez, 22, of 2048 Mimosa St. in Dalton (El Salvador); and Mauricio Perez-Vincentes, 32, of 514 Burnett Ferry Road in Rome (Guatemala).

Six men and one woman were arrested and put on deportation hold on Thursday and Friday in Dalton, Chatsworth and Rome. They also are in the county jail.

“We’ve had a fugitive operations team in the area, arresting folks with final orders of removal,” said Temple Black, a spokesman for the Detention Removal Unit. Those arrested by the team have been ordered to leave the country by an immigration judge but have failed to comply, according to a news release Black sent out.

Black would not give specifics as to why each of the 10 were arrested in northwest Georgia. The release said fugitive operations teams “give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and community safety, including members of transnational street gangs, child sex offenders and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.”

Black said the operation regionally “could be a gang sweep.”

The arrests were made with the help of the Conasauga Safe Streets Task Force, which includes agents from the FBI and ICE and officers from the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Police Department and Calhoun Police Department.