FLORIDA: US authorities are stepping up efforts to return illegal immigrants to their home countries under "Operation Return to Sender" and 2007 looks set to be a record year for deportations.

Critics said the government is shifting away from only pursuing illegal aliens with criminal records to arresting all undocumented migrants regardless of background.

US citizen Sandy Doumet is packing her belongings and heading to Mexico to be with her husband who was recently deported.

Doumet emigrated to the United States from Ecuador 11 years ago and only became a US citizen recently.

She said: "It's hard to understand how a country that opened doors to me is now kicking me out, because in a way, I have to leave even if I don't want to. If I stay here, my kids will grow up without a father and I don't want that."

Sandy and her husband lived together in Florida for eight years and have been married for six.

The couple has three young children, all US citizens, and ran a successful business.

But Sandy's Mexican husband, who came to the United States illegally ten years ago, has been deported three times and is banned from returning.

Sandy is pleading with authorities to let her family be together in the United States.

"Bring my husband back because we had a good life here. We didn't ask the government for anything. We were good citizens. My husband was a good citizen," she said.

Pro-immigrant advocates said such cases show that efforts to deport more illegal immigrants are destroying lives.

Denise Diaz is with the immigrant advocacy group, Jobs with Justice.

She said agents used to focus on tracking down criminal aliens, but now unfairly target all undocumented migrants.

"They're not a threat to society or the safety of Americans. So they've taken it a step further in their abuses and, at this point, it looks like they've gone as far as violating the civil rights, and bottom-line, the human rights of these people," she said.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said in a statement to VOA that it only deports individuals who are in violation of their immigration status or were ordered to be deported by a judge.

ICE said it is simply enforcing laws as expeditiously and with as much dignity as possible.

It denied there has been a change of emphasis towards deporting illegal immigrants regardless of their criminal history.

The rise in deportations is welcomed by Mike Jarbeck, who heads a Florida chapter of the Minuteman Project – an activist group that opposes illegal immigration.

He said: "I want to see every last illegal alien rounded up, identified and sent home.

US government statistics show that of the 150,000 illegal immigrants removed between October 2006 and June 2007, around 90,000 had no criminal record.

Mr Jarbeck said: "In America, we are a country of laws. And the problem with this is, if we don't enforce the law then what do we have? We have a double-standard. We have a whole group of people who are set above the law whom the law doesn't apply to. That's unconstitutional. Our constitution does not allow for that."

The US immigration agency said it does not deport people arbitrarily and instead, targets individuals based on specific information.

But that is little comfort to Sandy Doumet.

She said she would stay with her husband in Mexico, but return regularly to the US so that one of her children can receive medical care for a heart condition.

And she hopes that one day her whole family will be able to live together again in the United States.


- CNA/so