WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal authorities have deported thousands of foreign child-sex offenders who were illegally in the United States over the past two years, the Homeland Security Department announced Tuesday.

Additionally, Homeland Security investigations have led to at least 1,200 arrests in the United States and overseas on Internet child pornography charges, officials said.

In all, more than 7,000 accused and convicted sex offenders have been swept up in the department’s “Operation Predator” sting, which began targeting foreign pedophiles, international sex tourists, Internet child pornographers and human traffickers in July 2003.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the operation “one of most successful efforts ever launched to protect America’s children.”

The investigations were coordinated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Homeland Security Department, which has federal jurisdiction over international crime crossing U.S. borders.

About 85 percent of the arrests – mostly on immigration charges – came against foreign nationals who were already convicted of sex crimes but were still in the country. U.S. law requires the removal of convicted foreign child sex offenders.

So far, an estimated 2,100 foreign offenders have been sent back to their home countries, and thousands more are awaiting deportation, said ICE spokesman Dean Boyd.

The sting also focused on people who manufacture, distribute and possess online child pornography in the United States. Possession of child pornography is a crime that carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

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