Buried in this story about tracking illegal immigrants is the interesting item that as of early 2003, of 6,000 Muslims who absconded within the US after being told to leave the country, only 38 percent had been found. That left over 3,500 still at large. How many have been caught since then? Where are the others? What are they doing? From the Washington Post, “Tracking Down Immigrant Fugitives,” :
Smith is part of an effort to track down 370,000 “absconders” — illegal immigrants who have disobeyed orders to leave the country. As part of a get-tough approach after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Homeland Security Department has deployed 18 fugitive squads to catch these immigrants, including a team in Maryland….
At the top of the list were 6,000 absconders from Muslim and Middle Eastern countries, officials announced.
But by early 2003, authorities had resolved only 38 percent of those cases, either by detaining the immigrants or by confirming that they had left the country or gotten legal status, according to the 9/11 Commission. In a report on terrorist travel, the commission concluded: “It is very difficult to find alien absconders without extraordinary effort or pure luck.”