La Migra piles up the numbers.

​The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced its deportation numbers today for fiscal 2011, which ended in September.

Nationwide almost 400,000 were deported -- an ICE record -- and more than 20,000 were deported from South Texas, the agency said.

The South Texas area includes Houston, Corpus Christi and Beaumont; of the 20,450, about three-quarters were criminals, ICE said.

ICE said the high numbers deported resulted from the agency's policies, which it said "include the identification and removal of those that have broken criminal laws, threats to national security, recent border crossers, repeat violators of immigration law and immigration court fugitives."

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Slightly more dangerous than these guys.

​On Wednesday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the results of its "Cross Check" enforcement operation targeting convicted criminals who are also illegal immigrants. The sting conducted in all 50 states netted 2,901 criminals, including 125 in the Houston area. The seven-day operation was the largest of its kind and involved more than 1,900 ICE officers in 24 field offices.

According to ICE, all individuals taken into custody had prior criminal convictions including 1,282 with multiple convictions, more than 1,600 with felony convictions, 42 gang members and 151 convicted sex offenders. Of those arrested, 681 were fugitives who had been ordered to leave the country but had failed to do so and 386 were illegal re-entrants who had been forced from the United States multiple times.

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God works in mysterious ways.

​The state Attorney General has gotten a temporary restraining order against a Houston woman who they say is running a phony church as part of an immigration scam.

Yolanda Salazar Perez runs the New Anointing/Nueva Uncion and New Anointing Biblical Institute, and the AG's office says she told prospective customers "that new church members qualified for a legal classification known as 'special religious workers.' According to state investigators, the defendants enticed at least 300 customers to join the New Anointing Biblical Institute/Church and thus agreed to pay for the defendants' unauthorized legal services."

And also found Jesus, we sincerely hope.

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Man, Om Prakash Budha, 28, does not want to go back to Nepal.

He was nabbed in October 2010 crossing the U.S. border at Brownsville without proper documentation. Fine, you got caught, go home and try again, right?

Wrong. "On four separate occasions during a four-month period, Budha steadfastly refused to complete an application for a Nepali passport," the U.S. Attorney's Office says.

Hey, maybe the guy just hates paperwork.

Maybe he's like this guy:

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Anders Behring Breivik: Fan of the Lone Star State

​The Burn Down Blog is either braver or more insane than us, and it has partially waded through the 1,500-page manifesto left behind by Anders Behring Breivik, the lunatic who massacred Norwegians.

It turns out he likes us!! Yay?

I did enjoy Las Vegas as well but I really dislike the superficial aspects of American society. The American state I found least superficial was Texas.

Well, if ever there was a place where an unhinged right-wing loony who hates immigrants would feel at home...

Do it again, and get it right this time, court rules.

​Those wild-eyed liberals at the 14th Court of Appeals have tossed out the murder conviction of a man who stabbed his wife 17 times, because he had not been warned his guilty plea might result in deportation.

His guilty plea did result in a 75-year prison sentence, so you'd think he or his lawyers might have had some idea it could have at least a little effect on whether the Moroccan native could stay in the U.S., but the appellate court ruled there was no evidence to assume so.

Abderrahim Elmaghraoui was charged with murdering his wife, Amina Fettach, in 2007. He tried to argue that he acted "under the influence of sudden passion," but the jury didn't buy it and gave him 75 years.

The court threw that out. It doesn't mean Elmaghraoui will go free; they'll just have to go through the whole process again.

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A marriage is a marriage, right?

​KHOU has an interesting story about a gay Houstonian who is arguing that his marriage to a U.S. citizen should prevent his deportation.

Normally a no-brainer, but in this case the marriage is between two guys who tied the knot in California.

The man's name wasn't publicized, but he's being represented by the partner of longtime gay-rights lawyer Mitchell Katine, so he'll at least get his argument made as best it can.

The man came to California on a tourist visa in 2003 and eventually fell in love.

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The Port Isabel Detention Center has long been the subject of complaints.

​A former officer at the Port Isabel Detention Center kicked a detainee in the face, breaking a bone in his skull, and then lied to investigators, federal prosecutors alleged today.

Raul Leal, 31, was arrested without incident in his current home of Georgia, and faces ten years for the civil rights violation and 20 for obstruction of justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston said.

An indictment unsealed today says that on June 14, 2009, Leal, who was a lieutenant at PIDC, "allegedly assaulted an immigrant detainee by kicking him in the face resulting in a fracture of the detainee's orbital bone."

He lied about it in reports filed and then -- the coup de grace, which he obviously had plenty of time to come up with -- he told investigators in September 2009 "the detainee had sustained the facial fracture when the detainee's face inadvertently struck his knee. "

Those damn clumsy detainees, always stumbling face-first into people's knees with enough force to fracture skulls.

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Hmmm. She looks American enough, we guess.

​The legislature's massive school finance bill had attached to what will be a new law requiring drivers to present proof of citizenship or legal residency before getting -- or renewing -- a driver's license.

The ACLU of Texas is among groups that are not happy.

"The driver's license ID bills were debated during both the regular and special sessions and lawmakers correctly determined they were wrong for Texas. This last minute add-on amounts to playing a dirty trick on the people of Texas," said Executive Director Terri Burke. "Many Texans will be -- at the very least -- wildly inconvenienced by the 11th hour provisions that may mean you need a passport or birth certificate to renew your driver's license."

DPS spokesperson Tela Mange tells Hair Balls the new law merely "codifies current DPS rules," which call for various items of proof.

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ICE nets some bad guys.

​The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced today that more than 2,400 criminal illegal aliens or fugitives had been arrested in a nationwide crackdown last month, and 91 of them were in Houston.

"All of the criminal aliens taken into custody had prior convictions for crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors, aggravated assault, theft, forgery and DUI," ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore said. "In total, 22 percent of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives-convicted criminal aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country."

"The results of this operation underscore ICE's ongoing focus on arresting those convicted criminal aliens who prey upon our communities, and tracking down fugitives who game our nation's immigration system," said ICE Director John Morton. "This targeted enforcement operation is a direct result of excellent teamwork among law enforcement agencies who share a commitment to protect public safety."

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