In what the Homeland Security Agency describes as a "pilot program," Connecticut officials are arresting everyone who has been ordered deported.

Typically, an illegal immigrant who a judge has ordered deported but who has not committed another crime has been allowed to remain free while the order is appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Under the pilot program, immigrants are detained as soon as a deportation order is issued, although they can post bail. "We're trying to make the judges' final decisions mean something more," Bentley said.

Marshall Fitz, associate director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said it is unfair to group illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes with those who have not. "These people have not been judged to be criminals," Fitz said. "This is a blanket policy."