WASHINGTON (Map, News) - As many as 80 percent of Illegal immigrant criminals deported to countries like Guatemala are likely to come streaming back across the border, a Georgetown Law School study has concluded.

With close attention being paid locally to Latino gangs like the notoriously violent MS-13, a group of Georgetown Law School students and professors recently undertook an investigation into the juncture of U.S. immigration and gang policy. They focused on Guatemala, a Central American country that often gets overlooked in immigration discussions, they said in the report.

The report states that deportation is a major fault in U.S. immigration policy. "The extreme poverty, violence and discrimination faced by deportees to Guatemala causes a majority to immediately return to the U.S."

Researchers concluded, based on interviews with a sample of the estimated 24,000 Guatemalans deported in 2007 and discussions with government officials, that 80 percent return to the U.S., Kate Rhudy, one of the student researchers, said.

But fighting the rising tide of Latino gang activity in the U.S. and other sources of crimes committed by illegal immigrants requires a multi-pronged approach that should include deportation, said Brad Botwin, president of Help Save Maryland and founder of the Capital Area Coalition Against Illegal Immigrants.

"Illegals coming back across the border and deporting them are separate issues," Botwin said. Raising walls on the border and otherwise attempting to seal it off has to go hand-in-hand with deportation policies, he said.

"If you were a plumber, you wouldn't start fixing the leak in the pipes without first turning the water off."

Botwin joined Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart, the driving force behind one of the nation's most stringent anti-illegal immigration policies, in saying that it's best for illegal immigrant criminals to serve out prison sentences before being deported, a policy federal officials also said they typically endorse.

The issue of deportation versus serving prison time for illegal immigrant criminals has bubbled to the surface in recent weeks with The Examiner's investigation into Milton Calderon-Melendez, an illegal immigrant arrested in Prince William on charges in Montgomery County where illegal immigrant policies are more relaxed. Claderon-Melendez is fighting extradition to Maryland, saying he'd rather be deported than serve time. However, even if he were arrested for crimes committed in Prince William, he'd still likely go to prison before being deported.

fklopott@dcexaminer.com