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To: lurqer who wrote (21818)	7/10/2003 6:19:03 PM
From: Mannie	Respond to of 89467

Homeland security starts to expand it's stated purpose... Thursday, July 10, 2003 Federal agency targets sex predators Homeland Security brings immigration law to bear in new initiative By CHRIS McGANN SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Pornographers, sex predators and other sexual deviants -- especially those who are in the United States illegally and victimize children -- are the targets of an initiative launched yesterday by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Dubbed "Operation Predator," the new initiative makes sex crimes against children the newest priority for the agency created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to safeguard the nation from terrorists. In Seattle, the Customs Service had already pursued those people producing and selling child pornography on the Internet through a joint effort that draws from Seattle police, postal inspectors, the FBI and federal prosecutors: the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. The new national initiative expands on Seattle's and other efforts not only by broadening the scope of sex crimes under attack, but also by leveraging and incorporating immigration enforcement and laws. "Operation Predator integrates the department's authorities to target those who exploit children," Ridge said. "The Department of Homeland Security is coordinating the department's once-fragmented investigative and intelligence resources into a united campaign against child predators." Several formerly independent federal agencies, including the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, were integrated under the umbrella of the Homeland Security Department in the hopes of created a more seamless security network. Operation Predator is intended to synthesize the expertise of Customs and Immigration agents who are now part of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the bureau's Northwest region. Winchell's agents in the Northwest have recently arrested 118 convicted alien sex offenders and placed an additional 13 "detainers" on violators currently incarcerated for crimes of sexual exploitation in those states. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also coordinating with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to improve the information exchange about missing children. Formerly an alien convicted of a sex crime would be subject to deportation following their time served in U.S. jails or prisons, but there was no system to ensure the convict would be handed over to Immigration officials. The new tactic will be to identify the sex criminals while they are in jail and transfer them directly into federal custody on completion of their jail sentences. From federal detention, the criminal aliens will be held without bond until they are deported. Winchell has photos of his three children displayed prominently in his high-rise office overlooking downtown Seattle. "To me this gets personal," Winchell said yesterday. "We will devote whatever resources are necessary to get this program up and running." Before sending them back to their country of origin, Winchell said investigators will hold criminal deportees and try to get information and evidence about additional sex criminals or crimes against children in the community that they may have been associated with. It's part of a three-pronged strategy to identify, investigate and remove child predators from the streets. The agency is creating a single Web portal to access all publicly available Megan's Law Web sites -- which track convicted sex criminals. A new multiagency unit at its Cyber Smuggling Center is also part of the initiative and will oversee and coordinate Operation Predator activities at the national level. The United States has for many years touted deporting criminal aliens as a top priority, but Winchell said that before its reorganization, the Immigration Service simply didn't have the manpower to do it. Operation Predator is another step in that process, but Winchell said it won't be the last. "We're focusing first on the worst of the worst and taking it strategically one step at a time from there," Winchell said.