Fifty foreign-born convicted child sexual predators who are currently on probation were arrested in New York City yesterday as part of Operation Predator. Immigration agents and probation officers made the arrests in all boroughs except Staten Island.

“Today we stop the predators in their tracks,” the director of investigations for the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Marcy Forman, said at a press conference.

Since Operation Predator was launched two years ago, the customs enforcement department has focused on “targeting aliens that sexually exploit children,” she said. It has made more than 900 such arrests in New York and New Jersey alone. Overall, the agency has arrested more than 6,500 foreign-born sexual offenders, of which 3,100 have been deported and the remainder are in removal proceedings, she noted.

The 50 that were arrested yesterday originally hail from more than 15 different countries, including Barbados, Guyana, Haiti, Mexico, and Ukraine. Of those apprehended,36 were said to be in the country illegally. “While their immigration statuses vary,” Ms. Forman said, “the most important thing to remember is they’ve all been convicted of sexual offenses and they’re all deportable.”

The first deputy commissioner of the city’s Department of Probation, Richard Levy, expressed outrage yesterday that the offenders qualified for probation in lieu of prison time to begin with. “It is our position that these dangerous sexual predators should never have been placed on probation,” he said. For one thing, he said, illegal aliens cannot be legally employed, one of the requirements of probation.

While they all will get due process, some of the offenders arrested yesterday could be deported in as soon as a few weeks, Mr. Levy said.

“When these sex offenders are deported,” Mr. Levy noted, “New York City will be a safer place.”