PORTLAND, Ore. - In the past year, the federal government has been quietly arresting and deporting thousands of people who were here without proper documentation.

About a thousand people sleep each night at the Department of Homeland Security's Northwest Detention Center just outside of downtown Tacoma. 

The violent offenders wear orange and the non-violent offenders wear blue. Many of them are migrant workers but Ludwin Hernandez Rivas, originally from El Salvador, is different - he spent the past 10 years in Clackamas County working for a moving company.

"Yes, I came here illegally just like everybody else trying to make a better life, basically," he said.

But things took a turn and Rivas got in a fight. He ended up at the Clackamas County Jail and immigration officials were contacted.  His wife and four kids are still in the Portland area.

"Right now it's pretty hard - I can tell you that much," he said. "More for my kids. I don't know. I call them and they tell me 'daddy where are you?'"

"I feel sorry for the family," said Neil Clarke, who is in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Northwest region. "They didn't get him into this - he did. But I don't feel sorry for him. He knew this day would come."

Rivas does not know how much longer he has in the United States.  His family is scrounging money to pay for lawyers and he said he will do whatever it takes to be with his family - including coming right back to the U.S. after he's been deported.

"There's no way they can stop me from doing that," he said.

THE NUMBERS

• Last year, The Department of Homeland Security arrested 2,224 people in the Portland area alone.
• In the past year, the number of criminal aliens deported has increased by 33 percent.
• In the past three years, the federal government has increased the number of people it deported who had committed no crime other than being here illegally by 59 percent.
• In the Northwest, illegal immigrants with criminal records account for 30 percent of those kicked out of the country. 
• Since 2006, the federal government has tripled the number of people it deports who were arrested for other crimes.
• Most detainees have their fate decided and are shipped out of the country after spending just two weeks behind bars.
• Although most were from Mexico, there were people from 75 different countries at the detention center in Tacoma when we were there.