US HALTS DEPORTING CRIMINALS TO JUAREZ

EL PASO -- The U.S. government stopped deporting felons to Juarez
this month, hoping to help slow the bloodshed in Mexico's deadliest city.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement began sending people with
criminal convictions through other Texas border cities such as
Laredo, Del Rio and Eagle Pass instead, a Department of Homeland
Security official said Monday. ICE falls under Homeland Security.

The change is temporary. ICE has already directed nearly 800 felons
away from Juarez and deported them through the three border cities
since March 4, said Roberto Rodriguez, the Mexican consul in El Paso.

The increasing drug cartel violence in Juarez was the motive behind
directing deportees away from the city. Juarez has seen more than
4,800 murders since 2008. About 600 people have been killed in 2010.

Officials said leaving felons in an already violent city prompted a
cycle of crime. According to ICE figures, 6,164 criminals were
deported through El Paso between October 2008 and September 2009.
That means about 4 percent of the 136,126 deported felons in the
United States were sent to Juarez via El Paso.

The Mexican National Institute of Migration said the cities that
received the most deportees were Tijuana, across from San Diego;
Nogales, adjacent to Nogales, Ariz.; and Mexicali, which shares a
border with Calexico, Calif. Juarez was the fifth busiest spot, after
Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo.

U.S. officials could not confirm whether their Mexican counterparts
influenced the decision to direct felons away from Juarez.

Juarez leaders, including Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, had been
strong advocates of such a change.

Reyes Ferriz said he and other officials realized most of the murders
were confrontations among three rival gangs working for the Sinaloa
and Juarez drug cartels. The Aztecas, the Mexicles and the Artistas
Asesinos (Assassins Artists) are some of the gangs present in Juarez.

"These groups were formed in U.S. jails," he said.

Reviewing cases of homicides from March to June in 2009, Reyes Ferriz
said they found 10 percent of the victims had been deported from the
U.S. sometime in the two years before they were slain.

After that realization, Reyes Ferriz tried to persuade U.S.
officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to
change the deportation routes. He said the city was seeing an influx
of between 100 and 300 people deported every day through Juarez's
international bridges.

U.S. officials told Reyes Ferriz in late February that they would
soon temporarily stop deporting criminals to Juarez.

An arrest of a deportee this month, Reyes Ferriz said, is an example
of what former prisoners deposited in Juarez are doing.

The Mexican army said Juan Alfredo "El Arnold" Soto Arias is the
leader of a drug-cartel death squad accused in the Jan. 30 massacre
of 15 people, mostly teenagers. Los Linces, the squad working for the
Juarez cartel, is also accused of killing a member of the U.S. Air
Force in a strip-club shooting last November. Reyes Ferriz said Soto
Arias was deported to Juarez in February 2009.

Reyes Ferriz said he hopes that sending criminals through other
border cities will help reduce drug cartel crimes in Juarez.

"It's an important benefit because we have seen many dead people all
these years, but these criminal organizations are just as strong as
they have ever been," he said. "It's a never-ending story."