Sex-offender stings get thousands of illegals

Experts still concerned U.S. children could become prey to repeat offenders

Posted: January 9, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

More than 9,000 sex offenders have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials through a series of stings called Operation Predator in three years of operation, a 2006 Department of Homeland Security Report says. But some experts are wondering if the efforts are enough to protect innocent American children from being preyed on by returning criminal alien sex offenders.

Foreign nationals account for roughly 85 percent of child sex offenders arrested by the operation, which was launched by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in July 2003, officials say. And as WND previously has reported, authorities also have linked illegal aliens to a wave of gang-rapes across the U.S.

The program was designed to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers and international sex tourists, and in the first year alone, ICE arrested more than 3,200 child predators in the U.S. who committed forms of child exploitation.