In February, a speedboat raced toward shore near Boca Raton. After making landfall just south of Camino Real Boulevard, more than a dozen people jumped out of the vessel and scrambled ashore.

Most of the individuals were undocumented immigrants — and four had previously been deported.

With increasing frequency, deported foreign nationals are resorting to smugglers to return to the United States — either by boat or by walking across the Mexican border.

New figures show that the number of federal prosecution cases against previously deported immigrants is increasing nationwide. Criminal prosecutions for illegal re-entry increased from 7,900 in fiscal year 2000 to 35,800 in fiscal year 2010, according to a recent report from the Washington group Immigration Policy Center (IPC).

The report further states that 44 percent of all criminal immigration prosecutions in federal courts around the country now come from illegal re-entry, as the charge is commonly called.

Prosecutions of re-entry after deportation cases in Miami federal court have also increased from 39 in fiscal year 2011 to 57 in fiscal year 2012.

Immigration attorneys said many of the immigrants who are deported return or try to return, despite the threat of criminal prosecution, because they have properties here or want to rejoin husbands, wives, or children left behind in the United States.

“Many of them have roots in the community,” said Wilfredo Allen, a prominent Miami immigration attorney. “The issue stems from an increase in deportations under the Obama administration of foreign criminals who previously had been lawful permanent residents and who left behind properties or families who are U.S. citizens and they don’t want to relocate to the deportee’s country.”

Of 47 foreign nationals arrested in Homestead in early April, at least one — Roberto Perez Hernandez — has been previously deported.

His wife, Guadalupe Aguilar, said he came back illegally to help her and their two U.S.-born children who had been left behind in Homestead. Perez Hernandez is now back in Guatemala after being removed after his arrest in early April, his wife said.

The increase in prosecutions also reflects immigration-enforcement authorities’ focus on prosecuting foreign nationals who have been previously deported and have returned.

If convicted, a foreign national charged with re-entry after deportation can be sentenced up to two years in a federal penitentiary and be deported again.

As Congress gears up to debate immigration reform, a Senate bill, if approved as law, would alter the current re-entry-after-deportation policy.

It would allow foreign nationals who have been deported to apply for legal status if they have a U.S. citizen spouse or are the children of U.S. citizens.

The Boca Raton incident on Feb. 21 was just one of hundreds of re-entry-after-deportation cases federal prosecutors have filed over the last year in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Beach County.

Almost every day a re-entry-after-deportation case appears on magistrate dockets.

They mainly involve prior deportees who have returned either on boats, like the Boca Raton case, or by illegally crossing the Mexican border.

Court files also include many cases of immigrants who have returned to their countries on their own after overstaying visitor visas and now face prosecution in federal court for attempting to return to the United States.