Wichita ? U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 48 fugitives in western Kansas as part of a five-day sweep targeting immigrants who had ignored deportation orders or failed to appear for immigration hearings, the agency said Thursday.

The agency’s fugitive operations team made 33 arrests in Garden City and 15 in Dodge City in operations ending Tuesday night. The immigrants were from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Vietnam.

ICE said 33 of those arrested had previous criminal convictions.

“Our priority is to go after criminal aliens,” ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said in a telephone interview. “With so many criminal aliens, we have to prioritize.”

Those arrested had prior convictions for felony abuse of a child, aggravated battery, aggravated burglary, possessing and selling cocaine, aggravated identity theft, forgery, drunken driving, domestic battery, arson, and other crimes.

“This operation in particular shows how our fugitive operation teams help remove criminal aliens from the street and make communities safer,” Kenneth Carlson, assistant field director for ICE in Kansas City, Mo., said in a news release.

None of those arrested face new criminal charges, Rusnok said.

Their deportations will take anywhere from a few days to months, depending on their individual cases and countries of origin. Five women and 43 men were arrested.

ICE declined to release their names, citing privacy concerns in immigration cases.

Meatpacking plants in Dodge City and Garden City have drawn huge immigrant populations. But Rusnok said he did not know whether the fugitives arrested were working at the local plants. Most were arrested at their homes.

ICE has 75 so-called fugitive operations teams nationwide to track immigrants who absconded after receiving deportation orders, the agency said. An additional 29 teams were funded in the 2008 budget.