After capturing wanted fugitive Rafael Alberto-Burgos, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is celebrating the 400th arrest of an international fugitive this year, a figure which matches the entire total for 2016.
The agency recently arrested Rafael Alberto-Burgos, of the Dominican Republic and Spain, for the 1977 murder of his ex-girlfriend. Admitted to the U.S. the same year of the murder under the Visa Waiver Program, Alberto-Burgos stayed after his visa expired as was found in Manhattan after Interpol alerted ICE that he may be residing in New York City.
“ICE works hard every day to protect the American public,” said Matthew Albence, the executive associate director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations. “Our mission to remove dangerous fugitive criminals from the United States will never cease.”
The Daily Caller reports:
According to ICE’s statistics, 406 international fugitives were arrested in FY [fiscal year] 2016, which began Oct. 1, 2015 and ended Sept. 30, 2016.
In FY 2015, 345 arrests were made. In 2014, there were 288 arrests; 250 in 2013; 155 in 2012, and only 74 in 2011.
In a statement announcing the milestone arrest, ICE did not provide an updated statistic for the number of international fugitives apprehended this year. Though with four months remaining between Alberto-Burgos’ arrest on June 8 and the end of the fiscal year, the final tally will likely to blow out last year’s numbers.
