Frente Contra las Redadas Bloga

No Place of Grace

2008-12-08T11:56:00.001-08:00

No Place of Grace

Maywood’s Mayor faces a death threat, allegations of corruption and, now, a recall

“You have to know the city of Maywood. It’s a little bit different from other cities.”
–Felipe Aguirre speaking to Tucker Carlson March 27, 2006

Felipe Aguirre made national headlines in 2006 when, as a city councilmember, he proclaimed Maywood a sanctuary city for the undocumented. Then came an attempt on his life, his election to the mayor’s office, allegations of corruption and, next Tuesday, a recall vote.

Welcome to Maywood.

The drama began in the winter of 2006, when Aguirre helped pass legislation that prevented police from conducting random DUI checkpoints within the city limits. Aguirre argued that the real purpose of the checkpoints had nothing to do with drunk drivers, and everything to do with rounding up undocumented immigrants, who make up almost a third of the town’s population. Removing the checkpoints made Maywood a defacto sanctuary city for the undocumented, who, provided they followed traffic regulations, were free to drive unlicensed without fear of police.

The move made Aguirre an overnight media sensation—a hero to the immigrant rights community and a galvanizing figure for Minuteman-types across America. Maywood found itself headline fodder for the nation’s major dailies, and Aguirre appeared on Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show, CBS News and NPR.

The heat generated by Aguirre’s performance boosted him into the mayor’s office. Now, with Aguirre up for recall, Maywood’s sanctuary status may be in jeopardy.

Back in 2006, the debate surrounding Maywood was couched in the language of immigrant rights. But the national media missed the real story, which is this: Maywood may be among the most crooked towns in the country, a working-class city where state and federal authorities seem to have reached full employment, constantly investigating payoffs and systemic police corruption.

At the center of the controversy was Maywood Club Towing, a major campaign donor to Maywood city council races, as well as to the campaigns of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Maywood Towing had an exclusive towing contract with the city, and was the primary beneficiary of the city’s intensive checkpoint policy. Many in town felt those checkpoints were nothing more than a shady revenue-generating measure.

“The police were running DUI checkpoints during the daytime,” says longtime Maywood resident Gustavo Villa. “We were being taken advantage of.”

Last year, City Beat’s Jeffrey Anderson reported that Maywood police manning the DUI checkpoints were impounding cars for infractions as minor as driving with an out-of-state license. Those caught up in the checkpoint web sometimes had their cars impounded for up to 30 days, and were often forced to pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in fees to Maywood Club Towing. If they didn’t pay—and many couldn’t—their vehicle would be repossessed.

Anderson reported that the FBI was investigating Maywood Towing for offering kickbacks to both the Maywood City Council and to the Maywood Police Department. A subsequent investigation of the Maywood Police Department by California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office is still in the works.

Last year, the Los Angeles Times found that nearly a third of the Maywood’s 37 police officers either had ethical violations on their records when they were hired, or had run into legal trouble since joining the force. In May, Maywood officer Ryan Allen West was arrested and charged with 12 felony counts of rape, burglary and sexual assault—all which allegedly occurred while he was in uniform. Another high-ranking officer allegedly sexually assaulted a transsexual man repeatedly over a period of seven years.

Aguirre’s push to end the checkpoints and his subsequent elimination of the Maywood P.D.’s crooked traffic division helped propel him to the mayor’s office.

It also earned him enemies.

Shortly after Aguirre led the council to bring down the checkpoints, Maywood’s deputy city clerk, Hector Duarte, launched a plot to have Aguirre assassinated. Duarte was arrested in early July 2006, on the day Aguirre was supposed to be executed. He eventually pleaded guilty on the death threat charges.

Despite the threats, and the opposition of the powerful Maywood Club Towing, Aguirre’s handpicked allies Ana Rizo and Veronica Guardado won city council seats in 2007, giving Aguirre a 3-2 majority in city government.

“I had a lot of hope that things would change when Aguirre came in,” says Gustavo Villa, who supports the recall effort. “But he abused his powers.”

Documents obtained by City Beat show that Aguirre’s immigration advocacy group Comite Pro Uno last year received upwards of $95,000 in city funds through Maywood’s Commercial Façade Program, a city beautification effort. But both Aguirre and his business partner Hector Alvarado live on the grounds of Comite Pro Uno. The Commercial Façade Program isn’t intended for residential use.

Then there’s this: The three city checks used to finance the refurbishing of the mayor’s business and residence were made out directly to Aguirre’s business partner Alvarado—not, as is usual in Maywood, to the contractor who πperformed the work.

Mayor Aguirre says City Beat’s documents are genuine, and that, indeed, nearly $95,000 in city funds went to refurbishing the exterior of Comite Pro Uno.

“I can understand how that could be viewed as a conflict of interest,” he says. “But it was all done above the board. I have nothing to hide.”

Aguirre says that before applying for the funds he consulted David Mango, Maywood director of building and planning, and then-City Attorney Francisco Leal. He says they told him that, as a business owner, Aguirre was entitled to participate in the program—provided he didn’t use his political influence to skew the application process in his favor.

But the city attorney whose advice Aguirre sought has problems of his own. Back in 1999, the Los Angeles Times reported that Leal, working as a private attorney, threatened to launch a recall campaign against city council members in Lynnwood, Commerce and Bell Gardens if those cities didn’t retain his legal services. Last year Jesse Jauregui, Leal’s former law partner, told Jeffrey Anderson that Leal’s style was straight out of Tammany Hall, the infamously corrupt Democratic club that ran New York City politics from the birth of the nation through the 1950s.

Aguirre says he had to fire Leal a few months ago for allegedly demanding kickbacks from a local developer, Gabriel Guerrero, who was negotiating with Maywood’s Community Redevelopment Agency for several fat city redevelopment contracts. According to Aguirre, Leal is now among those leading the recall effort.

Neither Leal, nor Maywood Club Towing owner Tooradj Khosroabadi, also known as “Tony Bravo,” responded to calls for comment.

Aguirre admits that city checks should not have gone directly to his business partner Alvarado, but instead to either Comite Pro Uno or to V & M Iron Works, the Maywood contractor that refurbished the building.

“If I had it to do over again,” Aguirre says, “I wouldn’t have taken any of the money because I realize that this is fuel for my opponents.”

Aguirre says the recall effort stinks of Maywood Club Towing and that voting him out would be “turning back the clock to the days of the checkpoints.”

He may be right. But as is usually the case in Maywood, that’s only half the story.

Illegal immigrants get one-way trip home on ICE Air

2008-11-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

Illegal immigrants get one-way trip home on ICE Air

By ERIC PALMER
The Kansas City Star

The MD-80 that took off Friday from Kansas City International Airport carried about 120 passengers. Some were headed for Mexico, others to Central and South America.

Once off the ground, food and beverages would be served.

The flight was one of up to 180 flights flown each month by Kansas City’s only locally based airline. While most are to Central and South America, others are to such exotic locales as Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Palestine.

Yet most Kansas Citians will never get a seat on one of the flights — nor would want to.

The little-known Flight Operations Unit was established by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2006 to handle the repatriation of the surging number of illegal immigrants caught up in tougher enforcement.

In fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, the airline delivered more than 76,000 OTMs (other than Mexicans) back to their homes, a 51 percent jump from two years before. It also delivered abo ut 134,000 Mexicans, mostly to places like San Antonio or San Diego, before they were bused to20the border.

This year’s budget for all transportation and removal efforts is $281.4 million.

It is not unlike running Delta Air Lines, said Craig Charles, a 22-year veteran of the immigration service and a Shawnee Mission South High School graduate, who is now acting director of flight operations for what is known as ICE Air. It works to fill every seat on each plane to keep costs low, keep flights on time and treat its passengers well.

“We are all about cost-effectiveness and safety and getting these people back to their homeland as fast as we can,” Charles said in an interview Friday at the flight operations offices in the Briarcliff West development.

Most illegal immigrants have come in by land but all of them cannot be removed that way, said Pat Reilly, public affairs officer for ICE Air.

“Mexico is a sovereign nation and it doesn’t take people who are not entitled to be there either, so if they are other than Mexican, they have to be flown over Mexico,” Reilly said.

Speed means savings

ICE Air is an outgrowth of the Justice Prisoner and A lien Transportation System (JPATS), which moves federal prisoners as well as illegal immigrants. T hat system is headquartered in Kansas City, and Charles became the liaison from the immigration agency in 1996.

Initially, illegal aliens from countries other than Mexico were mostly moved on commercial aircraft.

With the formation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, ICE kept officers with JPATS to monitor movements of illegal immigrants. But by 2006, ICE was growing so fast that the JPATS system couldn’t keep up.

So ICE Air was formed.

ICE contracts with JPATS, which has four MD-80s, to handle domestic flights. It leases four 737s from private contractors to handle flights to Central and South America and the Caribbean. It also leases larger aircraft for less- frequent transcontinental flights to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

All told, ICE Air flies to more than 190 countries.

Charles said his “customers” were the 24 ICE field offices that take custody of illegal immigrants and are responsible for their welfare until they are removed. That means housing, feeding and health care. Some are kept in ICE facilities, others in county jails through contract arrangements. So the faster ICE can fly them out, the less the cost is to taxpayers.

Rei lly said growth has been fed by beefed-up enforcement, particularly two programs:

One tries to identify every illegal immigrant booked into a county, state or federal jail. ICE arranges for their deportations while they serve jail time, and is waiting for them when they get out. They once were usually released when their time was served.

About a third of the “removals” last year came from this program.

The other enforcement effort involves 100 teams looking for the half-million illegal immigrants who have ignored legal orders to leave the country. The 38,000 arrests in fiscal 2008 that resulted from this initiative was twice the fiscal 2006 arrests.

Such efforts have forced the system to become more efficient. It has reduced the length of stay that illegal immigrants are in ICE custody from about 90 days to 30 days.

‘I wish to stay here’

It was a cloudless but cold and windy day Friday when a large tour bus, three vans and a Ford F-150 pulled into the driveway of Executive Beechcraft at KCI.

Of the 60 passengers, including one woman, only Horacio Hermoncillo, 22, agreed to discuss his journey. He sat in a van, handcuffed and shackled like the other deportees .

Hermoncillo came to the U.S. on a visa four yea rs ago for the money, then never went home. He knew a bit about fixing cars and landed as a mechanic in Chicago for a “great” man who he said taught him a lot. It allowed him to send money to his family.

But on a recent vacation to St. Louis, he was stopped by police and his illegal status was revealed.

He said he hoped to open a mechanic’s shop when he returned home. But he had mixed feelings about his return to Mexico.

“I wish to stay here. The money is better, but I’m going to my country,” Hermoncillo said. “My mom and brothers will make a big party with a lot of beer.”

Once the MD-80 landed, the buses and vans pulled into a semicircle next to the plane, creating a staging area.

Canvas, plastic and paper bags containing underwear and belts, cell phones and other belongings were laid on the tarmac as a phalanx of men in blue U.S. marshal uniforms and sunglasses disembarked. They were unarmed. Weapons are not allowed on the tarmac, or in the cabin of the plane.

Then in twos and threes, the illegal immigrants were taken off the bus and out of the vans. Some were dressed warmly, but others had only shorts and T-shirts. Each was patted down, and cuffs and shackles were checked to make sure they were not biting=2 0into skin before boarding.

The domestic flights, manned by the U.S. Marshals Service, require that the passengers be handcuffed and shackled onboard.

With the illegal immigrants already on the plane, the flight would have more than 120 passengers. Like any airline, ICE Air tries to fill every available seat to tamp down costs.

“It costs the American taxpayer around $700 a seat,” Charles said. “If we sent everybody on commercial airlines, we just couldn’t afford it.”

To use its planes to best advantage, ICE Air employs a system of spokes and hubs, like most airlines. It flies people in from nearly 20 cities, including a weekly flight to Kansas City to pick up the illegal immigrants rounded up from Kansas and Missouri.

Flights end up in hubs such as Mesa, Ariz., and San Antonio. From those hubs, Mexican nationals are bused to the Mexican border and released. Those other than Mexicans are combined and flown to other cities from which regularly scheduled international ICE Air flights take them to their home countries.

On the international flights, which are handled by ICE employees, all nonviolent, noncriminal passengers have the chains removed.

Reill y noted that when most illegal immigrants get into the ICE system, they have served t heir time.

“They have paid their debt to society and now they are being removed on immigration issues,” she said.

Onboard meals might be a sandwich, a bottle of water and an apple. No oranges because they are sticky and messy. No milk because it can cause upset stomachs. After all, this is the first time that many of these passengers have ever been on a plane. There is a nurse on every flight.

Treating well those being removed pays dividends in getting cooperation from other countries in managing immigration issues. But Charles said there was no reason not to.

“We really want to make a good impression on these people,” he said. “Those of us who have been around this for 20 years, we have seen the plight of these people. We can’t get personal with this but again, there is no reason whatsoever that we can’t treat them with as much respect as is possible. No one holds a grudge against these people.”

Change Immigrants and Labor Can Believe In

2008-11-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

Change Immigrants and Labor Can Believe In
By David Bacon
The Nation, web edition, November 26, 2008
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081215/bacon?rel=hp_picks

Since 2001 the Bush administration has deported more than a million people--including 349,041 individuals in the fiscal year ending just prior to the election. It has resurrected the discredited community sweeps and factory raids of earlier eras, and started sending waves of migrants to privately run jails for crimes like inventing a Social Security number to get a job. Every day in Tucson 70 young people, including many teenagers, are brought before a federal judge in heavy chains and sentenced to prison because they walked across the border.

It's no wonder that Latinos, Asians and other communities with large immigrant populations voted for Barack Obama by huge margins. People want and expect a change. Ending the administration's failed program of raids, jail time and deportations is at the top of the list. National demonstrations have called for a moratorium on raids since the summer, and one big reason why Los Angeles turned out so heavily for Obama was the anti-raid encampment and hunger strike in the Placita Olvera, which electrified the city.

But the raids program has been rejected by more than immigrants alone. The election took place as millions of people were losing their jobs and homes. Yet while Lou Dobbs and the talk show hysteria-mongers tried to scapegoat immigrants for this crisis ("What about illegal don't you understand?"), most voters did not drink the Kool-Aid. In fact, every poll shows that a big majority reject raids and want basic rights and fair treatment for everyone, immigrants included. The political coalition that put Obama into office--African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, women and union families, expects change.

The country needs not just an end to raids but a move away from the policies they've been intended to promote. From the beginning, the administration's enforcement program has been cynically designed to pressure Congress into re-establishing discredited guest worker schemes called "close to slavery" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, being reminiscent of the old bracero program. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called these raids "closing the back door and opening the front door."

At least Chertoff was honest about his intentions. His underlings at Homeland Security, like Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), tried to pretend that the imprisonment and deportation of abused workers was a form of labor standards enforcement. Meanwhile, actual protection for US wages, working conditions and union rights has been in free fall for eight years. Other Homeland Security officials mendaciously claimed immigrants were a threat to national security, as though imprisoning hungry teenagers or terrorized workers would help a fearful public to sleep at night.

No one whose eyes are open to the terrible human suffering caused by these draconian policies will be very sorry to see Chertoff go. But what policies will take their place, and who will enforce them? So far, the choice of Janet Napolitano is not encouraging. The Tucson "Operation Streamline" court convenes in her home state every day, and the situation of immigrants in Arizona is worse than almost anywhere else. Napolitano herself has publicly supported most of the worst ideas of the Bush administration, including guest worker programs with no amnesty for the currently undocumented, and brutal enforcement schemes like E-Verify and workplace raids.

But Obama does not have to be imprisoned by the failure of Napolitano to imagine a more progressive alternative. In fact, his new administration's need to respond to the economic crisis, and to strengthen the political coalition that won the election, can open new possibilities for a just and fair immigration policy.

Economic crisis does not have to pit working people against each other, or lead to the further demonization of immigrants. In fact, there is common ground between immigrants, communities of color, unions, churches, civil rights organizations, and working families. Legalization and immigrant rights can be tied to guaranteeing jobs for anyone who wants to work, and unions to raise wages and win better conditions for everyone in the workplace.

These are not revolutionary demands. In fact, they're what the Democratic Party used to stand for. Nor is the idea of combining them into a common program just pie-in-the-sky. For two sessions of Congress, the Black Caucus and leaders like Sheila Jackson Lee and Barbara Lee have proposed legislation to create jobs, at the same time offering rights and legal status to immigrants without papers. The AFL-CIO's campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act supports the surest means of ending the low-wage, second-class status of immigrant workers-- organizing unions. And repealing unfair trade agreements and ending structural adjustment policies would raise the standard of living and reduce the pressure for migration in Oaxaca or El Salvador, while making jobs more secure in working-class communities in the US.

Justice for immigrants does not have to be the third rail of US politics, as Rahm Emmanuel has called it. Instead, immigrant rights is the demand of one part of a broad coalition that seeks fundamental social change. Immigrants can't achieve justice on their own, but then no element of this coalition can win its demands in isolation. Only a common-ground strategy can actually achieve the changes people hoped for when they went to the polls. Stopping the raids is the first step in a process that will help to end the nightmare of the past few years, and at the same time can help the administration begin to address the larger issues of immigration reform, jobs and workplace rights.

Something is clearly wrong with immigration enforcement. Desperate workers get fired and deported, families get terrorized and divided, while the government protects employers and seeks to turn a family-based immigration system into a managed labor supply for business. Even before presenting a reform plan to Congress, the Obama administration has the power to change some of the worst elements of the Bush program by administrative and executive action. What Bush put in place by fiat can be changed by the same process. In its first 100 days, a new administration could take simple steps to protect human and workplace rights, instead of allowing the abuse to continue:

* Stop ICE from seeking serious federal criminal charges, with incarceration in privately run prisons, when a worker lacks papers or has a bad Social Security numbers.

* Stop raiding workplaces, especially where workers are trying to organize unions or enforce wage and hour laws. This would help all workers, not just immigrants.

* Halt community sweeps, checkpoints and roadblocks, where agents use warrants for one or two people to detain and deport dozens of others. End the government's campaign to repeal local sanctuary ordinances and drag local law enforcement into immigration raids.

* Double the paltry 742 federal inspectors responsible for all US wage and hour violations and focus on industries where immigrants are concentrated. The National Labor Relations Board could target employers who use immigration threats to violate union rights.

* Allow all workers to apply for a Social Security number and pay legally into a system that benefits everyone. Social Security numbers should be used for their true purpose--paying retirement and disability benefits--not to fire immigrants from their jobs and send them to prison.

* Re-establish worker protections, ended under Bush, connected with existing guest worker programs; force employers to hire domestically first and decertify any contractor guilty of labor violations.

* Restore human rights in border communities, stop construction of the border wall between the US and Mexico, and disband the Operation Streamline federal court, where scores of young border crossers are sent to prison in chains every day.

Democrats still have to decide what reforms to bring before Congress, and when. Some would delay action for a year or more. But the US Chamber of Commerce and dozens of trade groups have been pushing for years for big guestworker programs. They are more than willing to accept raids and enforcement as a price, and are already working to bring back the "comprehensive" bills that would give them what they want. Instead of arguing over "what's politically possible" in Congress, immigrant and labor rights activists need a movement for a progressive alternative.

That alternative has to strengthen human rights on both sides of the global divide. In countries like Mexico and the Philippines, the families of migrants are fighting for real development instead of poverty, forced migration and a remittance-based economy. Here in the US movements in immigrant communities have brought millions of people into the streets on May Day, and continue to fight the raids and deportations. We need proposals that address both the situation of immigrants here and the conditions in their countries that force them to migrate.

To move towards equality and rights in the US:

* A law to give permanent residence (green-card) visas to the undocumented, and clear up the backlog of people already waiting for them abroad. If visas were more easily available, people wouldn't have to cross the border without them. Employer sanctions that make it a crime for immigrants to hold a job should be repealed. Guestworker programs with a record of abuse should be ended, as they were in 1964.

To end the displacement at the root of most forced migration:

* A new approach to trade policy, including renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and rejection of potential new trade agreements with countries like Colombia. Protecting corporate access to markets and low wages leads to rising poverty and the displacement of communities. We need to concentrate on the welfare of people at the bottom rather than the top, help grassroots communities of farmers stay on their land, and boost wages and employment for urban workers. Instead of subsidizing war and displacement, US tax dollars could expand rural credit, education and health care abroad, easing the pressure behind migration.

A new administration that has raised such high expectations should look for new ideas in the areas of immigration reform and trade policy, not recycle the bad ones of the last few years. The constituency that won the election will support a change in direction, and in fact is demanding it. The Obama administration owes its victory to that constituency, and its promises of change that brought it to the polls. Now it needs to deliver.

-- __________________________________

David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org

ICE raids take 16 Flagstaff residents

2008-11-26T21:54:00.000-08:00

ICE raids take 16 Flagstaff residents

November 26th, 2008 by Sarah Pickering

Protesters gather Thursday evening at the corner of E Butler and E Sawmill rd to protest the deportation of illegal immigrants and to support immigration rights. The protesters held signs and chanted in front of a news camera to show their support. - Jim Truncali/ The Lumberjack

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrived in Flagstaff on Wednesday, Nov. 19 to arrest undocumented citizens with criminal records, sparking an impromptu protest by various immigrant rights and activist groups.

On Nov. 20, the Repeal Coalition, a group dedicated to the repeal of all anti-immigration legislation in Arizona, organized various efforts to warn the community that members of ICE would be conducting raids in target neighborhoods. ICE is a governmental agency responsible for identifying and investigating illegal activity with regards to the United States border.

The Repeal Coalition gathered a group of approxminately two dozen people at Killip Elementary School in Sunnyside to escort children to their homes
. In the evening, the group, including members from CopWatch, ASWI, NAU Peace and Justice, MEChA and Save the Peaks protested numbers of arrests already made by ICE.

Approximately 70 people stood near the county jail on Butler Avenue chanting, “ICE is on thin ice” and “No more body snatching.”

Joel Olson, a member of the Repeal Coalition and assistant professor
in the NAU Department of Political Science, said ICE’s raids are a violation of civil rights.

“They’ve raided homes, they’ve arrested six people and they’ve got warrants for 40 people total,” Olson said. “We’re opposed to body snatching and all the laws that are preventing citizens and non-citizens alike from being able to live and love and work wherever they please.”

George Villas leads a group of Anti Immigration protesters in a chant Thursday Evening on the corner of E Butler and E Sawmill rd. Protesters were calling for an end to deportation and Immigration rights. - Jim Truncali/ The Lumberjack

Maren Lester, a freshman undeclared major, disagreed with alleged tactics to raid elementary schools, but agreed with neighborhood raids.

“If (undocumented citizens) haven’t pursued legal ways to get into the country, then they have no right to be here,” Lester said.

According to ICE’s Web site, the agency pr
otects the nation’s homeland security.

“(ICE) upholds public safety by targeting criminal networks and terrorist organizations that seek to

exploit vulnerabilities in our immigration system, in our financial networks, along20our border, at federal facilities and elsewhere in order to do harm to the United States,” the mission statement reads.

When contacted for a comment, ICE did not respond.

Olson said he felt the most important part of the protest was getting the word out about the problems with ICE and other anti-immigration legislation.

“Our overall goal is the repeal of all anti-immigration laws in the state of Arizona,” Olson said, referring to the Repeal Coalition’s mission. “Arizona is ground zero for immigration reform. If we change the laws in Arizona, we change them nationwide.”

“All day we’ve been doing patrols around the neighborhood, making sure ICE is informing the undocumented citizens of their rights,” said George Villas, a protester.

Erin Entringer, a freshman choral education major, said she agreed with ICE’s practices from an economic standpoint.

“I understand that people are coming here to make a better life for themselves,” Entringer said. “I think those people should go through the legal process to become citizens, rather than free-loading off of =0
D
our tax money.”

ICE obtained 40 warrants for undocumented citizens, arresting 16 who were previously ordered to leave the country.

“ICE is taking people that they don’t have=2 0warrants for,” said Eva Amaral, a member of the Repeal Coalition. “That’s what’s happening in Maricopa County and we don’t want it here.”

Amaral said she wants the city of Flagstaff to join in the resistance against ICE, and said a community effort is crucial to maintaining civil rights.

“Lives are being destroyed,” Amaral said. “We’re not going to let a government agency tell us that we aren’t people.”

Tactics questioned in immigrant raids

2008-07-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

Tactics questioned in immigrant raids

Doors were kicked in, guns brandished

By ELISABETH HULETTE, Staff Writer

Published July 09, 2008

A week ago, David Espana walked out of the shower and found his living room full of police officers.

They broke a bathroom mirror - shards are still caught in the rug - and took him to Baltimore in handcuffs.

He was scared. He wasn't alone.

Doors were smashed in, glass was shattered and guns were thrust in the faces of whole families last Monday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents backed by county police officers raided at least 15 Annapolis-area homes, arresting 46 undocumented immigrants. The homes belonged to employees of Annapolis Painting Services, which has been under investigation for 18 months for hiring illegal immigrants.

A week later, many of the homes remain as broken as the families.

ICE, which sent 75 agents on the raids, justifies the tactics used in the raids. Breaking down doors, carrying guns and using handcuffs is necessary to protect police and the community, said Scot R. Rittenberg, an assistant special agent for ICE.

"We never know what's behind that door," he said. "Often (in immigrant raids) we've opened the door and found guns pointed at us. We never know if it's MS-13 gang members or just illegal immigrants."

County police, who sent 50 officers to the raids, wouldn't comment on the tactics used. "We were just the support role," said Lt. Thomas Kohlmann.

County Executive John R. Leopold said cracking down on undocumented immigrants is necessary to keep the employers who hire them - like Annapolis Painting Services - from un-dercutting legitimate businesses. He would not comment on the methods used in the raids.

Audra Harrison, a spokesman for his office, said: "The county executive is not an expert on these sorts of investigations, and therefore he leaves it to the experts to determine the tactics."

But the people whose doors were forced open - and their families - think differently. Their only crime is working without papers, yet they were served with violence, they say.

Take Eduardo Delgado. His front door was smashed down by police before he was taken into custody.

"They are no criminals," said Nico Ramos, Mr. Delgado's cousin. "They are hard-working people."

Eric Daniels watched one raid on his way into work.

Across the street from his family's business, The Palate Pleasers catering company, police climbed out of at least three marked and unmarked police cars and suited up in bulletproof vests.

"They're not dangerous," he said. "They're the opposite of dangerous. They're not intending to be sneaky, they just want to work."

Marlin Velasquez, a legal immigrant who works in the kitchen at The Palate Pleasers, said she's been hearing about the raids from friends. In one house, she said, police slashed mattresses looking for documents; in another they cuffed a man's hands and feet.

Ingrid Munoz, an American citizen married to a legal resident who worked for Annapolis Painting Services, said she woke up when agents pounded on her door. They wouldn't let her or her husband get dressed, so she answered their questions wearing a tank top, her underwear and a towel.

ICE didn't even have a warrant to search her home.

Mr. Rittenberg said ICE did a "knock-and-talk search" on two or three houses. That's when agents approach a house they believe, based on investigation, is hiding immigrants, and ask for permission to search.

"You feel safe in your home, you never think that's going to happen to you," Ms. Munoz said. "I've never been in trouble."

The white wooden door frame on Jaclyn Munoz's house off Forest Drive was splintered when agents broke into her home. She's not even an illegal immigrant, she said.

Shannon Brown, an American citizen, said when her boyfriend opened their door, the house was surrounded by at least 20 agents. One pointed a gun at him, yelling in Spanish.

"He doesn't even speak Spanish," she said.

They searched the apartment while she got her two daughters, ages 4 and 7, out. She didn't want them to see the raid.

"They had one man handcuffed to a chair. He was shaking like a leaf," she said of one man who worked with her boyfriend at Annapolis Painting Services.

Ms. Brown spent the day after the raids fixing one family's house, where the doors all had been beaten down. That family's in a quandary, she said. The father was taken in the raids, but the mother is a citizen. The mother went to Mexico so she can meet up with him after he's deported.

"I can't imagine trying to raise a family there," Ms. Brown said. "They don't speak Spanish. They're Americans."

One woman, an immigrant who declined to give her name, said police broke through a glass door and hit her boyfriend in the chest with the handle of a gun. She doesn't know where he was taken.

Mr. Rittenburg said no one was hit like that.

Mario Quiroz-Servellon, a spokesman for CASA de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy organization, said treating undocumented immigrants like criminals, particularly in front of their children, will hurt police and the community in the long run.

"Immigration is a civil offense, not a criminal offense," he said. "So when they act like this, what they're doing is scaring people and breaking the trust that people have in law enforcement."

For the families of people taken in raids, it always happens the same way, said David Perechocky of the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition. A child doesn't get picked up from school, someone disappears, and no one knows why. Family members begin to panic. They get very little information, and what they do hear is in English, so they don't understand.

"It's a lot of confusion, and it's a scary situation," Mr. Perechocky said.

Liz Alex of CASA de Maryland, has been helping the families. At first, calls came from people trying to find the immigrants who were taken, she said.

"Now we're getting the second wave, of families who are homeless or have lost their breadwinner," she said.

Rev. John Lavin of St. Mary's Parish in Annapolis has seen firsthand the poverty that immigrants from El Salvador faced before they came to America. Seventeen people lived in one house he visited; one woman earned just $6 a day.

"The reason they come here and do these kinds of jobs is that they come from poverty," he said. "They're here trying to help their families. They are family people."

Jonathan Greene, an attorney and a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the nation's immigration system is broken. America needs immigrant workers just as much as they need to work here. But not nearly enough visas are available - just 5,000 permanent visas are given out each year for low-skilled "essential" workers when there's enough demand for a million.

Congress could change the laws and issue more visas, creating an easier path to legal immigration and taking pressure off the border with Mexico, but hasn't yet, he said.

"If you do that, then the people who are protecting the border can focus on real threats to America - drugs, gangs and real terrorists - instead of chasing people who risk dying across the desert to simply work," he said.

There's something bad in this town

2008-06-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

'There's something bad in this town'

By JON TEVLIN, Star Tribune

June 28, 2008

POSTVILLE, IOWA

There is a small-town stillness here, neat houses and kids riding bicycles down quiet, leafy streets. But in the Guatemalan bakery, in church pews, at the meatpacking plant and the kosher deli, the strained voices almost always dwell on the raid that changed everything.

The stillness is not serenity. It's shock.

Scores of heavily armed federal agents last month stormed into Agriprocessors, which produces up to 70 percent of all kosher meat in America. The feds seized almost 400 of the plant's 900 workers in the largest single roundup of illegal immigrants to date, charging about 300 of them with identity theft and using stolen Social Security cards.

Some of those workers have since sued the company, alleging abuse, fraud and sexual coercion. Postville, which once sold T-shirts boasting of the peaceful coexistence of its many cultures, has been left "absolutely shattered," said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk of the town's St. Bridget's Catholic Church.

The impact of the raid is spreading from northern Iowa to the Twin Cities, New York and beyond, provoking debate among American Jews about whether it's time to reassess how kosher food is produced.

"Our reputation is at stake," said Rabbi Morris Allen of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights. "It was embarrassing for us to hear what was being done in order to process kosher food."

To grasp the wide impact of the raids, consider these snapshots:

• Mexican and Guatemalan women whose husbands are scattered in jails across the country, lined up for hymns and hot dish at St. Bridget's, the hems of their frilly native dresses sometimes swaying to reveal the ankle bracelets they must wear to monitor their movements.

• A group of Jewish leaders meeting recently in St. Louis Park to raise money for the Agriprocessors' workers, and vowing to change the way the people who produce kosher foods are treated.

• Rabbi Shalom Gurkov, a Hasidic Jew like the owners of Agriprocessors, standing on the main street in Postville in his long beard and solemn dress, vigorously disputing the accusations of crimes, inhumane treatment and sexual harassment that have been made by former workers.

• New replacement worker Josephina Ortiz, near tears, telling strangers that she came from California based on promises by Agriprocessors of free rent, food and a good job. Instead, she claims, she found a filthy, expensive apartment and mandatory 14-hour days.

"Please God, somebody help us," said Ortiz, who is in the United States legally. "There's something bad in this town. I don't know how this can happen in the United States of America."

A foundering town

When Aaron Rubashkin opened Agriprocessors in 1987, Postville was foundering.

The Rubashkin family, widely credited with inventing the modern kosher processing plant, decided to cut costs by "bringing the butcher to the livestock," and moved from New York to Iowa. Agriprocessors became one of northern Iowa's largest employers.

Abe Bistritzky, a friend of the Rubashkin family, agreed to talk to the Star Tribune on behalf of the company, which has declined to comment since the raids. He said the illegal workers used fake documents and the company followed the law in verifying paperwork. Most of the workers were happy to have the jobs and were paid and treated fairly, he added.

The Rubashkins "took a town that had balls of hay rolling in it and they built up a community of approximately 120 Jewish families," Bistritzky said. "They built a yeshiva, a Jewish school for kids," gave money to the city, to charity and recently sent food to flood victims.

"The Rubashkin family is charitable. They're not prejudiced; they'll hire any kind of person, anyone who will walk through the door," Bistritzky said. "What happened was when [Jews] came to town, they looked at us like we're Martians. ... They didn't understand the black coats, the white shirts, the beards, the black hats, and they needed to learn about us."

The sight of Hasidic Jews wandering the streets of a small town Iowa initially seemed quaint. But the insular nature of their Lubavitch sect created distrust in the community, exacerbated when the Rubashkins started importing workers of many nationalities, especially Hispanics, as their plant expanded.

In 2000, Stephen Bloom wrote a book, "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America," detailing the community's conflicts and compromises since the arrival of Agriprocessors. He clearly indicated many of its workers were illegal. Ouderkirk now calls the book "prophetic."

In recent years, there were problems with Agriprocessors in Iowa and elsewhere: pollution violations, fights with labor unions trying to organize, OSHA violations and charges of animal abuse by PETA. This year, the Iowa Division of Labor Services fined the company $182,000 for 39 health violations.

The federal raid this spring came about based on information from an informant inside the plant who reported witnessing plant managers hire and help workers with fake identity papers. Up to 76 percent of workers did not have correct Social Security numbers, according to the search warrant. The informant also reported seeing managers abuse workers, including hitting one with a meat hook. One manager also ran a scam in which illegal workers were coerced into buying cars from him, the warrant said.

Some female employees also have alleged they were sexually coerced by managers, according to St. Bridget's Sister Mary McCauley.

Federal officials have declined to comment on the case beyond the details disclosed in their warrant.

Empty-handed and exasperated

St. Bridget's is command central for the battle with Agriprocessors. Guatemalan children scramble on the porch as their mothers line up to get advice, or money, from Ouderkirk and McCauley.

One recent morning, Ouderkirk slipped on his St. Paul medal "for protection" and drove to the plant to get money he said is still owed to arrested workers. He waited for 40 minutes, then left, empty-handed and exasperated.

"Workers openly say they were advised by the plant on how to get false documents," he said. "Now if the government does not take action on that and charge the owners, then this was strictly a raid to threaten and terrorize people."

The situation at Agriprocessors reveals "a lack of respect of human dignity of people other than you," Ouderkirk said. "Politicians who should have been leading the way did nothing."

Bistritzky dismisses most of the worst accusations as fabrications.

"I can't vouch for what happened over 18 years," Bistritzky said. "But maybe [the Rubashkins] should have put a little bit more emphasis to reacting maybe to the town. Maybe they had a lack of communication with people."

A delegation of rabbis

Rabbi Allen of Beth Jacob Congregation knew about Agriprocessors' problems a long time before the raid. He knew the most recent CEO, Sholom Rubashkin, who for a time lived in St. Paul's Highland Park before moving to Postville. After reading an article critical of the company, Allen led a delegation of Twin Cities rabbis to Postville in 2006.

Workers told story after story of long hours, unsafe conditions and wages as low as $5 an hour. They told him many of the same things now in court documents.

"They appeared to me to do everything possible to maximize the bottom line at the expense of human dignity," Allen said of the plant owners.

The Minnesota rabbis tried to work with the Rubashkins. "I think if they had followed our advice, this may never have happened," he said.

Allen is now leading a national movement to create a certification program called Hekhsher Tzedek, much like fair trade agreements, which would ensure not only that kosher meat is prepared properly, but also that workers are treated fairly.

Some Jewish groups have called for a boycott on Agriprocessors, and many more nationally are debating it. While the raid has caused shortages of kosher meat in some places, the Twin Cities have not yet been affected.

Meanwhile, members of the Twin Cities Jewish community, through synagogues and Jewish Community Action, have raised money for families in Postville affected by the raid, and some families have gone to Iowa to offer their direct help. Many plan to attend a march in Iowa in late July.

"We want the people there to know we care, and that we as Jews have not left them," Allen said.

Empty playgrounds

Postville's playgrounds and parks are empty since the raid, and there are fears that as many as 18 teachers may be dismissed because so many of the students have gone back to Mexico or Guatemala.

Sabor Latina, once the town's most popular restaurant, is only open part-time. The busiest address in town is often the food shelf, where demand has tripled in the past month. Those lined up for beans and bread include Hispanic mothers, many awaiting deportation, and their children, most of whom are American citizens.

Four of them, Guatemalan women, live in one house with their nine children. A 16-year-old named William, who said he worked 10-hour overnight shifts at the plant, is the only one left in a house a few blocks away. He shrugged when asked what he would do next.

Then there are Agriprocessors' new hires, whites and African-Americans, who arrived on the bus. They said they'd been promised a $100 advance, but few of them got it. So their first stop was the food shelf.

Diane Morris, who was living in a Texas homeless shelter, said the company promised a free furnished apartment for a month. Instead, she was put in a four-bedroom house with 10 men, she said. "Everywhere I've been I've been sexually approached," she said.

She claims she was fired after two days when she went to the company clinic for medications for a mental illness.

Bistritzky said it's possible recruiters in Texas made false promises, but that has stopped.

Some new hires have already caused enough trouble at bars that city officials and police have met with the company to demand better screening.

Bistritzky said the company also has hired an employment agency to do background checks on prospective employees, hired a former U.S. Attorney as compliance officer, and is searching for a new leadership team.

What would he tell Minnesota Jews concerned about the plant?

"I would say to them it's all totally unfounded, for me as an outsider talking on my own behalf,'' Bistritzky said. "I've been here for a month; I haven't seen any abuse, or any of the accusations that have been made."

Company officials held a phone conference last week to give their side of the story to an invited group in New York.

Meanwhile, rabbis in the Twin Cities are soliciting donations to help the Rubashkins' employees.

"We're really trying to form a grassroots effort to cause change," said Vic Rosenthal, executive director of JCA. "There is a huge need in Postville."

Jeff Abbas, who runs the local radio station, says he has seen some positive changes since the raids.

"I'd say the relationship between Hispanics and people who grew up around here has gotten stronger because of this," he said. "The people who have grown up around here suddenly realized [the workers] were real people, too."

The town even put up red ribbons on lampposts in support of plant workers.

While he abhors the tactics of immigration officials, Ouderkirk says some good may come of their raid.

"They brought out the cracks in the dam and the folly of our immigration policy," he said.

Jon Tevlin • 612-673-1702

ICE raids net 44 immigration violators in Central Nebraska

2008-06-26T01:07:00.000-07:00

ICE raids net 44 immigration violators in Central Nebraska

By Robert Pore

The Grand Island Independent

Posted Jun 25, 2008 @ 10:40 PM

GRAND ISLAND —

Grand Island was one of eight Central Nebraska communities where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Fugitive Operations Team agents arrested 44 fugitive immigrants and immigration violators during a five-day initiative that ended Tuesday night.

According to ICE officials, during the five-day operation, which ended June 24, ICE Fugitive Operations Team members arrested immigration violators in Lexington (25 arrests), Grand Island (12 arrests) and Broken Bow (2 arrests). There also was one arrest in each of the following cities: Cozad, Gibbon, Hastings, Kearney and North Platte.

Twenty-eight of those arrested were fugitives, meaning they had defied an immigration judge's final order to leave the country and were targets of the operation.

The remaining 16 were immigration violators encountered by ICE officers during their targeted arrests.

Of the 44 apprehended, 10 have previous criminal convictions in addition to their administrative immigration violations.

Officials said arrests were made at homes and businesses in the days leading up to Tuesday.

Those arrested are from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador.

"It's important for us to send a strong message to anyone who ignores deportation orders handed down by federal immigration judges," said Scott Baniecke, field office director of the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Bloomington, Minn.

According to ICE officials, through May 31 of fiscal year 2008, which began Oct. 1, 2007, 542 illegal immigrants were arrested by Fugitive Teams in the five-state area covered by the Bloomington ICE office, including Nebraska.

Of the total, 452 were fugitive aliens; 90 were immigration violators encountered by the ICE Fugitive Operations Teams during their targeted arrests. Of the 542 apprehended, 103 had criminal convictions in addition to their administrative immigration violations.

In all of fiscal year 2007, Fugitive Operations Teams in the six-state area arrested 914 immigrants.

Last year, ICE officials said the fugitive operations teams nearly doubled the number of 2006 arrests, increasing from 15,000 to more than 30,000. Additionally, in 2007, the nation's fugitive immigrant population declined for the first time in history.

Estimates now place the number of immigration fugitives in the United States at about 572,000, a decrease of nearly 23,000 since October 2007.

Following are some of the criminal immigrants arrested by ICE's Chicago Fugitive Operations Teams during its Central Nebraska operation:

-- Alberto De Jesus Arias-Lopez, 28, a citizen of Guatemala, was arrested June 20 in Cozad. He was ordered deported by a federal immigration judge July 26, 2007, but failed to surrender. Arias-Lopez has convictions in Dawson County for assault and carrying a concealed weapon.

-- Juan Mejia-Perez, 33, a citizen of Guatemala, was arrested June 21 in Lexington. He was ordered deported by a federal immigration judge Jan. 10, 2006, but failed to surrender. Mejia-Perez has a prior conviction in Dawson County for assault.

-- Diego Avellan-Castro, 50, a citizen of Nicaragua, was arrested June 22 in Lexington. He was ordered deported by a federal immigration judge Aug. 8, 1990, but failed to surrender. Avellan-Castro has a felony conviction in Dawson County for cruelty toward a child.

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.

270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push

2008-05-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

May 24, 2008

270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push

By JULIA PRESTON

WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.

Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”

Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”

The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.

The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.

The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.

Mr. Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was “the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors.”

The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Until now, relatively few immigrants caught in raids have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.

“To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented,” said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who was formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. “It’s the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law.”

Defense lawyers, who were appointed by the court, said most of the immigrants were ready to accept the plea deals because of the hard bargain driven by the prosecutors.

If the immigrants did not plead guilty, Mr. Dummermuth said he would try them on felony identity theft charges that carry a mandatory two-year minimum jail sentence. In many cases, court documents show, the immigrants were working under real Social Security numbers or immigration visas, known as green cards, that belonged to other people.

All but a handful of the workers here had no criminal record, court documents showed.

“My family is worried in Guatemala,” one defendant, Erick Tajtaj, entreated the federal district judge who sentenced him, Mark W. Bennett. “I ask that you deport us as soon as possible, that you do us that kindness so we can be together again with our families.”

No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.

Chaim Abrahams, a representative of Agriprocessors, said in a statement that he could not comment about specific accusations but that the company was cooperating with the government.

Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors, announced Friday that he had begun a search to replace his son Sholom as the chief executive of the company. Agriprocessors is the country’s largest producer of kosher meat, sold under brands like Aaron’s Best. The plant is in Postville, a farmland town about 70 miles northeast of Waterloo. Normally it employs about 800 workers, and in recent years the majority of them have come from rural Guatemala.

Since 2004, the plant has faced repeated sanctions for environmental and worker safety violations. It was the focus of a 2006 exposé in The Jewish Daily Forward and a commission of inquiry that year by Conservative Jewish leaders.

In Postville, workers from the plant, still feeling aftershocks from the raid, said conditions there were often harsh. In interviews, they said they were often required to work overtime and night shifts, sometimes up to 14 hours a day, but were not consistently paid for the overtime.

“We knew what time we would start work but we did not know what time we would finish,” said Élida, 29, a Guatemalan who was arrested in the raid and then released to care for her two children. She asked that her last name not be published because she is in this country illegally.

A 16-year-old Guatemalan girl, who asked to be identified only as G.O. because she is illegal and a minor and was not involved in the raid, said she had been working the night shift plucking chickens. “When you start, you can’t stay awake,” she said. “But after a while you get used to it.”

The workers said that supervisors and managers were well aware that the immigrants were working under false documents.

Defense lawyers, who each agreed to represent as many as 30 immigrants, said they were satisfied that they had sufficient time to question them and prepare their cases. But some lawyers said they were troubled by the severity of the charges.

At one sentencing hearing, David Nadler, a defense lawyer, said he was “honored to represent such good and brave people,” saying the immigrants’ only purpose had been to provide for their families in Guatemala.

“I want the court to know that these people are the kings of family values,” Mr. Nadler said.

Judge Bennett appeared moved by Mr. Nadler’s remarks. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people who have done what you did to help your families,” Judge Bennett told the immigrants. “Unfortunately for you, you committed a violation of federal law.”

After the hearing, Mr. Nadler said the plea agreements were the best deal available for his clients. But he was dismayed that prosecutors had denied them probation and insisted the immigrants serve prison time and agree to a rarely used judicial order for immediate deportation upon their release, signing away their rights to go to immigration court.

“That’s not the defense of justice,” Mr. Nadler said. “That’s just politics.”

Christopher Clausen, a lawyer who represented 21 Guatemalans, said he was certain they all understood their options and rights. Mainly they wanted to get home to Guatemala as quickly as possible, he said.

“The government is not bashful about the fact that they are trying to send a message,” Mr. Clausen said, “that if you get caught working illegally here you will pay a criminal penalty.”

Robert Rigg, a Drake University law professor who is president of the Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said his group was not consulted when prosecutors and court officials began to make plans, starting in December, for the mass proceedings.

“You really are force feeding the system just to churn these people out,” Mr. Rigg said.

Kathleen Campbell Walker, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that intricate issues could arise in some cases, for example where immigrants had children and spouses who were legal residents or United States citizens. Those issues “could not be even cursorily addressed in the time frame being forced upon these individuals and their overburdened counsel.”

Linda R. Reade, the chief judge who approved the emergency court setup, said she was confident there had been no rush to justice. In an interview, Judge Reade said prosecutors had organized the immigrants’ detention to make it easy for their lawyers to meet with them. The prosecutors, she said, “have tried to be fair in their charging.”

The immigration lawyers, Judge Reade said, “do not understand the federal criminal process as it relates to immigration charges.”

900 nabbed in state on immigration charges

2008-05-24T08:15:00.001-07:00

900 nabbed in state on immigration charges

Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Federal immigration officers arrested more than 900 people in California on immigration violations this month, almost half of them in Northern California, officials said Friday.

Fugitive operations teams with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 441 arrests in the northern part of the state. Of those, 178 were targeted individuals who had either ignored final orders of deportation or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported. The other 263 were people encountered in the course of making the arrests who did not have legal authorization to be in the country, ICE officials said.

Roughly 1 in 5 of the people arrested had felony or misdemeanor criminal convictions, according to the agency. They included a 31-year-old Sacramento man with a record of transporting and selling heroin and a 41-year-old man from Watsonville with convictions for spousal rape and burglary. Both men had been previously deported and had returned to the United States.

Among those arrested in the Bay Area were 17 people in San Rafael taken into custody at their homes early Thursday, of whom four were targeted by immigration officials, said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

The San Rafael arrests sent fear through Mexican and Central American communities, which include many undocumented immigrants. Three San Rafael schools reported scores of student absences Thursday, including San Pedro Elementary School, which canceled its open house Thursday night because families were afraid to attend, district officials said.

San Pedro's principal, Kathryn Gibney, had testified before Congress two days earlier at a hearing on the emotional impact of immigration raids on children.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who chaired the hearing, contacted senior ICE officials Friday to express concern over the raids and suggest that current voluntary humanitarian guidelines covering workplace immigration raids should be mandatory for all ICE actions.

Kice emphasized that ICE did not make any arrests at schools.

"Our goal in making all these arrests is to involve as few third parties as possible," she said. "That's one reason we endeavor to make these arrests at residences."

E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/24/BAGJ10S63K.DTL

61 illegal immigrants detained in South L.A., officials say

2008-05-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

61 illegal immigrants detained in South L.A., officials say

Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

Three toddlers are among more than 60 illegal immigrants arrested in a South Los Angeles drop house this morning.

Immigration agents find 'a scene of squalor' while investigating a smuggling ring.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
1:49 PM PDT, May 14, 2008

More than 60 illegal immigrants, including three toddlers, were discovered at a house in South Los Angeles early this morning by federal immigration agents serving a search warrant as part of an investigation into a human smuggling ring, authorities said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the single-family, two-story home in the 10000 block of South Normandie Avenue about 6:30 a.m.. and found 61 Central and South American immigrants crowded into the house, with trash and rotting food piled 2 to 3 feet high in each room, agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. The immigrants told agents that they had been staying in the home since Friday.

"It was essentially a scene of squalor," Kice said.

The immigrants were transported to downtown Los Angeles for processing and interviews. It wasn't clear whether any of those discovered were complicit in the smuggling operation.

The immigrants were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Ecuador. There were six minors -- three teenagers and three toddlers -- among the group. Immigration and Customs was working with the consulates of those countries in an attempt to keep the young children with their mothers, Kice said.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation

2008-05-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation

Immigrants Sedated Without Medical Reason

by Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest | Washington Post Staff Writers

Page A1; May 14, 2008

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

"Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac," says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was "dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose," according to an airline crew member's written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards "taking down" a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.

In a Chicago holding cell early one evening in February 2006, five guards piled on top of a 49-year-old man who was angry he was going back to Ecuador, according to a nurse's account in his deportation file. As they pinned him down so the nurse could punch a needle through his coveralls into his right buttock, one officer stood over him menacingly and taunted, "Nighty-night."

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 -- the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security's new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

Federal officials have seldom acknowledged publicly that they sedate people for deportation. The few times officials have spoken of the practice, they have understated it, portraying sedation as rare and "an act of last resort." Neither is true, records and interviews indicate.

Records show that the government has routinely ignored its own rules, which allow deportees to be sedated only if they have a mental illness requiring the drugs, or if they are so aggressive that they imperil themselves or people around them.

Stung by lawsuits over two sedation cases, the agency changed its policy in June to require a court order before drugging any deportee for behavioral rather than psychiatric reasons. In at least one instance identified by The Post, the agency appears not to have followed those rules.

In the five years since its creation, ICE has stepped up arrests and removals of foreigners who are in the country illegally, have been turned down for asylum or have been convicted of a crime in the past.

If the government wants a detainee to be sedated, a deportation officer asks for permission for a medical escort from the aviation medicine branch of the Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS), the agency responsible for medical care for people in immigration custody. A mental health official in aviation medicine is supposed to assess the detainee's medical records, although some deportees' records contain no evidence of that happening. If the sedatives are approved, a U.S. public health nurse is assigned as the medical escort and given prescriptions for the drugs.

After injecting the sedatives, the nurse travels with the deportee and immigration guards to their destination, usually giving more doses along the way. To recruit medical escorts, the government has sought to glamorize this work. "Do you ever dream of escaping to exotic, exciting locations?" said an item in an agency newsletter. "Want to get away from the office but are strapped for cash? Make your dreams come true by signing up as a Medical Escort for DIHS!"

The nurses are required to fill out step-by-step medical logs for each trip. Hundreds of logs for the past five years, obtained by The Post, chronicle in vivid detail deviations from the government's sedation rules.

An analysis by The Post of the known sedations during fiscal 2007, ending last October, found that 67 people who got medical escorts had no documented psychiatric reason. Of the 67, psychiatric drugs were given to 53, 48 of whom had no documented history of violence, though some had managed to thwart an earlier attempt to deport them. These figures do not include two detainees who immigration officials said were given sedatives for behavioral rather than psychiatric reasons before being deported on group charter flights, which are often used to return people to Mexico and Central America.

Even some people who had been violent in the past proved peaceful the day they were sent home. "Dt calm at this time," says the first entry, using shorthand for "detainee," in the log for the January 2007 deportation of Yousif Nageib to his native Sudan. In requesting drugs for his deportation, an immigration officer had noted that Nageib, 40, had once fled to Canada to avoid an assault charge and had helped instigate a detainee uprising while in custody. But on the morning of his departure, the log says, he "is handcuffed and states he will do what we say." Still, he was injected in his right buttock with a three-drug cocktail.

In one printout of Nageib's medical log, next to the entry saying he was calm, is a handwritten asterisk. It was put there by Timothy T. Shack, then medical director of the immigration health division, as he reviewed last year's sedation cases. Next to the asterisk, in his neat, looping handwriting, Shack placed a single word: "Problem."

When he landed in Lagos, Nigeria, Afolabi Ade was unable to talk.

"Every time I tried to force myself to speak, I couldn't, because my tongue was . . . twisted. . . . I thought I was going to swallow it," Ade, 33, recalled in an interview. "I was nauseous. I was dizzy."

As he was being flown back to Africa, his American wife alerted his parents there that he was on his way. His father was waiting at the Lagos airport. It was the first time in three years that they had seen one another. Shocked by how woozy the young man was, his father decided not to take him home and frighten the rest of the family. Instead, he checked his son into a hotel.

Ade was in the hotel for four days before the effects of the drugs began to abate.

Part of a prominent Nigerian family, Ade asked The Post to identify him by only a portion of his name to protect their reputation. He had come to the United States as a college student in the mid-1990s. Five years later, he was in a car belonging to cousins when police found fraudulent checks in the trunk. He pleaded guilty.

After finishing his sentence, Ade was living in Atlanta, and was two semesters away from a telecommunications degree at DeVry University, when immigration officers came looking for him one day in January 2003. They wanted to deport him for the old crime. He called his probation officer to ask whether he could wait to surrender until he took his upcoming final exams. But when he went to the probation office, immigration officers were there to arrest him.

His records offer little explanation of why he was sedated. The one-page medical record in his file mentions one condition: chronic nasal allergy. The log of his trip does not mention mental illness; in the space to list current medical problems, a nurse wrote merely that Ade was anxious.

His drugging, however, fits a pattern that emerges from the cases analyzed by The Post: The largest group of people who were sedated had resisted attempts to deport them at least once before.

One summer day in 2003, deportation officers arrived at the rural Alabama jail where Ade was being held. Pack your bags, they told him. When they reached an immigration office in Atlanta, Ade recalled, half a dozen "big guys came to meet me and said I was there to be deported."

"I can't be deported," he replied. "I have a wife I love very much." Besides, he told them, he was still appealing his immigration case. He shouldn't have to leave, he protested, until the judge had ruled. That day, he was returned to Alabama. But he said that immigration officers warned him, "We'll find a way to get you on a plane."

A few weeks later, the officers came back and again took him to a holding cell in Atlanta. He was, the medical log says, becoming "increasingly anxious and non-cooperative per flt. to Nigeria." At 1:30 p.m., the log says, "Dt taken down by four" guards.

Ade was being held down, he recalled, when he noticed a nurse "with a needle and a bottle with some kind of substance in it." He said he told the guards: "Okay, fine, fine. If it's going to be like this, don't inject me. I will go on my own free will."

The nurse went ahead, the log shows, injecting him in the left shoulder with two milligrams of a powerful drug, Haldol, used to treat psychosis, and one milligram of an anti-anxiety drug, Ativan. He was injected with two more rounds, as well as a third drug, in progressively larger doses, during the trip.

The effects of those injections are what alarmed Ade's father after the plane landed in Lagos. Yet the medical log says Ade arrived "alert and oriented."

His family's doctor, who visited him on each of the four days his father hid him in the hotel, had a different view. "He was groggy -- somebody under the influence of drugs or drunkenness," recalled Olakunle Adigun, a general practitioner. He couldn't figure out what sedatives his patient had been given, so he tried to detoxify him with saline infusions.

Ade's pulse was dangerously low, and when he tried to walk around the hotel room, "he leaned on the wall," Adigun said. "He was talking, but a slurred kind of speech."

* * *

Internal government records show that most sedated deportees, such as Ade, received a cocktail of three drugs that included Haldol, also known as haloperidol, a medication normally used to treat schizophrenia and other acute psychotic states. Of the 53 deportees without a mental illness who were drugged in 2007, The Post's analysis found, 50 were injected with Haldol, sometimes in large amounts.

They were also given Ativan, used to control anxiety, and all but three were given Cogentin, a medication that is supposed to lessen Haldol's side effects of muscle spasms and rigidity. Two of the 53 deportees received Ativan alone. One person's medications were not specified.

Haldol gained notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it was often given to political dissidents imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals. "In the history of oppression, using haloperidol is kind of like detaining people in Abu Ghraib," the infamous prison in Iraq, said Nigel Rodley, who teaches international human rights law at the University of Essex in Britain and is a former United Nations special investigator on torture.

For people who are not psychotic, said Philip Seeman, a University of Toronto specialist in psychiatry and pharmacology, "prescribing Haldol . . . is medically and ethically wrong." Seeman studied the drug in the 1960s and later discovered the brain receptors on which several antipsychotic drugs work.

The only circumstances in which small amounts of Haldol are appropriate for non-psychotic people, Seeman said, are when a person comes into a hospital emergency room violent and agitated from an overdose of a drug such as PCP, or when someone with severe dementia is delusional or combative. "You or I wouldn't get it if we were emotionally upset," he said.

In addition, Seeman said, typical doses to help psychotic patients accustomed to the drug are perhaps five to 15 milligrams a day. Several deportees were given a total of 30 milligrams, which Seeman characterized as "really high," especially for people who have never taken the drug before.

Even when used for its intended patients, people with psychosis, Haldol has drawn warnings from the U.S. government. In September, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert citing "a number of case reports of sudden death" and other reports of dangerous changes in heart rhythm. It is, important, the FDA warned, to inject Haldol only into muscles, not veins, and to avoid doses that are too high.

"Pharma non grata" is the way Emergency Medicine News magazine described the drug after the FDA alert.

Beyond the specific drugs used, Rodley said, is a deeper question: "What is the least intrusive means of restraint consistent with the human dignity of the person? . . . I'd be very surprised if the injection of disabling chemicals against somebody's will that affect one's psychological well-being . . . is likely to be the least intrusive means."

Asked to explain the reason for using Haldol and other psychotropic drugs with people who are not mentally ill, ICE responded, "The medications used by Aviation Medicine are widely used in psychiatry." Agency officials said that medical escorts administer "the lowest dose possible." Combining Haldol and Ativan "allows you [to] use less of each," they said, and produces a quicker and longer sedative effect.

In the years before Ade was drugged, there had been an internal debate within the U.S. government over whether sedating deportees against their will is legal, according to confidential legal memos obtained by The Post. There was agreement that mentally ill people could be forced to take psychotropic medicine on their way out of the country. At dispute were cases in which the detainees were not mentally ill but combative -- known as "behavioral cases."

Near the end of the Clinton administration, Health and Human Services lawyers sent around a memo that warned, "[U]sing chemical restraints in cases in which medication is not clinically indicated . . . may put the government at risk of potential liability."

Another memo went further, concluding that it could be done only if a federal judge gave permission in advance. "[R]egarding detainees who are not mentally ill," the November 2000 document said, "involuntary medication of such persons for the sole purpose of subduing them during deportation, without a court order, is not supported by any legal authority and raises ethical issues, as well.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and after the Bush administration assumed a tough new stance on immigration in its campaign against terrorism, the Justice Department still sounded wary about drugging deportees. In March 2002, a Justice lawyer laid out two options. One choice, he wrote, was to "seek a court order . . . in every case where the alien's medication is not therapeutically justified." The other choice was to create a regulation to grant immigration officials explicit permission to sedate deportees, perhaps including safeguards that would give people a warning that they might be medicated -- and a chance to object.

Top immigration officials chose neither. Instead, in May 2003, just after ICE was created, they internally circulated a new policy: "[A]n ICE detainee with or without a diagnosed psychiatric condition who displays overt or threatening aggressive behavior . . . may be considered a combative detainee and can be sedated if appropriate under the circumstances."

Under that policy, scores of people have been sedated every year since then, usually with heavy psychotropic drugs.

Some countries forbid the practice. The medical files for several deportees recount disputes between U.S. officials, who wanted to inject a subject, and foreign officials, who would not allow it.

Immigration guards and a public health nurse ran into trouble in May 2004, during a stopover on a trip from Colorado to Guinea. The deportee had been given the three-drug cocktail at the airport gate before leaving Denver, the nurse wrote in the log. Three "booster doses" followed.

The last booster was given shortly before the plane landed in Belgium. "[N]o problem initially with Belgium security," the log says. "[T]hen approached and informed illegal to medicate detainee against their will in Belgium. Informed them pt wasn't medicated in Belgium airspace for which they replied that he is medicated in Belgium." In the end, the security officers let the deportation go ahead.

Immigration guards and a nurse had more trouble during another deportation to Guinea in April 2006, as they escorted a 34-year-old man from Atlanta, with a stop in France.

He had been given 15 milligrams of Haldol, as well as the two other drugs, by the time the flight reached Paris at 9:45 a.m. According to a nurse's report on the incident, the guards, nurse and deportee were met at the plane by French national police, who accompanied them to an airport police station to await the connecting flight to Africa later in the day.

Once at the station, one of the guards asked a French officer "where we could inject the detainee when needed." First, they were shown into a private area. But five minutes later, the nurse's report says, "a superior French police officer approached and informed me that any type of involuntary injection was strictly forbidden in France, and that we would have to wait until we were in the aircraft if we were to inject our detainee."

Six hours later, the entourage returned to the boarding area for the flight to Guinea. "When we arrived at the plane, the detainee became very argumentative, refusing to enter plane until [the guards] produced paperwork showing a final deportation order," the nurse wrote. The immigration officers tried to coax him onto the plane. He refused.

"I asked the French police if the ramp on the gate would be an appropriate place to medicate," the nurse wrote. "The French police's reply was that it was strictly forbidden." The plane's captain came over to say that he would not allow the deportee onto the flight. The guards and the nurse flew him back to Atlanta.

Five weeks later they tried again, and this time, they reached Guinea. By the time they arrived, a nurse had given the deportee nine injections of Haldol totaling 55 milligrams -- nearly four times as much as before.

* * *

One deportee who was sedated last year had convictions for armed robbery and assault. Another kept telling immigration officers, "I am God." But many of those injected with psychotropic drugs, records show, are neither violent nor mentally ill. They simply do not want to go home.

"[M]ild anxiety and agitation" is how a deportation log describes Remmy Semakula's state on the afternoon he was taken from his cell in the Middlesex County jail in New Jersey to be deported to Uganda in early April 2007. According to a memo from his deportation officer, he had said earlier that he would "fight with the officers and obstruct the operation of the airline" if guards tried to force him to go home. Semakula, 42, said that he had not tried to thwart his deportation and had not known it was imminent because his immigration case still was before a federal judge. "I never fought violently or physically," he said. "They just grabbed me and injected me with a sleeping drug."

The first time immigration agents tried to deport Michel Shango, he slammed his head, hard, against the outside of the van that had come to pick him up at Atlanta's city jail. Instead of being driven to the airport, then flown to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he was brought back to the jail so his wound could be tended to.

"I asked him why he feared being returned back to his country," an immigration officer wrote of the incident. Shango, now 42, replied that he had been a journalist and had written articles critical of the Congolese government. "Detainee stated . . . that he might as well die trying to avoid deportation," a second officer wrote, "because they will kill him as soon as he gets to the D.R. of the Congo."

Until early 1996, Shango worked in Congo, ghostwriting articles and supplying information to foreign correspondents about the repressive administration of President Mobutu Sese Seko, he said in telephone interviews from locations in Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, where friends are now helping him hide. Eventually Shango was arrested, he and two of his lawyers said, but he escaped to Canada, then settled in North Carolina, where he started a limousine business with a cousin in Charlotte. He married an American, who at first offered to help him become a citizen. The marriage dissolved. He applied for political asylum. He was turned down.

He was remarried to a Congolese woman by the time immigration officers came to his house at 4:30 one morning in May 2006. As his wife and their three American-born children cried at the frightening scene, the officers led him away at gunpoint.

On Feb. 28, 2007, three months after the first deportation attempt was aborted because of the head-banging incident, seven guards arrived at the Atlanta jail to make a second attempt. Shango glanced at his watch and noted that it was 1:45 p.m. "They pushed me against the wall," he recalled. "They pulled my pants down." His medical log shows that he was given seven shots in his right buttock and right shoulder before he boarded the airplane.

The log says his only psychological problem was "anxiety disorder."

By the time Shango reached Congo, records show, he had been injected with 32.5 milligrams of Haldol and 7.5 milligrams of Ativan. As he was thrown into a prison after he got off the plane, and even as friends helped him escape, he was so disoriented, he said, that he did not fully know where he was. For two weeks, Shango said, "It was like I was dreaming. . . . I started crying, crying, crying all day long. . . . I was like crazy, because [of] the drugs, knocking me down."

* * *

Of all the detainees who have been forcibly drugged, only two have drawn much public attention. Neither, in the end, was deported. And compared with other deportees, neither got large doses of sedatives. But publicity about their cases sent shock waves through the immigration bureaucracy. Raymond Soeoth, a Christian minister from Indonesia, had tried and failed to win asylum in the United States. While in custody at an immigration compound near Los Angeles, his medical log notes, Soeoth, now 39, he said he would kill himself if deported -- a statement his lawyers say he never made.

On Dec. 7, 2004, he was injected in the left buttock with five milligrams of Haldol and four milligrams of Cogentin before being taken to the airport. As it turned out, his deportation was canceled before takeoff because immigration officials had not alerted airline security in Singapore, a stopover point.

Amadou Diouf came to the United States from Senegal as a student in 1996 and got a degree in information systems from California State University at Northridge. He married a U.S. citizen and was trying to change his immigration status when, in March 2005, he was arrested and brought to the same compound as Soeoth.

Eleven months later, as he was still appealing his case and, according to his lawyers, had a court order blocking his deportation, immigration officers came for him and took him to the airport for the trip back to Senegal.

At first, records show, Diouf, now 32, was calm. He was already sitting in a window seat, 4A, when he demanded to speak to the plane's captain. He "became more agitated, anxious and loud in his dialogue," according to the medical log. A nurse said he would be given "some calming medicine," but when Diouf saw the needle, he lunged. Guards "proceeded to take down the detainee to the ground" in the plane's galley, and the nurse injected him with five milligrams of Haldol, two milligrams of Ativan and two milligrams of Cogentin.

At that point, the guards and nurse called off the trip. Diouf was returned to his cell. In early May 2007, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California was drafting a lawsuit on behalf of Soeoth and Diouf and told a local newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, about their sedations. Across the continent, inside the immigration health division's headquarters in downtown Washington, the publicity's effect was electric.

The next day, the chief of psychiatry for the division's aviation medicine branch dispatched a memo. "I have stopped all planned non-psychiatric behavioral escorts, of which 10 are currently planned," he wrote, until government lawyers "have formalized policy in regards to this type of escort activity."

A month and a half later, the medical escort rules were changed. Except in psychiatric cases, according to a confidential June 21 memo from ICE, the health division "must have a court order to assist. . . . [ICE in] removal of problematic detainees." In January, the language was made even stronger: "DIHS may only involuntarily sedate an alien to facilitate removal where the government has obtained a court order. There are no exceptions to this policy."

The newest rules were issued less than three weeks before the government tentatively settled the lawsuit with Soeoth and Diouf, who are now out of custody. The government is no longer trying to deport Soeoth; Diouf is still fighting to remain in the country.

How well the government is following its new rules is unclear. Asked how many court orders the government has sought, immigration officials said that none "have been issued to involuntarily sedate an alien for removal purposes," but they declined to discuss whether any requests are pending.

In one known case in which government lawyers sought a court order, they withdrew the request after a congressman intervened. On Oct. 1, a federal judge in Texas was asked for permission to sedate Rrustem Neza. Immigration officers had canceled their first attempt to deport him to Albania because he created a scene at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, screaming, "I am not a terrorist."

One week after the government filed its motion, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), a former judge, wrote to the court, saying he had "grave concerns" about the government's desire to medicate his constituent to deport him. "Mr. Neza fled Albania after telling a crowd in Tropoje the names of the men who were seen killing Azem Hajdari, who organized a student movement against the Communist Party. Mr. Neza's cousins were fatally shot while fleeing with him," the congressman wrote. "[S]edating Mr. Neza amounts to a death sentence for an innocent man."

Last March, after Gohmert had spoken about Neza's case with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and after he had introduced legislation to block Neza's deportation, the issue was dropped.

* * *

In at least one instance since the rules were changed, the government apparently drugged a deportee without permission from a judge. Maher Ayoub, now 44, was sent back to Egypt last August. A month later, immigration officials told Congress that they had not yet asked for a court order in any case.

Ayoub had thwarted the first attempt to deport him, a few months earlier, by sitting in a van and demanding all the paperwork in his immigration file. He said he spent the next three months in segregation in an Elizabeth, N.J., detention center. The next time they tried to send him home, immigration officers were determined to make sure he would go quietly.

His record offers contradictory evidence about whether there was psychiatric justification for the drugs he got, though it seems to suggest that there was not. A one-page "patient summary" for Ayoub says "Med/Psych Alert Documents: None." His medical escort log labels him a mental health case and says he had a "depressed mood" and an "anxiety state."

A handwritten note in his escort file, from a psychiatrist who saw him at the Elizabeth center, first says Ayoub was not likely to endanger himself or anyone else -- then, lower on the same page, says he might. On the next page of the file is another note, this one written two days before his flight, from the psychiatrist in charge of aviation medicine. It says that Ayoub's case is a "behavioral escort," not a psychiatric one, and that the nurse "is only to give medications to the patient if he agrees to take them. He will only use involuntary treatment if the patient is at imminent risk of hurting himself or others."

That is not what happened.

"Detainee tearful and wringing hands," his medical log begins. An hour later, it says: "Detainee increasingly agitated and resisting clothing change. Detainee is now crying and screaming" at two guards. A nurse at the Elizabeth detention center slid two milligrams of the anti-anxiety drug, Ativan, into his left shoulder.

Immigration officials said his deportation was "consistent" with the June policy that allows medication only when a detainee "may be a risk to himself or others."

"I was feeling my head was leaving my body," Ayoub remembers. "I was losing control over my body." He was groggy but awake when he arrived with guards and the nurse at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and boarded the nonstop flight to Egypt.

Before the plane took off, he remembers, he called over a flight attendant and "asked them to tell the pilot I didn't want to leave." The nurse stuck a needle into his right arm this time. That injection put him to sleep.

Staff researcher Julie Tate and database editor Sarah Cohen contributed to this report.

Comment on this story.

Hundreds arrested in Iowa immigration raid

2008-05-13T00:07:00.001-07:00

Hundreds arrested in Iowa immigration raid
By Nigel Duara and William Petroski, The Des Moines Register
POSTVILLE, Iowa — A raid by federal immigration officials at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant may have resulted in as many as 700 arrests, immigration officials said Monday

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex in northeast Iowa Monday morning to execute a criminal search warrant for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, said Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman.

Agents are also executing a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States, he said.

Immigration officials told aides to Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, that they expect 600 to 700 arrests. About 1,000 to 1,050 people work at the plant, according to Iowa Workforce Development, the state's employment services agency.

Chuck Larson, a truck driver for Agriprocessing, was in the plant when the agents arrived. "There has to be 100 of them," he said of the agents.

Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers, to stand to the left.

"There was plenty of hollering," Larson said. "You couldn't go anywhere."

When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.

PHOENIX: 53 illegal immigrants held against will

ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Postville did not confirm or deny that anyone had been detained, but went on to say that the children of those detained would be cared for and that "their caregiver situation will be addressed."

"They were asked multiple times if they have any sole-caregiver issues or any childcare issues," Ort said.

Aides to Braley said they have been told that "hundreds" of arrests are expected because the action is more of an "investigation" than an immigration raid, and specific individuals are being targeted for arrest as part of the investigation.

Counts described the events in Postville as a "single site operation." He said he was not aware of any other immigration raids being conducted elsewhere Monday.

Postville Police Chief Michael Halse said he did not know anything about the raid until Monday morning.

Postville is a community of more than 2,500 people that includes natives of German and Norwegian heritage and newcomers who include Hasidic Jews from New York, plus immigrants from Mexico, Russian, Ukraine and many other countries.

The Agriprocessors plant, known as the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, is northeast Iowa's largest employer.

About 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville in 1987, when butcher Aaron Rubashkin of Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood reopened a defunct meat-packing plant with his two sons, Sholom and Heshy, just outside the city limits. Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominantly Lutheran community.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said that the Postville immigration investigations were warranted despite concerns that federal official violated the constitutional rights of people in past raids.

"Remember our concern has not been about whether or not there should be raids," Vilsack said. "It's the way the raids have been conducted and the way in which American citizens' rights have been violated by virtue of sort of a roundup process that's used and what we think are inappropriate and unconstitutional actions on the part of immigration officials."

Vilsack and others have alleged that immigration officials used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long periods of secrecy in the Dec. 12, 2006, raids at Swift & Co. in Marshalltown, Iowa, where 90 people were arrested on immigration charges.

—

Contributing: Jane Norman, The Des Moines Register

Immigration Checkpoint

2008-05-11T21:29:00.001-07:00

Immigration raids catch citizens and legal residents

2008-05-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

Immigration raids catch citizens and legal residents
09:53 AM CDT on Saturday, May 10, 2008
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News
dsolis@dallasnews.com

Two U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident were among those arrested last month in Mount Pleasant, Texas, during a federal immigration crackdown targeting identity fraud at poultry giant Pilgrim's Pride.

One 19-year-old citizen was taken from her home while still in her pajamas, and an 18-year-old citizen was shackled at his ankles, handcuffed at his wrists and tied at his waist, said the arrested workers and a relative. All three speak mostly Spanish.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, contends that such arrests are rare and that when it does happen, citizens are immediately released.

But across the U.S., reports of arrests and detentions of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents are increasing.

Lawyers and immigrant-defense groups said such incidents will continue to rise as the federal government deepens its crackdown against illegal immigrants – one of the broadest such actions in 50 years.

Raids have intensified in the last two years – a get-tough approach in the absence of comprehensive immigration legislation.

Federal lawsuits

Two federal lawsuits representing 122 workers have been filed challenging mass detentions of U.S. citizens, during immigration raids. All were either citizens or people in the U.S. with legal status.

Juan Manuel Carrillo, 18, who worked at the Mount Pleasant Pilgrim's plant for $9.75 an hour, was one of 46 arrested in a pre-dawn dragnet that included 300 ICE agents and other personnel.

He said he told officials that he was a U.S. citizen.

"I said I was born in San Diego, and they said they didn't believe me," Mr. Carrillo recounted, in Spanish. "I said I was telling the truth. They said I was working with another's Social Security number."

Mr. Carrillo said that when his 17-year-old brother, Marco Antonio, brought him his U.S. passport, immigration agents insisted the pair were lying and asked him where he bought the passport.

Mr. Carrillo was taken to Mexico as a toddler by his Mexican-born parents and lived there for 15 years, before returning to the U.S. about a year ago. He speaks little English.

Xochitl Delgado, 19 and also a worker at Pilgrim's Pride, was arrested in her home in the early morning of April 16 and taken into custody still in her pajamas, said her older sister, Griselda Delgado.

She said her sister, born in the U.S., is still too traumatized to speak about the arrest.

"Every time she remembers she cries," Griselda Delgado said. "Before they take a person away, they should do a deeper investigation about who has documents."

Mr. Carrillo said he remembers Ms. Delgado sitting in a cell in her pajamas and sandals. ICE officials said Xochitl Delgado was wearing "an ample sweat suit."

U.S. prosecutor

Alan Jackson, a Tyler-based assistant U.S. attorney, said all criminal charges have been dismissed against the three workers, arrested on suspicion of using a Social Security number not issued to them.

"After the arrest, we determined that dismissal was appropriate," he said.

Asked if investigators believed that the three were using false Social Security numbers, even though they had authentic ones, Mr. Jackson said: "What it means is that we felt the evidence that they were using someone else's Social Security number wasn't strong enough."

Mr. Jackson said that his office moved quickly to dismiss charges against Ms. Delgado.

"We were racing against the clock to do it and get the district clerk to stay late enough to process it," he said.

The indictment against Xochitl Delgado was dismissed "in the interests of justice" at 5:03 p.m. April 17, about 35 hours after her arrest, according to the pleading in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Texarkana Division.

Mr. Jackson declined to comment on whether those arrested might themselves be victims of identity theft.

But ICE spokesman Virginia Kice noted that, in general, the burden of proof rests with the federal government for establishing what it calls "alienage" – or whether a person was born outside the U.S.

There is no comprehensive government database that establishes who holds U.S. citizenship, she added.

Jesus García, a 27-year-old legal permanent resident, was also picked up by authorities and his arrest was photographed by a newspaper owner who followed ICE agents to several locations.

Mr. García insisted that he'd broken no immigration laws. Eventually, he was released and reunited with his U.S. citizen wife and five daughters.

"I was not to blame for any of the charges," said Mr. García, who no longer works at the Pilgrim's plant.

Federal immigration agents and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, John L. Ratcliffe, said at a Dallas news conference in April that the national arrests were part of "an ongoing criminal investigation" into criminal activity involving alleged identity theft.

Of the more than 300 workers arrested at five Pilgrim's plants across the country, about a third were criminally charged, immigration officials said.

A spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride Corp. – based in Pittsburg, Texas, with $7.59 billion in revenue last year – said the company cooperated with officials and has not been charged.

Matt Yarbrough, a lawyer who has prosecuted immigration-related crimes as a former assistant U.S. attorney, said the operation at Pilgrim's Pride raises questions about excess use of law enforcement power.

"There is reasonable and then there is overly aggressive," said Mr. Yarbrough, who prosecuted an immigration raid against the Pappas restaurant chain in the 1990s.

"Those factors to a court are going to seem overreaching and ultimately the government could be liable for falsely imprisoning someone."

Peter Schey, president and executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles, said he believes that U.S. citizens are increasingly facing federal immigration agents who are incredulous about their U.S. citizenship.

"If more U.S. citizens exercise their rights to seek damages in these illegal detentions," that could cause the Department of Homeland Security to re-evaluate the way they search for those in the U.S. illegally, Mr. Schey said.

READ THE complaint by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. dallasnews.com/extra

ICE raids on homes panic schools, politicians

2008-05-07T12:47:00.001-07:00

ICE raids on homes panic schools, politicians

Jill Tucker,Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writers

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

(05-06) 19:24 PDT Oakland -- Immigration arrests at homes in Berkeley and Oakland on Tuesday sent a wave of panic among parents in both cities, as authorities mistakenly believed immigration agents were raiding schools.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were in both cities Tuesday, performing routine fugitive operations, spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. Teams go out virtually every day looking for specific "immigration fugitives," she said.

Officers arrested four family members at a Berkeley home and a woman at an Oakland residence. They were not at schools.

Yet, within the next few hours, rumors of raids circulated throughout the communities.

In Berkeley, school district Superintendent Bill Huyet sent out an automated phone message to all parents notifying them that a Latino family had been picked up and assuring them that the district would "not allow any child to be taken away from the school."

In Oakland, Mayor Ron Dellums and three school board members converged at the end of the school day on Stonehurst Elementary School along with immigration rights advocates, saying they believed ICE agents "would return."

"In my view, that is the ugly side of government," Dellums said. "No way children should ever be treated to that kind of harassment and fear."

He said police officers will be posted at the campus Wednesday to ensure that federal immigration officials don't come onto school grounds. He added that federal officials have assured him they will not be at schools.

Initially, Oakland district officials said federal agents were at Stonehurst and denied entry by school staff. By late afternoon, they rescinded that, saying that an ICE vehicle was seen nearby. Berkeley officials also said no agents were at local schools.

Still, state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, got involved.

"There should be an immediate freeze on ICE raids directed at schoolchildren while legislation aiming to fix immigration is considered," he said in a statement.

Later, immigration advocates said they believed ICE vans were circling schools and intimidating the community, noting that ICE officers accompanied a mother onto an Oakland school campus in December before questioning her in a workplace investigation.

Kice said Tuesday's rumors took on a life of their own.

In most cases, ICE fugitive operations take place at residences or sometimes at places of employment, she said. "A school is not a place we would routinely conduct an enforcement operation for a variety of reasons," Kice said.

The fear across the communities, however, was real.

"People are terrified," said Berkeley Unified spokesman Mark Coplan. "There is a lot of speculation."

Larry Bensky's fifth-grade daughter came home from Berkeley's LeConte Elementary School on Tuesday saying she had no homework because it was "ICE week," which meant "they" were going after the families of the Latino children.

"She doesn't know what ICE is," Bensky said. "She doesn't know what targeted is. You can imagine it's very disturbing for children that from one day to the next that a child they sit next to could be kidnapped, arrested and deported."

E-mail the writers at jtucker@sfchronicle.com and jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.

Border busts coming and going

2008-05-07T12:41:00.001-07:00

From the Los Angeles Times

Border busts coming and going

At random times in San Diego near the border, vehicles are searched. Most detainees without criminal records or numerous immigration violations are released in a few hours, officials say. Photo Gallery

By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 7, 2008

SAN DIEGO — U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they're catching them on the way out.

At random times near the Tijuana-San Diego border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been setting up checkpoints, boarding buses destined for Mexico and pulling off people who don't have proper documentation.

The operation appears to be an expansion of a broader federal crackdown targeting illegal immigrants in jails, airports and workplaces across the country.

The checkpoints, which are not announced in advance, are set up on southbound Interstate 5 about 100 yards north of the border. Vehicles in all lanes must stop.

Vincent Bond, an agency spokesman, said departing immigrants are fair targets.

"If our officers come upon people who are here illegally . . . regardless of whether they're leaving the country, we detain them, make a record of the fact they were here illegally and return them to Mexico," Bond said.

Immigrant rights groups and other critics say the crackdown is a sad reflection of growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the country.

"The policies of the Bush administration are designed to make life so difficult for immigrants in the U.S. illegally that they're forced to leave. . . . Now they're arresting people who they are actually driving out of the country. . . . Unbelievable," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a Washington-based immigration reform group.

But some GOP politicians and anti-illegal immigration organizations praise federal authorities for widening their enforcement efforts. A spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) said agents were simply doing their job.

"Whether people are coming or going . . . checkpoints are just another line of defense that targets illegal behavior," Joe Kasper said.

Customs and Border Protection, which typically provides detailed statistics on apprehensions, would not disclose details of the checkpoint operation. Nor would they say how long it has been underway.

The checkpoints have been randomly deployed since the Sept. 11 attacks, with inspectors typically looking for fugitives, stolen vehicles, weapons, drugs and other contraband.

Illegal immigrants became targets for arrest at the checkpoints only a few months ago, according to immigrant rights groups and human rights organizations in Mexico. It is unclear how frequently the checkpoints have been set up.

But Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, a San Diego-based group, said he believes that hundreds of immigrants have been arrested since the crackdown began.

Over a half-hour period April 30, agents appeared to be pulling over every bus and van heading for the border. But any vehicle, including cars, that agents deem suspicious may be stopped and searched.

Inspectors detained five young men from one bus traveling from Los Angeles to Puebla, a city southeast of Mexico City. After the inspectors made their apprehensions, only two passengers remained onboard.

"Pobrecitos (poor people)," said Lily Lujan, who watched the immigrants being arrested as she walked to the border crossing. "They were almost home. If they're already leaving the country, what's the problem?"

Federal agents say the checkpoints are a productive way to stop dangerous criminals, drug shipments and money launderers.

The illegal immigrants they apprehend are typically turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol for processing. Unless they have serious criminal records or numerous immigration violations, most are returned to Mexico within a few hours, the agents say.

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center of Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego, said he was not aware of similar crackdowns in the past. The checkpoints make sense for intercepting contraband, but targeting illegal immigrants voluntarily leaving the country is a "bizarre" way of handling the illegal immigration question, he said.

Other critics call it an enormous waste of resources and say it could be counterproductive and discourage immigrants from going home.

"There are people that want to go back, and even though they haven't done anything wrong, they might be intimidated from leaving," said Morones of the Border Angels. "It makes no sense."

But groups that fight illegal immigration praise federal authorities for showing more willingness to enforce existing immigration laws aggressively. Focusing on the criminality of people entering the country is only part of the job of border agencies, they say.

Rick Oltman, spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, said he hoped that the crackdown on departing illegal immigrants would be expanded to other exit points across the country.

He said apprehended immigrants who returned home to Mexico would become "ambassadors of enforcement" and might help deter illegal immigration.

"Each one of these people will then report increased enforcement to family and friends when they do get home, and that will give them second thoughts about sneaking back into the U.S.," he said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

U.S. lease of Waterloo fairgrounds raises questions

2008-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

U.S. lease of Waterloo fairgrounds raises questions
By Petroski William
The Des Moines Register, May 6, 2008
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/NEWS10/805060374/1001/

Federal officials have imposed a news blackout at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, where they have leased almost the entire property through May 25.

Tim Counts, a Midwest spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, declined to say Monday whether an immigration raid is pending that would use the fairgrounds as a detention center.

'ICE never talks about our investigative activity or possible future enforcement actions,' Counts said. 'Regarding the exercise in Waterloo, there is currently no publicly releasable information about that, so we aren't releasing any.'

He declined to say whether the 'exercise' involves training or an immigration enforcement operation.

'We expect that at some point there will be additional information available, but I can't speculate at what point that might be,' Counts said.

In December 2006, ICE conducted an immigration raid at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Marshalltown. Many workers were transported to Camp Dodge in Johnston, where military barracks were used as temporary detention facilities. A total of 1,282 Swift workers were arrested in Iowa and five other states in the biggest crackdown in history on immigration violations at one company.

The Waterloo Courier on Sunday reported that contractors have installed generators adjacent to many buildings at the fairgrounds.

In addition, windows on many buildings have been covered up, blocking views inside. A number of mobile-home-size trailers have been transported to the privately owned grounds.

Doug Miller, general manager of the Cattle Congress, declined Monday to release a copy of his group's rental contract with U.S. General Services Administration. He also indicated he was in the dark about what's happening inside the fairgrounds.

'I have no idea. They are conducting whatever exercise they are conducting without telling me all the details of it. I don't have any information to share with you, really,' Miller said.

Representatives of Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley said they had no information about what was happening at the Cattle Congress fairgrounds.

At Grassley's request, his staff called ICE officials on Monday.

'During the call, the ICE officials would neither confirm nor deny anything to Senator Grassley's staff,' said Beth Pellett Levine, a Grassley aide.

Armando Villareal, administrator of the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs, said he hadn't heard any reports about impending immigration raids. But he added that many Latinos in Iowa are feeling tension and fear.

'Folks have resigned themselves that something terrible is going to happen between now and the election. It is more like a resignation that something is going to happen,' Villareal said.

Photo By: Matthew Putney/Waterloo Courier

Contractors connect duct piping from a generator to a building on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo on Saturday as the property, leased by the U.S. government, is prepared for a federal project.

Yale Law Students Request Temporary Release of Pregnant Immigrant

2008-05-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Yale Law Students Request Temporary Release of Pregnant Immigrant
BY: Lucy Nalpathanchil - Mon, 05/05/2008 - 16:

Woman who fled Sierra Leone will be placed in immigration detention this week

Mahawa Conde and her son, Fode: Photo courtesy of Michael TanYale Law School students are representing an immigrant who may give birth while being held in a federal detention facility.

35-year-old Mahawa Conde fled Sierre Leone in 1998. She settled in Maryland where she met her husband and lived with their two children.

Her attorney, Yale Law student, Michael Tan, says the school's legal clinic decided to represent Conde because her circumstances are far from ordinary.

"Namely describing her experiences of sex slavery during the Sierra Leonean civil war, her forcible genital mutilation and also the fact she is very pregnant right now in FCI Danbury."

Conde is at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury on a theft conviction. She completes her six month sentence this week.

But Tan says she overstayed her visa and her application seeking asylum was never completed.

So, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE has a detainer on Conde which means she'll be turned over to federal custody. Tan says ICE may consider Conde's expired visa and theft conviction as grounds for deportation.
She's expected to give birth May 16.

Tan and his co-counsel have asked ICE to grant Conde temporary supervised release, allowing her to have her baby outside of detention and spend time with her family before returning to ICE custody.

Her husband, Thierno Camera, is also an immigrant who was granted asylum in the US from Guinea.
Camera says his wife's absense is especially hard for his young children

"You told me, 'Mommy was going to come at Christmas, we didn't see Mommy. I said, Mommy was busy but I promise you Mother's Day, she will be here.' "

ICE Spokeswoman, Paula Grenier would not provide specifics on Conde other than to confirm she will be turned over to ICE this week.

Grenier says ICE treats all detainees fairly and takes into consideration humanitarian requests.

When asked whether ICE has granted temporary supervised release to other detainees based on humanitarian grounds, Grenier replied, "every day."

UPDATE: 5-6-08

Federal immigration authorities have agreed to temporarily release a pregnant woman from Sierra Leone who was living in the US on an expired visa. 35-year-old Mahawa Conde had been serving a six-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury on a theft conviction. She was scheduled to be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody yesterday because she had been living in the country illegally. But attorneys at Yale's legal clinic asked ICE to grant Conde temporary release because she's due to give birth next Friday and because of medical complications that stemmed from sexual abuse she suffered in her native Sierra Leone. Her attorney, Michael Tan says Conde will be allowed to be with her family for three months. In an email statement, ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier told WNPR that Conde will be ordered to appear at a later date relating to her immigration status. Grenier said that ICE routinely makes decisions based on humanitarian concerns.

===========

Few Details on Immigrants Who Died in Custody

2008-05-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

Published on Monday, May 5, 2008 by The New York Times

Few Details on Immigrants Who Died in Custody

by Nina Bernstein

Word spread quickly inside the windowless walls of the Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey: A detainee had fallen, injured his head and become incoherent. Guards had put him in solitary confinement, and late that night, an ambulance had taken him away more dead than alive.

But outside, for five days, no official notified the family of the detainee, Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea who had overstayed a tourist visa. When frantic relatives located him at University Hospital in Newark on Feb. 5, 2007, he was in a coma after emergency surgery for a skull fracture and multiple brain hemorrhages. He died there four months later without ever waking up, leaving family members on two continents trying to find out why.

Mr. Bah’s name is one of 66 on a government list of deaths that occurred in immigration custody from January 2004 to November 2007, when nearly a million people passed through.

The list, compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after Congress demanded the information, and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, is the fullest accounting to date of deaths in immigration detention, a patchwork of federal centers, county jails and privately run prisons that has become the nation’s fastest-growing form of incarceration.

The list has few details, and they are often unreliable, but it serves as a rough road map to previously unreported cases like Mr. Bah’s. And it reflects a reality that haunts grieving families like his: the difficulty of getting information about the fate of people taken into immigration custody, even when they die.

Mr. Bah’s relatives never saw the internal records labeled “proprietary information - not for distribution” by the Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the New Jersey detention center for the federal government. The documents detail how he was treated by guards and government employees: shackled and pinned to the floor of the medical unit as he moaned and vomited, then left in a disciplinary cell for more than 13 hours, despite repeated notations that he was unresponsive and intermittently foaming at the mouth.

Mr. Bah had lived in New York for a decade, surrounded by a large circle of friends and relatives. The extravagant gowns he sewed to support his wife and children in West Africa were on display in a Manhattan boutique.

But he died in a sequestered system where questions about what had happened to him, or even his whereabouts, were met with silence.

As the country debates stricter enforcement of immigration laws, thousands of people who are not American citizens are being locked up for days, months or years while the government decides whether to deport them. Some have no valid visa; some are legal residents, but have past criminal convictions; others are seeking asylum from persecution.

Death is a reality in any jail, and the medical neglect of inmates is a perennial issue. But far more than in the criminal justice system, immigration detainees and their families lack basic ways to get answers when things go wrong.

No government body is required to keep track of deaths and publicly report them. No independent inquiry is mandated. And often relatives who try to investigate the treatment of those who died say they are stymied by fear of immigration authorities, lack of access to lawyers, or sheer distance.

Federal officials say deaths are reviewed internally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which reports them to its inspector general and decides which ones warrant investigation. Officials say they notify the detainee’s next of kin or consulate, and report the deaths to local medical authorities, who may conduct autopsies. In Mr. Bah’s case, a review before his death found no evidence of foul play, an immigration spokesman said, though after later inquiries from The Times, he said a full review of the death was under way.

But critics, including many in Congress, say this piecemeal process leaves too much to the agency’s discretion, allowing some deaths to be swept under the rug while potential witnesses are transferred or deported. They say it also obscures underlying complaints about medical care, abusive conditions or inadequate suicide prevention.

In January, the House passed a bill that would require states that receive certain federal money to report deaths in custody to their attorneys general. But the bill is stalled in the Senate, and it does not cover federal facilities.

The only tangible result of Congressional concern has been the list of 66 deaths, which names Mr. Bah and many other detainees for the first time, but raises as many questions as it answers.

For Mr. Bah’s survivors, the mystery of his death is hard to bear. In Guinea, his first wife, Dalanda, wept as she spoke about the contradictory accounts that had reached her and her two teenage sons through other detainees, including some who speculated that Mr. Bah had been beaten.

In New York, a cousin who is an American citizen, Khadidiatou Bah, 38, said she was unable to bring a lawsuit, in part because other relatives were afraid of antagonizing the authorities.

“They don’t want to push the case, or maybe they will be sent home,” she said. “This guy was killed, and we don’t know what happened.”

Lingering Questions

The list of deaths where Mr. Bah’s name surfaced is often cryptic. Along with 13 deaths cited as suicides and 14 as the result of cardiac ailments, it offers such causes as “undetermined” and “unwitnessed arrest, epilepsy.” No one’s nationality is given, some places of detention are omitted, and some names and birth dates seem garbled. As a result, many families could not be tracked down for this article.

But when they could be, they posed more disturbing questions.

In California, relatives of Walter Rodriguez-Castro, 28, said they were rebuffed when they tried to find out why his calls had stopped coming from the Kern County Jail in Bakersfield in April 2006. Then in June, his wife went to his scheduled hearing in San Francisco’s immigration court and learned that he had been dead for many weeks, his body unclaimed in the county morgue.

The coroner found that Mr. Rodriguez-Castro, a mover from El Salvador in the country illegally, had died of undiagnosed meningitis and H.I.V., after days complaining of fever, stiff neck and vomiting. The cause of death on the government’s list: “unresponsive.”

Immigration authorities said on Friday that the case was now under review, but would not answer questions about it or other deaths on the list. Sgt. Ed Komin, a spokesman for the jail, said the death had been promptly reported to immigration officials, who were responsible for notifying families.

Four sons in another family, in Sacramento, described trying for days to get medical care for their father, Maya Nand, a 56-year-old legal immigrant from Fiji, at a detention center run by the Corrections Corporation in Eloy, Ariz. Mr. Nand, an architectural draftsman, had been ailing when he was taken into custody on Jan. 13, 2005, apparently because his application for citizenship had been rejected, based on an earlier conviction for misdemeanor domestic violence. In collect calls, the sons said, he told them that despite his chest pains and breathing problems, doctors at the detention center did not take his condition seriously.

The Corrections Corporation said he had been seen and treated “multiple times.” But a letter to the family from an immigration official said his treatment was for a respiratory infection. The letter said that Mr. Nand was taken to an emergency room on Jan. 25, where congestive heart failure was diagnosed, and that he “suffered an apparent heart attack while at the hospital.” He died on Feb. 2, 2005, shackled to a hospital bed in Tucson.

Boubacar Bah had more going for him than many detainees. He had a lawyer and many friends and relatives in the United States, and his detention center in New Jersey was one of the few frequented by immigrant advocates.

But three days after he suffered a head injury in detention last year, no one in his New York circle knew that he was lying comatose in a Newark hospital, where he had already been identified as a possible organ donor.

“Thank you for the referral,” an organ-sharing network wrote on Feb. 3, 2007, according to hospital records. “This patient is a potential candidate for organ donation once brain death criteria is met.”

Four days after the fall, tipped off by a detainee who called Mr. Bah’s roommate in Brooklyn, relatives rushed to the detention center to ask Corrections Corporation employees where he was.

“They wouldn’t give us any information,” said Lamine Dieng, an American citizen who teaches physics at Bronx Community College and is married to Mr. Bah’s cousin Khadidiatou.

On the fifth day, they said, a detention official called them with the name of the hospital. There they found Mr. Bah on life support, still in custody, with a detention guard around the clock.

“There was one guard who knew Boubacar,” Ms. Bah said. “He told me on the down-low: ‘This guy, you have to fight for him. This guy was neglected.’ ”

Within the week, word of the case reached a reporter at The Times, through an immigration lawyer who had received separate calls from two detainees; they were upset about a badly injured man - named “something like Aboubakar” - left in an isolation cell and later found near death.

But advocacy groups said they were unaware of the case. And Michael Gilhooly, the spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that without the man’s full name and eight-digit alien registration number, he could not check the information.

For those who knew Mr. Bah, it was hard to understand how such a man could lie dying without explanations.

“Everybody liked Boubacar,” said Sadio Diallo, 48, who has a tailor shop in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where he and Mr. Bah had shared an apartment with fellow immigrants since arriving in 1998. “He’s a very, very, very good man.”

For six years, Mr. Bah had worked for L’Impasse, a clothing store in the West Village, sewing dresses that sold for up to $2,000 with what a former manager, Abdul Sall, called his “magic hands.” Mr. Bah often spent Sundays at the Bronx townhouse his cousins had inherited from the family’s first American citizen, a seaman who arrived in 1943.

In Africa, Mr. Bah’s earnings not only supported his first wife, sons and ailing mother, but in Guinean tradition, allowed him to wed a second wife, long distance. It was his longing to see them all again after eight years that landed him in detention. When he returned from a three-month visit to Guinea in May 2006, immigration authorities at Kennedy Airport told him that his green card application had been denied while he was away, automatically revoking his permission to re-enter the United States. An immigration lawyer hired by his friends was unable to reopen the application while Mr. Bah waited for nine months in detention, records showed.

Mr. Bah died on May 30, 2007, after four months in a coma. His lawyer, Theodore Vialet, requested detention reports and hospital records under the Freedom of Information Act. But by the time the records arrived last autumn, the idea of a lawsuit had been dropped.

So Mr. Vialet just filed the records away - until a reporter’s call about a name on the list of dead detainees prompted him to dig them out.

After the Fall

There are 57 pages of documents, some neatly typed by medics, some scrawled by guards. Some quote detainees who said Mr. Bah was ailing for two days before his fall on Feb. 1, and asked in vain to see a doctor.

The records leave unclear exactly when or how Mr. Bah was injured in detention. But they leave no doubt that guards, supervisors, government medical employees and federal immigration officers played a role in leaving him untreated, hour after hour, as he lapsed into a stupor.

It began about 8 a.m., according to the earliest report. Guards called a medical emergency after a detainee saw Mr. Bah collapse near a toilet, hitting the back of his head on the floor.

When he regained consciousness, Mr. Bah was taken to the medical unit, which is run by the federal Public Health Service. He became incoherent and agitated, reports said, pulling away from the doctor and grabbing at the unit staff. Physicians consulted later by The Times called this a textbook symptom of intracranial bleeding, but apparently no one recognized that at the time.

He was handcuffed and placed in leg restraints on the floor with medical approval, “to prevent injury,” a guard reported. “While on the floor the detainee began to yell in a foreign language and turn from side to side,” the guard wrote, and the medical staff deemed that “the screaming and resisting is behavior problems.”

Mr. Bah was ordered to calm down. Instead, he kept crying out, then “began to regurgitate on the floor of medical,” the report said. So Mr. Bah was written up for disobeying orders. And with the approval of a physician assistant, Michael Chuley, who wrote that Mr. Bah’s fall was unwitnessed and “questionable,” the tailor was taken in shackles to a solitary confinement cell with instructions that he be monitored.

Under detention protocols, an officer videotaped Mr. Bah as he lay vomiting in the medical unit, but the camera’s battery failed, guards wrote, when they tried to tape his trip to cell No. 7.

Inside the cell, a supervisor removed Mr. Bah’s restraints. He was unresponsive to questions asked by the Public Health Service officer on duty, a report said, adding: “The detainee set up in his bed and moan and he fell to his left side and hit his head on the bed rail.”

About 9 a.m., with the approval of the health officer and a federal immigration agent, the cell was locked.

The watching began. As guards checked hourly, Mr. Bah appeared to be asleep on the concrete floor, snoring. But he could not be roused to eat lunch or dinner, and at 7:10 p.m., “he began to breathe heavily and started foaming slightly at the mouth,” a guard wrote. “I notified medical at this time.”

However, the nurse on duty rejected the guard’s request to come check, according to reports. And at 8 p.m., when the warden went to the medical unit to describe Mr. Bah’s condition, the nurse, Raymund Dela Pena, was not alarmed. “Detainee is likely exhibiting the same behavior as earlier in the day,” he wrote, adding that Mr. Bah would get a mental health exam in the morning.

About 10:30 p.m., more than 14 hours after Mr. Bah’s fall, the same nurse, on rounds, recognized the gravity of his condition: “unresponsive on the floor incontinent with foamy brown vomitus noted around mouth.” Smelling salts were tried. Mr. Bah was carried back to the medical unit on a stretcher.

Just before 11, someone at the jail called 911.

When an ambulance left Mr. Bah at the hospital, brain scans showed he had a fractured skull and hemorrhages at all sides of his swelling brain. He was rushed to surgery, and the detention center was informed of the findings.

But in a report to their supervisors the next day, immigration officials at the center described Mr. Bah’s ailment as “brain aneurysms” - a diagnosis they corrected a week later to “hemorrhages,” without mentioning the skull fracture. After Mr. Bah’s death, they wrote that his hospitalization was “subsequent to a fall in the shower.”

The nurse, Mr. Dela Pena, and the physician assistant, Mr. Chuley, said that only their superiors could discuss the case. The Public Health Service did not respond to questions, and the Corrections Corporation said medical decisions were the responsibility of the Public Health Service.

Mr. Bah’s cousins demanded an autopsy, but the Union County medical examiner’s confidential report was not completed until Dec. 6. It was sent to the county prosecutor’s office only as a matter of routine, because the matter had been classified as an “unattended accident resulting in death.”

Prosecutors said they did not investigate. “According to the report, Bah suffered a fall in the shower,” Eileen Walsh, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors, said in an e-mail message. “We are not privy to any other bits of information.”

In the home movies Mr. Bah made of his last journey home, he is only a fleeting presence: a slim man with a shy smile. But without his support, relatives in Africa say they have little money for food and none for his sons’ schooling.

His body went back to Guinea in a sealed coffin.

“I stayed here seven years, waiting for him,” his second wife, Mariama, said in French, recalling their long separation and the brief reunion that led to the birth of their son, now a toddler, while Mr. Bah was in detention.

“I wanted them to open the casket,” she added, “to know if it was him inside. Until today, I cry for him.”

Margot Williams contributed reporting.

ICE Raids San Francisco restaurants

2008-05-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

From:

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/05/ice_raids_san_francisco_restua.html

ICE Raids San Francisco restaurants

We're receiving early reports from the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition that federal immigration officials have raided restaurants around the Bay Area and are arresting undocumented workers including in the Haight. So much for our sanctuary city "awareness campaign" that San Francisco launched in April. Limited details below.

immigration1.jpg

*ENGLISH VERSION*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, May 02, 2008

Contact:
Evelyn Sánchez, (415) 572-0639, evelyn@immigrantrights.org
Larisa Casillas, (415) 640-4557, larisa@immigrantrights.org

ICE Unleashes Immigration Sweeps Against Bay Area Restaurant Workers, Arrests Dozens of Workers
Coalition Urges People to Call Hotline to Get Legal Help

We are calling on members of the Bay Area community to be alert to an immigration police presence in your neighborhoods or workplaces. Today, the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition started receiving reports of immigration police raids, carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE arrested dozens of restaurant workers in El Balazo restaurants in San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton, San Francisco and Danville. ICE arrests were also reported in Oakland. The numbers of workers detained, which cities, and if only EL Balazo restaurants were targeted have not yet been fully confirmed. Please report the names of any individuals, your co-workers, neighbors and others, who may have been picked up by ICE to BAIRC.

More on the raids including who to contact for help and a Spanish translation of the presser after the jump.

BAIRC, the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, denounces these latest raids and demands that ICE:
-Respect and uphold the due process rights of all persons detained;
-Ensure that all the detained have access to legal counsel; and
-That all the detained be freed on their own recognizance while they await their hearing before a judge.

Additionally BAIRC demands:
-ICE must be accountable to our communities.
-ICE end all raids and stop the detentions and deportations of immigrants.

The raids and deportations divide our families, traumatize our communities and are a disaster for our economy.

CALL FOR ASSISTANCE:
If you, your loved one, a neighbor or co-worker are in need of any assistance as a result of the ICE raids, please call:
-UNITED WAY hotline (415) 808-4444.
United Way will contact immigration attorneys to assist your loved one or co-workers.

-Also call BAIRC to document the abuses and tell your story: (510) 839-7598
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.immigrantrights.org

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
Remember, if you are detained by ICE or any other police:
-You have the right to remain silent and to have counsel from an immigration lawyer.
-No matter what they ask you, even if they threaten you with deportation, jail time or any other threat:
-Do not answer any question, do not sign any documents.

Tell them:
I will not sign any documents or answer any questions. I need to speak to my attorney first.
-If they threaten to transfer you outside of the region, tell them:
-I demand to have my hearing here and will not move from here.

Then call:
United Way Hotline, (415) 808-4444 to get an attorney
Remember to give them your "A" number.
Your family, co-worker, neighbor or friend can also call for you to get legal assistance.
Also call BAIRC to document the abuses resulting from the raids.

*SPANISH VERSION*
Para difusión inmediata
Viernes, 2 de Mayo, 2008
Contacte:
Evelyn Sánchez, (415) 572-0639, evelyn@immigrantrights.org
Larisa Casillas, (415) 640-4557, larisa@immigrantrights.org

La migra ICE desata redadas, arresta a docenas de trabajadores de restaurantes en el Área de la Bahía.
Coalición urge que llamen a la línea de ayuda urgente para conseguir asistencia legal

Estamos haciendo un llamado a miembros de nuestras comunidades en el Área de la Bahía de estar alertos a la presencia y el accionar de la policía migratoria en sus vecindades o en sus lugares de trabajo.

Hoy, nuestra coalición BAIRC empezó a recibir llamadas telefónicas denunciando redadas de la migra ICE (ICE, Control de Aduanas y Migración) contra restaurantes. ICE arrestó a docenas de trabajadores de los restaurantes El Balazo en San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton, San Francisco y Danville. También se reportó un redada en Oakland. No hemos confirmado todavía cuantos fueron detenidos, en que ciudades y si hicieron redadas solamente contra surcursales de El Balazo.

La Coalición Pro Derechos Inmigrantes del Área de la Bahía (BAIRC, Bay Area Imnigrant Rights Coalition) denuncia a estas redadas y le exige a ICE que:
-Respete a los derechos constitucionales de todas y todos los detenidos;
-Provea ayuda legal a todos los detenidos; y
-Que libere a todos los detenidos bajo libertad de palabra, pendiente tengan su audiencia con un juez.

Adicionalmente BAIRC exige que:
-ICE rinda cuentas a nuestras comunidades.
-ICE cesa todas las redadas y un alto a las detenciones y deportaciones de inmigrantes.

Las redadas y deportaciones separan a nuestras familias, tramautizan a nuestras comunidades y son un desastra para la economía.

AYUDA LEGAL
Si necesitan ayuda legal u otros servicios debido a las redadas de hoy, puede llamar a la línea de ayuda urgente de UNITED WAY:
También estamos pidiendo que reporten los nombres de las y los individuos que conoce que hayan sido detenidos por la migra en esta redada, sean sus compañeros de trabajo, vecinos y otros. Llame a BAIRC y le ayudaremos a conseguir ayuda legal.

LINEA DE ASISTENCIA
Si usted, su querido, su vecino o compañero de trabajo necesita ayuda debido a la redada de ICE/la migra, por favor telefonee a:
-UNITED WAY línea de ayuda urgente(415) 808-4444.
United Way contactará a abogados de inmigración para que le ayuden.
A las y los detenidos les asignan un número de identidad que comienza con la letrta "A"; compártalo.

-También llame a BAIRC para ayudarnos a documentar los abusos cometidos por la redada y cuente su historia: (510) 839-7598
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.immigrantrights.org

CONOZCA SUS DERECHOS

Recuerde, si usted es detenido por la Migra o culaquier otra policía:
-Tiene el derecho de guardar silencia y tener un abogado.
-No importa que le digan, aunque lo amenazcan con la deportación acelerada, la carcel, o cualquiera otra amenaza:
NO conteste ninguna pregunta; NO firme ningún documento.

Dígales:
No firmaré ningún documento y no contestaré ninguna pregunta. Quiero hablar con mi abogado primero.
Manténgase en silencio y no reaccione a lo que le digan.
-Si lo amenazan con transferirlo a otra region o ciudad, dígales:
Demando tener mi audiencia aquí y no quiero que me muevan de aquí. Quiero hablar con mi abogado.
-Luego, llame a United Way línea de ayuda urgente, (415) 808-4444, para conseguir un abogado. Su familia, amistades, vecinos o compañeros de trabajo pueden llamar por usted, también
-Después, también llame a BAIRC para documentar los abusos que se cometieron por la redada.

Learn about unlawful treatment of undocumented immigrants

2008-04-30T22:08:00.000-07:00

Learn about unlawful treatment of undocumented immigrants

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
BY NEREIDA GUILLEN

Raids in Washtenaw County have brought about the current issue of human rights violation. Some uninformed community members ask themselves, "Is it a violation when undocumented immigrants are detained and sent back to their native country?'' Maybe not, but this is far from the reality of what is actually occurring. It is what is happening as they are being detained that should alert conscientious citizens. I'd like to address the specific question of how this becomes a violation of human rights.

Picture this. You are having dinner with your family after a long, tiring day at work, when the doorbell rings. As soon as you open your door, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent rushes into your home without any explanation and asks for your documentation. Because of language barriers, and due to the frightening circumstances, you hesitate and fail to respond as rapidly as you would wish. As you try to respond to the agent's request, they brutally beat you in front of your wife/husband, and three kids, ages 3, 5 and 7. You hear your kids yell and cry in the background as you are being beaten.

Afterward, the ICE agent decides to take you to prison due to suspicion of undocumentation and leaves you in a cell with people who are sex offenders, robbers, murderers, etc. Your crime at this point is working hard to provide a better living for your children. Now that you are in jail, your kids and spouse are left without a mom or dad, and the question of who will feed them and provide shelter for them thunders in your head. Those questions run through your head as you stare at the wall of a prison cell where you are forbidden any type of rights. Your family is now left alone and, traumatized by the incident, wonder if they will ever see you again. Now, ask yourself, "Can this be a violation of human rights?''

Immigration officials show changes at detention center

2008-04-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

Immigration officials show changes at detention center
04/22/2008

By ANABELLE GARAY / Associated Press

Pastel-colored walls adorned with cartoon characters, porcelain instead of metal toilets in cells and other upgrades have softened the inside of a former prison where dozens of immigrant children and their families are detained.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who conducted a media tour Tuesday at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center in Taylor say the facility has become more family friendly thanks to more than 100 modifications. The changes were required under a settlement reached in a lawsuit alleging children were held in prison-like conditions.

Children now receive night lights, sneakers and colorful T-shirts with Superman and other characters on them when they arrive at Hutto. A teleconference room for immigration hearings has a large mural of the Rugrats and the large brick walls leading into the sleeping area — former prison pods — are painted in muted tones and feature Tinkerbell.

The facility's health care staff has expanded to 35 and contracts outside when more specialized services are needed. The cafeteria now offers a main menu and a hot bar to provide more variety of foods. Children — currently from 2 months old to teenagers — now go on field trips. Past visits outside of Hutto have included a museum in Austin, the zoo and the Dairy Queen.

ICE officials say the changes would have been implemented even without the lawsuit, and added that they continue to discuss more improvements to the facility where families live in small cells furnished with bunkbeds, a toilet and sink.

"Everything that was included in that settlement was either done prior to the settlement, in progress during the settlement or contemplated prior to the settlement," said Gary Mead, ICE's acting director for detention and removal.

Advocates disagree and contend that public awareness, a report last year detailing conditions at Hutto and the lawsuit spurred ICE to action.

"It is true that some of the changes were made before the settlement ... but they certainly were not in effect at the time we made our report," said Michelle Brane, director of the detention and asylum program at the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. "They were very clear that they thought it was an appropriate place to hold families."

When the facility first opened nearly two years ago, advocates say uniformed, handcuff-toting correctional officers called "counselors" threatened children with separation from their families. Children received only one hour of classroom instruction a day, lost weight and had limited access to health care, attorneys alleged.

ICE officials have denied that guards used threats or that healthcare was limited. The agency did say that the school day has been significantly expanded since Hutto opened.

A federal judge approved the lawsuit settlement in August. It called for changes including installation of privacy curtains around toilets, a full-time pediatrician and elimination of a counting system that required families to be in their cells for hours a day.

Those changes have been made, and a federal magistrate also continues to periodically review conditions at Hutto. During a previous visit, the magistrate asked for improvments to an area set aside for detainees to meet with their attorneys. The section now has a large play area in the middle. It's surrounded by meeting booths that have privacy curtains and noise control. Advocates had previously complained that asylum seekers detained at Hutto had little privacy and couldn't shield their children from hearing them describe details of past abuse, torture or other violence to their attorneys.

Immigration officials have described the 500-bed Hutto as a residential environment that keeps families together while they seek asylum, await deportation or seek other outcomes to their immigration cases.

Officials say Hutto — operated by Corrections Corporation of America under a contract with Williamson County — is meant to end the "catch and release" practice that in the past permitted families in the U.S. illegally to remain free while awaiting a court hearing. Many never showed up in court; some borrowed other people's children and posed as families to avoid detention, ICE officials have said.

ICE is considering opening more facilities to detain families around the country, making Hutto a sort of prototype, Mead said. Currently, the Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pa., a former nursing home about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is the only other facility in the country that holds related adults and children.

"I think we will continue to have family residential centers," Mead said. "In terms of the treatment that people receive here, this is clearly a model."

In Mississippi, Work Is Now a Felony for Undocumented Immigrants

2008-04-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

In Mississippi, Work Is Now a Felony for Undocumented Immigrants
By David Bacon

Sunday 20 April 2008

Jackson, MS - On March 17, Mississippi Governor Hayley Barbour signed into law the farthest-reaching employer sanctions law of any on the books in the U.S. Employer sanctions is a shorthand name for laws that prohibit employers from hiring immigrants who don't have legal immigration status in the U.S. That provision was part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, passed by Congress in 1986, which for the first time in U.S. history required employers to verify the immigration status of employees.

The Mississippi bill, SB 2988, requires employers to use an electronic system to verify immigration status, called E-Verify. That system has only recently been developed by the Department of Homeland Security, and by the department's own admission, is not a complete record. Its accuracy is unknown, but by comparison, the Social Security database of U.S. workers, compiled since the 1930s, contains millions of errors.

The Mississippi bill goes much further, however. Employers are absolved from any liability for hiring undocumented workers so long as they use the E-Verify system. But it will become a felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job. Anyone caught "shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than one thousand dollars ($1000) nor more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or both." Anyone charged with the crime of working without papers will not be eligible for bail. The law is set to become effective for large employers on July 1.

In the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, University of Mississippi journalism professor Joe Atkins called the law "a new xenophobia ... that threatens once again to lock down the state's borders and resurrect the 'closed society' that once made it the shame of the nation." According to the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, the bill got the support of many Democratic state legislators because party leaders "wanted the house to bring out at least one bill dealing with immigration to relieve the political pressure being put on members (i.e. white Democrats), by right-wing forces in their districts. Many Black Caucus members were persuaded to go along. Unfortunately the bill they brought out was the worst of the six the Mississippi Senate passed."

Passage of the bill was a setback to the political strategy that has shown the most promise of changing the old conservative power structure in the state, the "closed society" described by Professor Atkins. That strategy, building over the last several years, has relied on creating an electoral base of African Americans, immigrants and unions. The new employer sanctions law, according to supporters of that strategy, is intended to drive immigrants out of the state by making it impossible for them to find work.

In Mississippi African American political leaders, and immigrant and labor organizers have cooperated in organizing one of the country's most active immigrant rights coalitions - the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance. They see hope for political transformation in the demographic changes sweeping the south. Beginning before World War 2, Mississippi, like most southern states, began to lose its Black population. Out-migration reached its peak in the 60s, when 66,614 African Americans left between 1965 and 1970, while civil rights activists were murdered, hosed and went to jail. But in the following decades, Midwest industrial jobs began to vanish overseas, the cost of living in northern cities skyrocketed, and the flow began to reverse.

From 1995 to 2000, the state capital, Jackson, gained 3600 Black residents. In the 2000 census, African Americans made up over 36% of Mississippi's 2.8 million residents - no doubt more today. And while immigrants were statistically insignificant two decades ago, today they're over 4.5% of the total, according to news reports. "Immigrants are always undercounted, but I think they're now about 130,000, and they'll be 10% of the population ten years from now," predicts MIRA Director Bill Chandler.

"We have the chance here to avoid the rivalry that plagues Los Angeles, and build real power," says Chandler. Erik Fleming, a MIRA staff member and former state legislator who recently filed for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat held by Thad Cochrane, believes "we can stop Mississippi from making the same mistakes others have made."

The same calculus can apply across the South, which is now the entry point for a third of all new immigrants to the U.S. Four decades ago, President Richard Nixon brought its white power structure, threatened by civil rights, into the Republican Party. President Ronald Reagan celebrated that achievement at the Confederate monument at Georgia's Stone Mountain. MIRA-type alliances could transform the region, and change the politics of the country as a whole. SB 2988 is not only intended to stir anti-immigrant sentiment, but to reverse that demographic change and the political transformation it might make possible.

MIRA is the fruit of strategic thinking among a diverse group that reaches from African American workers' centers on catfish farms and immigrant union organizers in chicken plants to guest workers and contract laborers on the Gulf Coast, and ultimately, into the halls of the state legislature in Jackson. Activists look back to changes that started when Mississippi passed a law permitting casino development in 1991, bringing the first immigrant construction workers from Florida. Employers in gaming then began to use contractors to supply their growing labor needs. Guest workers, eventually numbering in the thousands, were brought under the H2-B program to fill many of the jobs development created.

Through the 90s more immigrants arrived looking for work. Some guest workers overstayed their visas, while husbands brought wives, cousins and friends from home. Mexicans and Central Americans joined South and Southeast Asians, and began traveling north through the state, getting jobs in rural poultry plants. There they met African Americans, many of whom had fought hard campaigns to organize unions for chicken and catfish workers over the preceding decade.

It was not easy for newcomers to fit in. Their union representatives didn't speak their languages. When workers got pulled over by state troopers they found themselves, not only cited for lacking drivers' licenses, but also often handed over to the Border Patrol. Sometimes their children weren't even allowed to enroll in school.

In the fall of 2000, labor, church and civil rights activists formed an impromptu coalition, and went to the legislature. At their heart was the core of activists who'd organized Mississippi's state workers, and a growing caucus of Black legislators sympathetic to labor. Jim Evans, a former organizer for the National Football League Players Association, helped lead the group on the House side, while Senator Alice Harden, who'd led a state teachers' strike in 1986, organized the vote in the Senate. "We decided that the place to start was trying to get a bill passed allowing everyone to get drivers' licenses, regardless of who they were or where they came from," Evans remembers.

Harden's efforts bore fruit when the drivers' license bill passed the Senate unanimously in 2001. "But they saw us coming in the House, and killed it," Chandler says. Nevertheless, the close fight convinced them that a coalition supporting immigrant rights had a wide potential base of support, and could help change the state's political landscape. In a meeting that November, the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance was born.

To build a grassroots base, MIRA volunteers went into chicken plants to help recruit newly-arrived immigrants into unions. In the casinos, MIRA volunteers worked with UNITE HERE organizers. In Jackson, the coalition got 6 bills passed the following year, stopping schools from requiring Social Security numbers from immigrant parents, and winning in-state tuition for any student who'd spent four years in a Mississippi high school.

Then Katrina hit the Gulf. MIRA fought evictions and the cases of workers cheated by employers, and eventually recovered over a million dollars. MIRA organizer Vicky Cintra and other activists participated in several celebrated cases defending guest workers, especially in the Signal International shipyard in Pascagoula. "There's still a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment here," Cintra says, "but when people give the police their MIRA ID card they get treated with more respect, because they know their rights and have some support." Laborers Union organizer Frank Curiel says, "In Kentucky, outside of Louisville, Latinos are afraid to go out into the street. In Mississippi it's different."

Not always that different, however. In Laurel and many other Mississippi towns police still set up roadblocks to trap immigrants without licenses. "They take us away in handcuffs and we have to pay over $1000 to get out of jail and get our cars back," according to chicken plant worker Elisa Reyes. And the way the state's Council of Conservative Citizens demonizes immigrants is reminiscent of the language of its predecessor - the White Citizens Councils: "The CofCC Not only fights for European rights, but also for Confederate Heritage, fights against illegal immigration, Fights against gun control, fights against abortion, fights against gay rights etc. SO JOIN UP!!!" its website urges.

In 2007 the Republican machine introduced twenty-one anti-immigrant bills into the state legislature, including ones to impose state penalties for hiring undocumented workers and English-only requirements on state license and benefit applicants, to prohibit undocumented students at state universities, and to require local police to check immigration status. MIRA defeated all of them. "The Black Caucus stood behind us every time," Evans says proudly. There are no immigrant or Latino legislators. Without the Caucus all 21 bills would have passed in 2007, and 19 similar bills in 2006.

The 2008 legislative session was different, however. Chandler describes three factions in the party - the Black Caucus at one end, white conservatives hanging on at the other, and "liberals who will do whatever they have to do to get elected" in the middle. After some Democratic candidates campaigned in 2007 on an anti-immigrant platform, MIRA wrote a letter in protest to Howard Dean, national chair of the Democratic Party. Those tactics, it said, were undermining the only strategy capable of changing the state's politics. "The attacks on Latinos, initiated by Republican Phil Bryant a year and a half ago, and joined by other Republicans, are now being echoed by Democrats like John Arthur Eaves and Jamie Franks," the letter said. State party leaders who "would go along to be accepted, rather than show the courage necessary for positive change... are peddling racist lies against immigrants that violate the core of the party's progressive agenda."

Anti-immigrant campaigning by Democrats was unsuccessful. Conservative Republican Hayley Barbour was returned to the governor's mansion and Phil Bryant was elected lieutenant governor. And in the legislative session that followed, some Democrats began to buckle under pressure from vocal rightwing groups, including the Klan.

During the 2007 elections the Ku Klux Klan held a rally of 500 people in front of the Lee County court house in Tupelo, wearing white hoods and robes, and carrying signs saying, "Stop the Latino Invasion." Their presence was so intimidating that Ricky Cummings, a generally progressive Democrat running for re-election to the State House of Representatives, voted for some of the anti-immigrant bills in the legislature. When MIRA leaders challenged him, he told them that Klan-generated calls had "worn out his cell phone."

The Klan's website says "it's time to declare war on these illegal Mexicans ... The racial war is among us, will you fight with us for the future of our race and for our children? Or will you sit on your ass and do nothing? Our blissful ignorance is over. It is time to fight. Time for Mexico and Mexicans to get the hell out!"

The web site has links to the site of the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (the state affiliate of the Federation for American Immigration Reform), directed by Mike Lott, who sat in the state legislature before being defeated in a run for the Democratic nomination for Secretary of State. .After MIRA's Erik Fleming urged Governor Barbour to veto the employer sanctions bill, saying it would be "devastating to our economy and community here in Mississippi," he was then targeted on the MFIRE website.

For those threatened by changing demographics, and the political upsurge they might produce, SB 2988 law is a finger in the dike. The fight to implement it is not over, however, and MIRA has assembled a legal team to challenge its constitutionality in court.

David Bacon is a California photojournalist who documents labor, migration and globalization. His book "Communities Without Borders" was just published by Cornell University/ILR Press.

Tally of those arrested in immigration raids at Pilgrim's Pride plants climbs to 311

2008-04-18T17:26:00.000-07:00

Tally of those arrested in immigration raids at Pilgrim's Pride plants climbs to 311
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, April 18, 2008
By DIANNE SOLÍS and STELLA M. CHÁVEZ / The Dallas Morning News

The tally of those arrested at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants on various immigration-related offenses climbed Thursday to 311.

Workers at Pilgrim's Pride, one of the world's largest poultry processors, have been the target of a criminal investigation into identity theft for at least a year, and Wednesday, workers employed at five plants, including Mount Pleasant operations, were arrested by federal immigration agents.

Certain workers at the Mount Pleasant plant are believed to be key organizers in an identity theft ring, federal prosecutors and agents said.

False use of an authentic Social Security number is a felony – and growing in prevalence among illegal immigrants searching for ways to avoid detection.

But the tally, released Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, showed that slightly less than a third of the arrested workers had been charged with criminal violations. Federal officials said Wednesday that charges could be made more severe.

The remaining Pilgrim's Pride employees are being processed for removal from the U.S., on administrative violations of immigration law.

All 46 workers arrested in Mount Pleasant faced criminal charges. But Thursday afternoon, two workers were released and motions to dismiss the criminal indictments were dropped, said Arnold Spencer, a U.S. assistant attorney involved in the investigation. In one case, one worker was a legal permanent resident; Mr. Spencer would not comment on the immigration status or citizenship of the second worker.

Arrests in Mount Pleasant could climb. "We have a significant number of people who are now fugitives and were indicted," Mr. Spencer said.

Another two dozen workers were arrested last December, after an investigation that began a year ago and involved undercover agents

School district officials in Mount Pleasant said the arrests have rattled their schools.

Missy Walley, principal of Chapel Hill Elementary in the Chapel Hill Independent School District, said she had 16 upset students in her office Thursday morning. Two of them had parents who had been arrested.

"We had one whose daddy was taken last night and one whose mother was taken," she said. "They were pretty much hysterical."

Ms. Walley said she heard students crying in the bathroom on her morning rounds through the hallway.

Some students were worried that immigration agents would pick up students at the school. Parents called the district to make sure their children were OK.

A Chapel Hill district employee visited the home of at least one student who did not report to school and found nobody home. A neighbor indicated that federal agents had been to the home.

At Mount Pleasant Independent School District, counselors were also on hand to talk to students.

"All of our students and campuses are impacted because Pilgrim's is the number one employer," said Judith Saxton, public information officer for the Mount Pleasant district.

Ms. Walley said she was struck by the number of children who showed support for those visibly shaken.

"It was not just our Hispanic children who were upset," she said. "It was all the children. It affected the whole school."

BREAKING NEWS: Raids net 15 arrests in Newton, Jasper counties

2008-04-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

BREAKING NEWS: Raids net 15 arrests in Newton, Jasper counties

By Staff reports

Neosho Daily News

Fri Apr 18, 2008, 03:08 PM CDT

Story Tools: Email This | Print This

Neosho, Mo. -

A total of 15 people, 10 in Newton County alone, were arrested in a drug sweep early Friday morning.

Several area, state and federal agencies took part in the sweep, conducted after an 18-month investigation into the Mexican ice trade in Newton and Jasper counties.

Arrested on federal drug charges were Ernesto Garza, 22, and Eleazar Ortega, 33, both of Neosho. The two are currently in federal custody in Springfield, according to Eric R. Siweck, resident agent in charge at the Springfield resident office of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, and have been charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

Also arrested in the sweep on drug charges were April Love, 21, of Neosho; Genovero Coronado, 33, of Neosho; Nathaniel Reagh, 24, of Neosho; Belinda Olson of Duenweg; Billy Coleman, Duenweg; Andres Layton, Joplin; Roberto Rivera, Joplin; and Milthon Marchant, Joplin.

Several Neosho area residents were also arrested on charges they were in the United States illegally. Those arrested were Maria Rodriguez, 36; Roel Garza Jr., 20; Montzerrat Mota, 18; Marco Diaz, 31; and Maria Rodriguez, 44.

At approximately 6 a.m. Friday, agents conducted two drug sweeps — one in Jasper County, the other in Newton County — seizing one vehicle, a quarter ounce of meth, $15,000 in cash, and two pounds of marijuana. The vehicle, $13,000 in cash, and some meth were seized in Newton County, according to Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland.

Agencies participating in the raids were the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, the Neosho Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the Jasper County Drug Task Force, the Southwest Missouri Drug Task Force, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the federal Agency of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Joplin Police Department, the Eastern Shawnee Tribal Police, the U.S. Customs Service, the Duenweg Police Department; and the federal Agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Seven residences and businesses in Newton County were included in the sweep, including Vernado’s Tire Shop, located at 1019 S. Neosho Boulevard.

More on the story will be in Sunday’s print and on-line editions of the Neosho Daily News.

Immigrants netted in Chattanooga raid to stay in Nashville jails

2008-04-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

April 17, 2008

Immigrants netted in Chattanooga raid to stay in Nashville jails

By JANELL ROSS
Staff Writer

Women netted in an immigration raid of the Pilgrim's Pride Chicken processing plant in Chattanooga will be housed in Davidson County jails while awaiting deportation proceedings.

Wednesday's raid was part of a nationwide operation in which agents detained more than 280 immigrants at Pilgrim's Pride plants in Chattanooga, Mount Pleasant, Texas; Live Oak, Fla., Batesville, Ark.; and Moorfield, W. Va., on suspected of identity theft and other crimes related to obtaining their jobs.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Gail Montenegro estimated agents detained 100 workers at the Chattanooga plant. The men from that plant will be jailed in Lumpkin, Ala.

The Davidson County jail has a standing contract with ICE to house detainees.

The raids are the result of indictments returned by a federal grand jury in Tyler, Texas, April 1 and unsealed Wednesday. The indictments say the defendants obtained and used Social Security numbers belonging to others to gain Pilgrim's Pride Corp jobs. If convicted of criminal identity theft charges, defendants could receive up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000, according to a statement released by ICE. Those determined to be in the country illegally but not engaged in identity theft may be deported or given the option to leave.

A statement released by Pilgrim's Pride stressed the company's efforts to avoid employing illegal workers, including using the E-verify system. E-verify is a federal database that allows employers to verify the validity of Social Security numbers and names supplied by new hires. It doesn't detect when a name and Social Security number are already in use.

Company not charged

A Tennessee law that went into effect Jan. 1 penalizes employers who are found to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants. The law also gives safe harbor to any company that uses the E-verify system.

Pilgrim's Pride faces no charges in the raids, said Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for the Pittsburg, Texas-based company.

"We knew in advance and cooperated fully," he said.

A company statement said Pilgrim's Pride shares "the government's goal of eliminating the hiring or employment of unauthorized workers. We have terminated all of the employees who were taken into custody and will terminate any employee who is found to have engaged in similar misconduct."

Detainees interviewed

All of the individuals arrested during the operation are being photographed, fingerprinted and processed by ICE and being interviewed about their health and family needs.

The raids at the poultry plant were the largest of several immigration enforcement actions across the country on Wednesday.

Agents arrived before dawn at a Houston doughnut plant and arrested almost 30 workers suspected of being in the country illegally. Robert Rutt, the agent in charge of the Houston ICE office, told The Houston Chronicle some of the people arrested lived at the Shipley Do-Nuts dough factory, a four-block plant that includes a dormitory for workers.

In Buffalo, N.Y., federal law enforcement officials announced the arrest of a local businessman and 10 associates accused of employing illegal Mexican immigrants in seven restaurants in four states. Authorities also arrested at least 45 illegal immigrants during the early morning raids in western New York, Bradford, Pa.; Mentor, Ohio; Wheeling and New Martinsville, W.Va.; and Georgia. Authorities said the workers were forced to staff Mexican restaurants for long hours with little pay to work off smuggling fees and rent.

In Atlanta, a federal grand jury indicted 10 people from suburban Atlanta employment agencies on charges they placed illegal immigrants in jobs at Chinese restaurants and warehouses in six states. The agencies allegedly developed a network to "recruit and exploit" undocumented workers, said Kenneth Smith, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Atlanta.

Between October 2006 and April, the agencies advertised their services and charged immigrants a fee for finding a job without requiring any proof that the workers were allowed to work in the U.S, prosecutor David Nahmias said.

Poultry plants are raided in the latest federal crackdown on illegal-immigrant labor

2008-04-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

Poultry plants are raided in the latest federal crackdown on illegal-immigrant labor

Hundreds of workers in five states are arrested .

From the Associated Press
April 17, 2008

MOUNT PLEASANT, TEXAS -- Federal agents arrested hundreds of people Wednesday in raids at Pilgrim's Pride chicken plants in five states, the latest crackdown on illegal-immigrant labor at the nation's poultry producers.

In separate sweeps, authorities also arrested dozens of workers at a doughnut factory in Houston and the operators of a chain of Mexican restaurants in upstate New York.

The arrests at Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride Corp., the nation's largest chicken producer, were on charges of identity theft, document fraud and immigration violations. The company worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ahead of the raids, said Ray Atkinson, a company spokesman.

"We knew in advance and cooperated fully," Atkinson said.

Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for ICE, confirmed that the company is cooperating, though she said the raids grew out of an investigation that produced arrests last year at the company's plant here.

No criminal or civil charges have been filed against Pilgrim's Pride, which has about 55,000 employees and operates dozens of facilities mostly across the South and in Mexico and Puerto Rico, supplying the KFC restaurant chain and other customers.

ICE said that nearly 300 workers were arrested, but Pilgrim's Pride officials said that about 400 hourly, nonmanagement employees were arrested.

"We have terminated all of the employees who were taken into custody and will terminate any employee who is found to have engaged in similar misconduct. We are investigating these allegations further," Atkinson said in a statement.

Forty-five people, all illegal immigrants, were arrested here on charges of false use of Social Security numbers, ICE said. More than 100 people were arrested on immigration violations in Chattanooga, Tenn., and they could face criminal charges related to identity theft, the agency said. Another 100 were arrested on immigration charges in Moorefield, W.Va.

More than 25 people face immigration violation charges in Live Oak, Fla. They will also face identity theft or document fraud charges, ICE said. And more than 20 were arrested in Batesville, Ark., on federal warrants for alleged document fraud or identity theft.

Pilgrim's Pride has had previous trouble with employees in Arkansas. In January 2007, police arrested a manager at the company's De Queen plant who allegedly rented identification documents for $800 to get a job there.

The company has said its policy is to fire employees who can't clear up discrepancies in their documentation.

What's Next For ICE Raid Suspects

2008-04-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

What's Next For ICE Raid Suspects

Comments 0 | Recommend 2

Shannon Millsaps

April 17, 2008 - 4:52AM

We wanted to know more about what went into yesterday's raids and what happens to the workers now that they have been arrested and detained.

At the beginning of this month, a federal grand jury handed down multiple-defendant indictments alleging identity theft by the workers arrested here.

Those indictments were sealed until the raids Wednesday.

We dug deeper to find out what will happen to the suspects now.

According to ICE, each defendant could get up to five years in federal prison if convicted.

They also face a fine up to 250-thousand dollars.

The Department of Justice says a large number of those detained will be federally prosecuted.

For those arrested on immigration violations ONLY... ICE will make the decision about whether to detain the individual or allow a conditional release.

Those prosecuted on criminal charges will be turned over to the U-S Marshals Service.

Male detainees will be housed at a detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia -- about 2 hours south of Atlanta.

The females will go to the Davidson County Jail near Nashville.

ICE is coordinating with social service agencies and non-governmental organizations in all five states to ensure accurate information is available for family members of those arrested.

ICE also has established a toll-free number that family members can call to get information about their relative's detention status and the removal process.

The toll-free hotline number is 1-866-341-3858.

20 arrested in federal roundup

2008-04-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

April 16, 2008, 11:29PM
RAID ON SHIPLEY HEADQUARTERS
20 arrested in federal roundup
Employees face deportation; chain working with ICE

By JAMES PINKERTON and SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Houston's iconic Shipley Do-Nuts is known to generations of loyal customers for its sweet glazed pastries.

But Wednesday, the family-owned chain found itself in the spotlight of an emotional national issue when federal agents raided the company's Houston headquarters and arrested 20 suspected illegal immigrants employed at the facility.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — in a caravan of 50 vehicles, detention vans and an ambulance — swarmed Shipley's office and warehouse complex on North Main Street at 5 a.m. A government helicopter circled overhead as the Shipley workers were led away in handcuffs to face civil charges of being in the country illegally.

The Houston bust took place at the same time ICE agents conducted raids of chicken processing plants in East Texas, Arkansas, Florida, West Virginia and Tennessee.

In all, 290 workers were arrested during raids at Texas-based Pilgrims Pride plants on suspicion of identify theft, document fraud and immigration violations, the agency said.

ICE officials released few details of the Shipley investigation, saying only that it would continue.

Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers can face criminal charges and fines. The workers arrested Wednesday face deportation.

"It's a worksite enforcement operation," said Robert Rutt, agent in charge of Houston's ICE office. "Our main focus is identifying the employers who hire illegal aliens."

Shipley officials, who could be seen meeting with ICE agents at the plant, declined to comment.

"Shipley Do-Nuts is a family-owned and operated business with a 72-year history in the Houston area," read a statement released Wednesday by the company, which has 190 stores in several states. "It makes every effort to comply with very complicated immigration laws, and is currently cooperating with authorities in an ongoing investigation. Shipley is deeply concerned for the well-being of its employees that are being detained and their families."

Neighbors surprised

The Shipley raid centered on its 140,000-square-foot warehouse, processing plants and office complex. It is part of a four-block compound the company has at 5200 North Main, where doughnut mix and other fillings are made for many of the 86 Houston-area locations.

The site includes at least five trailers and 14 small homes. The neatly maintained properties sit behind cyclone and barbed-wire fencing used by some Shipley employees.

Many in the neighborhood were surprised by the raid, and some expressed outrage.

"That's just people trying to work, they come into the country to try and feed their family," said Derek Shumake, who lives across the street. "They work hard, and they do jobs most people won't."

The raid sparked questions about hiring practices at Shipley and trained a spotlight on working conditions at its compound.

Fifteen workers filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company in 2006, seeking damages for allegedly enduring daily slurs, such as "wetback" and "mojado" while working at the company's warehouse. Most of the allegations were filed against a former plant manager, Jimmy Rivera, and two supervisors.

Some workers, however, suggested that the Shipley family could have done more to protect them. Filberto Alvarado Robles, who worked for the company starting in 1997, said in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint that "the company knew what was going on, or should know" because workers had complained about Rivera to another supervisor.

The company settled the lawsuit with the workers in February. The settlement terms are confidential.

Another worker, Joel Sixtos Salvador, of Michoacan, Mexico, testified in his deposition that Rivera threatened him with deportation if he complained.

"He would call me a wetback. He would tell us that killing me was like killing a dog. He told me that I was Mexican, I like to eat a lot of tacos, that I also like chile. He would, well, humiliate me," Sixtos said.

"He told me he had some police friends and that he could tell them to arrest me and deport me," he testified.

In his deposition for the civil lawsuit, Rivera, a Shipley employee for 30 years, denied ever knowingly hiring an undocumented worker. He denied telling workers to go to a flea market to get fake documents, including Social Security cards.

He said he did not find the term "mojado" offensive.

"I don't look at it as nothing ugly, you know," Rivera said, but would not confirm or deny calling workers "wetbacks."

Shipley said housing free

The depositions in the civil lawsuit include allegations that workers who complained about their treatment at the warehouse were evicted from company housing.

The housing was free to workers and their families, company president Lawrence Shipley III told investigators in the civil suit. But the workers testified that Rivera, the plant manager, charged them a fee — in some cases as much as $550 — to move into the home.

There was no indication in Shipley's deposition that he knew anyone was charging the workers to move into the homes. In the deposition, Shipley denied evicting workers for making complaints about work conditions.

The workers also alleged that Rivera would charge them money to enter a raffle to work overtime on weekends, and $50 to see the company doctor. One worker said he had to pay $100 to Rivera to avoid being fired after refusing to give him a massage.

Katrina S. Patrick, the attorney who represented the 15 workers in the civil lawsuit, said Wednesday: "We certainly intend to remain fully cooperative with the ensuing criminal investigation at the Shipley plant, to the extent that we have information relevant to the investigation."

Border Watch applauds raid

Wednesday's Shipley raid, meanwhile, racheted up fears among immigrant advocates that widespread crackdowns at local job sites are imminent.

Maria Jimenez, a longtime Houston immigrant rights activist, led a noon protest of the raid outside the Mickey Leland Federal Building. Jimenez said the raid follows recent ICE arrests at local apartment complexes and the detention of undocumented day laborers.

"In the (immigrant) community there is a great deal of caution by all members about being as open as people used to be," she said.

"I know of immigrant families who are putting emergency plans together just in case they are picked up," Jimenez said. "It has all sorts of implications for immigrant families."

Curtis Collier, head of the locally based U.S. Border Watch, described the Shipley raid as a small prick in the overall picture of workplace violations by illegal immigrants.

"ICE could do this same raid multiple times a day, multiple times a week, and make very little impact on workplace violations by illegal immigrants," Collier said. "We do welcome the raids and hope they continue, and hope employers who choose to violate federal immigration law will be a target of illegal immigrant raids."

james.pinkerton@chron.com
susan.carroll@chron.com

Hundreds arrested in immigration raids at poultry plants

2008-04-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

Hundreds arrested in immigration raids at poultry plants

By ANABELLE GARAY – 18 hours ago

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas (AP) — Federal agents say their case for a series of workplace raids in five states was strengthened by identity theft victims who recounted stories of plummeting credit scores and medical benefits denied.

Federal authorities carried out the sweeps Wednesday, arresting hundreds of workers at Pilgrim's Pride chicken plants on charges of identity theft, document fraud and immigration violations.

Authorities also arrested dozens of workers at a doughnut factory in Houston, and the operators of a chain of Mexican restaurants in upstate New York.

Authorities said agents investigating a scheme to provide documents for illegal immigrant workers had tracked down several of the identity theft victims.

"Identity theft is a horrible problem that can ruin a person's good name," said Julie Myers, homeland security assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE said nearly 300 people were arrested, but officials at Pilgrim's Pride Corp., the nation's largest chicken producer, said about 400 hourly, non-management employees were taken into custody.

A federal grand jury in Tyler handed up the indictments on April 1, but they remained sealed until the raids, which began before dawn.

Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride worked with ICE agents ahead of the operation, company spokesman Ray Atkinson said. It also reported suspicion of identity theft at an Arkansas plant.

"We have terminated all of the employees who were taken into custody and will terminate any employee who is found to have engaged in similar misconduct," Atkinson said in a statement. "We are investigating these allegations further."

The sweeps stemmed from a larger investigation into identity theft and document fraud at Pilgrim's Pride, Myers said. That probe led to the arrests of two dozen people from the company's Mount Pleasant plant and nearby homes in December.

No criminal or civil charges have been filed against Pilgrim's Pride, which has about 55,000 employees and operates dozens of facilities mostly across the South and in Mexico and Puerto Rico, supplying the KFC restaurant chain and other customers.

Forty-five people, all illegal immigrants, were arrested in Mount Pleasant on charges of false use of Social Security numbers, ICE said. More than 100 people were arrested on immigration violations in Chattanooga, Tenn., and they could face criminal charges related to identity theft, the agency said. Another 100 were arrested on immigration charges in Moorefield, W.Va.

More than 25 people face immigration violation charges in Live Oak, Fla. They will also face identity theft or document fraud charges, ICE said. More than 20 were arrested in Batesville, Ark., on federal warrants for alleged document fraud or identity theft.

DJs on a Spanish-language radio station told listeners to be careful Wednesday after reporting news of the raid. After the arrests, many of the dozens of businesses in town that cater to Latino immigrants had few customers or none at all.

"It's sad and scary," said Sheita Delacruz, who works at her mother's dress and gift shop.

The poultry raids were the largest of the immigration enforcement actions across the country Wednesday.

It was at least the fourth round of raids at U.S. poultry plants in the past three years. Agents arrested about 160 illegal immigrants in Fairfield, Ohio, last May. Separate raids three months apart in 2005 netted about 120 arrests each in Arkadelphia, Ark., and Stillmore, Ga.

Associated Press writers Schuyler Dixon in Irving, Texas; Jon Gambrell in Little Rock, Ark.; and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y.; contributed to this report.

59 Immigrant Hotel Workers Arrested in Raid

2008-04-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

59 Immigrant Hotel Workers Arrested in Raid

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; B05

Federal immigration officials said they arrested 59 foreign-born workers in a raid yesterday at the Lansdowne Resort in Loudoun County. The officials said the detainees, all from Latin America, were suspected of having used fraudulent or stolen documents to obtain jobs at the hotel and golf resort.

Mark McGraw, a senior regional official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement that the raid was part of a "nationwide aggressive pursuit of unauthorized workers and employers who violate the law." Companies that use "cheap, illegal alien labor as a business model should be on notice that ICE is dramatically enhancing its enforcement efforts," he said.

Immigration officials could not be reached to confirm details of the raid, but a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office said last night that its officers had assisted in an ICE operation at Lansdowne. The spokesman, Kraig Troxell, also said there had been reports of buses taking groups of people away from the site.

The raid occurred less than three weeks after ICE officials raided a construction company office in Prince William County, arresting 34 Latin American nationals on suspicion of being in the United States illegally. The two operations appear to have been the largest workplace raids conducted by immigration authorities in the Washington region in the past two years.

Employees at Lansdowne, reached by phone last night, said they had no comment and would not confirm whether the raid had taken place. The resort on Woodridge Parkway offers convention facilities, golf tournaments and tours of nearby wineries.

In a written statement, ICE officials said the agency's officers questioned more than 100 workers at the resort yesterday after a lengthy investigation of employment documents and practices there.

The statement said 59 men and women from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina were taken into custody for immigration violations and would probably be processed for deportation. It said two other women had been released for humanitarian reasons and that family members could call 866-341-3858 for information about those detained.

Immigrant advocacy groups and lawyers in the Washington area said they had not been contacted by any detainees or their relatives, but several groups said they were concerned that the raids would increase a climate of fear among legal and illegal immigrants.

ICE officials did not say whether action would be taken against the managers or owners of the resort, which is operated by Benchmark Hospitality International.

Staff writer Bill Brubaker contributed to this report.

Nearly 50 illegal immigrants working as security guards arrested

2008-04-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Nearly 50 illegal immigrants working as security guards arrested
© 2008 The Associated Press
--

DALLAS — A task force led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50 illegal immigrants in weekend raids of mostly Latino night clubs in Dallas, officials said Sunday.

Authorities raided 26 businesses, including night clubs, restaurants and pool halls. They were targeting employees working as security guards for two security companies, which officials declined to identify.

Law enforcement teams of local, state and federal officials simultaneously hit the 26 businesses around 11 p.m. Saturday and arrested 49 people. They recovered four pistols.

Those arrested will faces charges of being in the United States illegally. Federal law also prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing weapons.

Four people arrested were from El Salvador and the rest were from Mexico, officials said. One of the Salvadorans arrested was a legal immigrant, and it is unclear whether he will face any charges.

"Hopefully, this operation will help us send a message that we will not tolerate the falsification of documents for undocumented aliens under the guise of providing security," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said.

___
Information from The Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sexual Abuse Fueled by Abusive Immigration Language

2008-04-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

Sexual Abuse Fueled by Abusive Immigration Language
By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check
Posted on April 7, 2008, Printed on April 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/81275/

In all the furor over rising immigration rates in the U.S. -- often disguised as concern over "illegal" immigration -- one story in particular demonstrates that contrary to scare stories about the effect of immigration on this country, the reality is that this country is often a scary and oppressive place for immigrants. And immigrant women, having drawn the double whammy card, are especially vulnerable. A22-year-old immigrant from Colombia exposed her immigration agent using the threat of deportation to rape her, using her cell phone to tape the assault. Unfortunately, as is all too common with these sorts of stories, most reports describe the event as sex, even while making it clear that the sex is question was coerced, and should be more accurately described as rape.

The story has hooks most likely because it's about how a common crime -- sexual blackmail against immigrants and other women marginalized in society -- became more difficult to hide and ignore because of new technologies. But despite the dubious reasons why this story hit the mainstream news, the activist community can still seize this opportunity to make two very important points: 1) Immigration is a feminist issue and 2) The distinctions between "legal" and "illegal" immigrants is red herring to distract from the fact that it's immigrants, full stop, who face oppression under a tidal wave of anti-immigration sentiment.

This woman's story demonstrates the way that the cut-and-dry distinctions between illegal and legal immigrants touted by the Lou Dobbses of the world tend to turn shades of gray when examined closely. Or actually, shades of paperwork. The rape victim entered the U.S. legally on a tourist visa and overstayed, but managed to enter the system to get her green card by marrying a citizen, which all but the worst mouth-breathers accept as a legitimate way to get a green card. Her story shows why it's front-loaded and racist to describe a human being as "illegal," especially when her illegal actions were misdemeanors such that they didn't even raise the ire of the law when she got her paperwork in order. I've managed to drive a car before after letting my inspection lapse, and then got the ticket straightened out by renewing my inspection sticker, an equivalent crime. No one describes my very being as illegal, though. Though rape, on the other hand, is not a minor crime and is earth-shattering enough that it's acceptable to describe the people who commit that crimes as "rapists," I suspect that rapists get called by that moniker less often than immigrants without their paperwork in order get called "illegals."

Words like "illegals" dehumanize immigrants, whether or not they have their paperwork in order, and that dehumanization makes immigrant women juicy targets for assorted sexist oppressors, from anti-choicers to wife beaters to rapists, as this woman's story shows. One Honduran immigrant faced charges after trying to self-abort with an ulcer medication, an attempt that failed to induce abortion, but was linked to her giving birth to a premature infant who passed away. The same article notes that a 22-year-old Mexican immigrant living in South Carolina was put in jail for inducing her own abortion with the medication at home. That immigrant women often resort to self-abortion should surprise no one. Not only is safe, legal abortion financially daunting for a number of women, the atmosphere of dehumanization of immigrants makes many women understandably eager to reduce their encounters with authority figures of any type, including doctors.

Green card manipulation isn't just a trick practiced by immigration officials wanting to control and dominate women, either. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund (PDF), many domestic abusers use threats about immigration status to keep women in relationships with them. Whether married to citizens or non-citizens, the quasi-legal status assigned to immigrants means that many victims of domestic violence fear seeking help; consequently, the rates of domestic violence are significantly higher for immigrant women than women at large.

Congress stepped in to create the International Marriage Brokers Regulation Act, which gives immigrant women the right to leave abusive marriages without being deported. It also requires that men who go through "marriage broker" services to disclose their domestic violence histories to potential brides.

If you ever want to despair of the human condition, Google the term "IMBRA" -- the vast majority of the results returned are authored by men outraged at these entirely reasonable measures that keep men from beating their immigrant wives and using green cards as leverage to perpetuate the violence. Strangely, few of these websites argue that men should be given the direct right to beat women, but it's hard to imagine what other worldview they could be operating under, when they think that it should be perfectly legal for a man to threaten his wife with deportation if she leaves him after a round of beating. If you are under the incorrect impression that sexism is dead and feminism isn't needed anymore, I recommend listening to the howls of men who think the government owes them the right to treat immigrant women like a population available for their punching bag and sexual assault needs. That goes double for you if you've ever sneered at the term "intersections of oppression," because I can't think of a better example myself.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon.

--

ICE raids warehouses in LA area

2008-04-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

ICE raids warehouses in LA area

Submitted by WW4 Report on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 22:58.

On April 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 44 workers at the warehouses of three distribution companies—Samsung, Frontier and Imperial CSS—in an industrial park in Torrance, Calif., just south of Los Angeles. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said all but two of the 44 people arrested are Mexican. Kice said 17 of those arrested were released for humanitarian reasons. (Diario Hoy, LA/Chicago, April 2, 3; La Opinión, Los Angeles, April 3; Free Speech Radio News, April 2) The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles reported that its personnel were able to speak with 34 of the arrested Mexicans and offer them orientation about their legal situation. (El Financiero, Mexico, April 3) William Jarquin, the consul of El Salvador in Los Angeles, said he was informed that two of those arrested were Salvadoran, and that one of the two had been released. (Diario Hoy, April 2)

At least 11 of the Mexican workers who were arrested on April 1 were deported that same night, said Angélica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). She added that it "seemed strange" that they were "deported so quickly, because that doesn't happen unless they have final orders of deportation, and none of these people even had the chance to talk to a lawyer."

Salvadoran immigrant Nemesio Hernández said he was arrested on April 1 despite having valid Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Hernández explained his situation to the ICE agents but they threw him violently to the floor, handcuffed him and jailed him for seven hours, said his sister, Isabel Hernández. He was then released without so much as an apology. (La Opinión, April 3)

Miguel Angel Reyes, a Mexican immigrant who had worked for four years at Imperial CFS, described how managers there collaborated with ICE to carry out the April 1 raid: "The managers said we were going to have a meeting. They had us sit down in the lunchroom and then Immigration began to ask for California identification. They put us on the floor one by one. After about two hours they started to take everyone in the van." Reyes said many of the workers did not try to escape because "the managers said everything was fine, that it was a routine check, that nothing was going to happen. When I turned around, all the immigration agents were right there in front of me." (Diario Hoy, April 3)

Salas said that according to workers at the raided companies, ICE agents only checked the documents of the workers who appeared to be of Latin American origin. (La Opinión, April 3) CHIRLA organized a press conference and demonstration on the afternoon of April 1 outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where some of the arrested workers were apparently taken. The protest was attended by dozens of people, including family members of the workers arrested that morning and workers who had been arrested in a Feb. 7 raid at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys. (CHIRLA e-mail alert, April 2; Diario Hoy, April 2; Free Speech Radio News, April 2) One woman who attended the protest, María Cruz, said her husband had been arrested on April 1 at the Amay's Bakery and Noodle Co. factory in central Los Angeles. He had been a legal resident in the US for 25 years, but in 2001 authorities dug up a 20-year old felony case they said made him deportable. Cruz said her husband suffers from epilepsy; the family is worried that his condition will be exacerbated by the stress of detention. (Diario Hoy, April 2; Free Speech Radio News, April 2)

ICE spokesperson Lori Haley claimed the operation in Torrance was simply a routine inspection of customs bonded warehouses. "We do this type of routine audit to make sure everything is safe and sound," said Haley. "In the course of the inspection, we found people who were in the country illegally and we arrested them." (Diario Hoy, April 2)

The raids in the area south of Los Angeles continued on April 2 with operations at the warehouses of Nippon Express Inc. on Francisco Street in Torrance and The Trading Center in Long Beach, and at a factory in Wilmington where some 25 ICE agents detained at least 10 workers, most of them women. (Diario Hoy, April 3; La Opinión, April 3; El
Financiero, April 3; TelemundoLA.com, April 3)

Kice confirmed that the warehouse "inspections" would continue. "ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are carrying out routine inspections at import-export companies in various communities of Los Angeles... to identify any security vulnerability," said Kice. (Diario Hoy, April 3) By April 3, as word spread about the raids, many Los Angeles-area immigrants reportedly stayed home from work. (El Financiero, April 3)

Following the February raid at Micro Solutions, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, the National Lawyers Guild and the National Immigration Law Center sought a restraining order in federal court against federal immigration officials who they said repeatedly blocked attorneys from accompanying workers during meetings and interrogations. On March 12, the two sides finalized a settlement guaranteeing that the workers arrested at Micro Solutions can be accompanied by an attorney to all meetings and interrogations. ACLU staff attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said the groups hoped that the case would set a legal precedent. "The government would have a hard time explaining why the rights of these people are different from those of others" detained in similar raids, he said. (Los Angeles Times, March 14)

Day laborers arrested in Northern California
On March 28, local police officers in Fremont, Calif., (in the Bay Area, southeast of San Francisco) carried out a sting operation against day laborers who were waiting for jobs outside a local Home Depot outlet. The Fremont Police Department cited about 15 workers for trespassing and took 13 of them who had no ID to the Santa Rita Jail to be identified, according to Detective Bill Veteran. There, the laborers were apparently handed over to ICE.

The raid was carried out in response to complaints from Home Depot, Veteran said, because some of the laborers allegedly harass customers and drink in public. "As a matter of courtesy, we alert ICE when we conduct" these kinds of operations, said Veteran. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco said it will look into whether the operation violated the Constitution and will consider legal options. (NBC11.com, April 3)

According to information received by Larisa Casillas, director of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC), the workers were told at the time of their arrest that they would be placed in deportation proceedings. Casillas said her organization has received other reports indicating that people detained for traffic violations in Fremont are also being placed in deportation. Bay Area advocates are seeking to meet with Fremont police to discuss the issue. (E-mail message from Casillas received April 2)

From Immigration News Briefs, April 6

See our last post on the politics of immigration.

Lawsuit Challenges Immigration Raids in New Jersey

2008-04-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

April 4, 2008

Lawsuit Challenges Immigration Raids in New Jersey

By JULIA PRESTON

Immigration agents systematically entered homes and made arrests without proper warrants during raids to round up immigration fugitives in New Jersey, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday.

The lawsuit, brought by lawyers at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, will provide a constitutional test of law enforcement methods often used by immigration agents since May 2006 when they began operations across the country to track down and deport immigrants who had been ordered to leave by the courts.

The suit, against officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, on behalf of 10 plaintiffs, including two United States citizens, contends that teams of ICE agents used “deceit or, in some cases, raw force” to gain “unlawful entry.”

The lawsuit claims that agents, sometimes misrepresenting themselves as local police officers hunting for criminals, entered homes where no fugitives being sought were present and detained residents without showing any legal cause. Immigration agents have broad authority to question foreigners about their immigration status, but they may not enter a home without either a warrant or consent.

A spokesman for the immigration agency, Michael Gilhooly, said he could not comment on pending litigation. The suit was filed in Federal District Court in New Jersey.

Speaking generally, Mr. Gilhooly said all fugitives who were targets of ICE searches had been ordered deported by immigration judges.

“They became fugitives when they chose to ignore the judge’s order,” Mr. Gilhooly said, adding that operations to arrest fugitives “are planned after meticulous investigation and surveillance.”

In the last two years, immigration authorities have faced intense political pressure to track down fugitive illegal immigrants. In most cases, the immigrants overstayed visas or were caught when they tried to sneak into the country over a land border, then failed to appear at hearings, leading judges to order them to be deported.

Last year, ICE agents arrested 30,408 immigration fugitives, according to official figures, about double the number for 2006.

One plaintiff in the lawsuit, Maria Argueta, has been a legal immigrant since 2001. During a predawn operation in January at her home in North Bergen, N.J., the lawsuit claims, ICE agents persuaded Ms. Argueta to open her door by telling her they were police officers searching for a wanted criminal. Ms. Argueta was detained and held for 36 hours.

Another plaintiff, Arturo Flores, a United States citizen, said ICE agents showed no warrant when they forced their way into his house in Clifton, N.J., in November 2006 and conducted a search. A third plaintiff, Veronica Covias, a legal immigrant in Paterson, N.J., said agents pushed open her door in March 2007 even though she demanded that they show her a warrant.

Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Officers Sued for Constitutional Violations in Pre-Dawn Home Raids Practice

2008-04-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

Posted on Thu, Apr. 03, 2008

Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Officers Sued for Constitutional Violations in Pre-Dawn Home Raids Practice

Lowenstein Sandler PC

NEWARK, N.J., April 3, 2008 -- Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice and Lowenstein Sandler PC, filed suit today in federal court, alleging that federal law enforcement officials violated the ten victims' constitutional privacy and due process rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by entering their homes without consent or a judicial warrant during pre-dawn "raids." The plaintiffs include two U.S. citizens, a permanent resident, and a lawful protection-status grantee.

The complaint is based on eight home raids across the state of New Jersey between August 2006 and January 2008. The raids all follow a similar pattern, in which immigration agents forced their way into each plaintiff's home in the early hours of the morning without a judicial warrant or the occupants' consent. Most of the plaintiffs were awakened by loud pounding on their doors and answered the door, fearing an emergency. ICE agents subsequently either lied about their identity or purpose to gain entry, or simply shoved their way into the home. During each raid the agents swept through the house and, displaying guns, rounded up all the residents for questioning. In some cases they ordered children out of their beds, shouted obscenities, shoved guns into residents' chests, and forbade detained individuals from calling their lawyers. In at least half the raids, the officers purported to be searching for a person who did not even live at the address raided.

The complaint asserts that these practices are not isolated violations, but are examples of a clear modus operandi typical of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") program called "Operation Return to Sender." Under this program, the complaint alleges, ICE agents have been ordered to meet dramatically increased immigrant arrest quotas using grossly outdated address information and without having been trained on lawful procedures.

"This is the first lawsuit in the country to focus on the consistency of these abusive home raid practices across an entire state, and over a significant period of time," said Bassina Farbenblum, an attorney at the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice. "Our complaint shows that what happened to our plaintiffs in the middle of the night was not exceptional. It was part of a routine, widespread practice, condoned at the highest levels of government, that tramples the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike."

ICE claims that Operation Return to Sender was designed to arrest criminals and individuals with old deportation orders, people whom ICE calls "fugitives." But the statistics belie this explanation. Of the 2,079 people arrested in New Jersey last year under this program, 87% had no criminal record, and as few as 1 in 3 were "fugitives" with outstanding deportation orders. These statistics demonstrate that the program has been used as a pretext for dragnet searches in which ICE makes thousands of what it euphemistically calls "collateral arrests" of people like the plaintiffs in today's suit.

The complaint alleges that responsibility for the pre-dawn raids and the associated constitutional violations reaches senior federal officials, including the head of ICE, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security Julie Myers, who knew about the practice and allowed it to continue. The complaint also seeks to hold responsible local police officers who participated in one of the raids alongside ICE agents.

"None of the home raids in today's case involved valid warrants allowing the agents to enter, and none of the residents gave consent," noted plaintiffs' attorney Scott Thompson, of Lowenstein Sandler. "The Constitution is very clear about the circumstances under which law enforcement may enter a private home, and the entries in this case did not even come close."

According to the complaint, the constitutional violations did not cease once agents had entered the homes. For example, plaintiff Maria Argueta, a legal resident, was arrested in her home at 4:30 in the morning and detained for 24 hours without food or water; the agents lied to get into her home then refused to even to look at her immigration papers proving her status. Agents shoved a gun into the chest of another plaintiff and screamed obscenities at her. Numerous ICE agents and local Penns Grove police officers stormed yet another plaintiff's house at three in the morning with guns drawn, without a search warrant, claiming they were looking for her brother, whom the government had actually deported at least two years earlier.

"Repeatedly in this country's history, and especially during our most challenging times, immigrant populations have been the targets of suspicion, hostility and overly aggressive law enforcement tactics," said plaintiff's lawyer and Seton Hall Law Professor Baher Azmy. "If we don't want to regret this moment, as we've come to regret previous ones, we should stop to consider the costs of these lawless and abusive practices -- to our commitment to fair and humane procedures and to the human beings in our midst who suffer real harm."

Previously, the Center for Social Justice and the newspaper Brazilian Voice filed a Freedom of Information Act suit in federal court, challenging the government's withholding of documents about the raids. That lawsuit, filed January 28, 2008, can be found at http://law.shu.edu/csj/iceraids.html.

A copy of the complaint and fact summaries can be found at http://law.shu.edu/csj/iceraids.html .

Seton Hall University School of Law, New Jersey's only private law school and a leading law school in the New York metropolitan area, is dedicated to preparing students for the practice of law through excellence in scholarship and teaching with a strong focus on clinical education. The Center for Social Justice, a core of Seton Hall Law School's Catholic mission, provides clinical education and volunteer opportunities to students and engages in various forms of advocacy, scholarship and direct legal services in an effort to secure equality, civil rights and legal protection for individuals and communities in need. Seton Hall Law School is located in Newark. For more information visit http://law.shu.edu/ .

Lowenstein Sandler PC is a nationally recognized corporate law firm with offices in New York, New Jersey and Boston, with more than 275 attorneys providing a full range of legal services. The firm's commitment to its clients is demonstrated through its client-centered, service-oriented culture. Lowenstein Sandler attorneys are regularly recognized for excellence by clients and peers in national publications, including Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA Guide to America's Leading Lawyers for Business and The Legal 500. http://www.lowenstein.com

SOURCE Lowenstein Sandler PC

Bassina Farbenblum, Esq., +1-973-642-8700, farbenba@shu.edu, or Janet LeMonnier, +1-973-642-8724, Cell, +1-973-985-3165, lemonnja@shu.edu, both of Seton Hall Law School; or Robin Wagge for Lowenstein Sandler, +1-212-843-8006, Cell, +1-917-816-4790, rwagge

Lawsuit claims immigration raids are unconstitutional

2008-04-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Lawsuit claims immigration raids are unconstitutional

by Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger
Thursday April 03, 2008, 11:30 AM

Warrantless immigration raids that have led to the deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrants living in New Jersey in recent years violate the U.S. Constitution, a human rights group associated with Seton Hall University charges in a lawsuit filed today.

The lawsuit, filed by Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice and the Roseland law firm Lowenstein Sandler, challenges a growing and widespread tactic by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in which immigrants are arrested at their homes in pre-dawn raids.

Based on eight home raids that occurred across New Jersey between August 2006 and January 2008, the suit alleges ICE agents lied about their identity, illegally forced their way into homes and often claimed to be looking for someone who did not even live at the address.

In some cases, the plaintiffs charge, they arrested and detained people living legally in the U.S.

"This is the first lawsuit in the country to focus on the consistency of these abusive home raid practices across an entire state, and over a significant period of time,'' Bassina Farbenblum, an attorney at the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice, said in a prepared release.

"Our complaint shows that what happened to our plaintiffs in the middle of the night was not exceptional," she added. "It was part of a routine, widespread practice, condoned at the highest levels of government, that tramples the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike."

None of the raids involved valid warrants and none of the eight gave consent for agents to enter their homes, the lawsuit says.

In one case, Maria Argueta, a legal U.S. resident living in North Bergen, says she was arrested by agents who did not ask to check her paperwork, detained 24 hours without food or water. In another, ICE agents and police from Penn's Grove stormed a house with guns drawn, looking for a man ICE had deported two years earlier.

In New Jersey, the raids are conducted by four fugitive operations teams, part of a nationwide program launched in 2003 to round up illegal immigrants who had ignored old deportation orders.

The program once set a goal of making criminals comprise 75 percent of its arrests. But government auditors found that, in order to boost arrest statistics and meet the 1,000-arrests-per-year quota set by their bosses, agents turned their attention away from criminals and other tough targets, such as illegal immigrants who use fake or stolen identities, government auditors found last year.

In a story published in December, The Star-Ledger reported the four New Jersey teams arrested 2,079 people in the year that ended Sept. 30 - twice as many as the year before, when two teams were on the streets. The paper found that 88 percent of those arrested had no criminal histories and were picked up instead for civil immigration violations.

The right kind of immigration raid

2008-04-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-ice3apr03,1,6459683.story

From the Los Angeles Times

The right kind of immigration raid

Law enforcement and immigrant advocates are working together to make for kinder crackdowns.

April 3, 2008

Before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took 144 men and women into custody at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys a few weeks ago, the agency sent advance notice to civil rights groups. It put social service agencies on standby in case children whose parents were detained needed help. Once the suspected illegal immigrants were identified, ICE agents asked if they had chronic health conditions, child-care issues or other urgent personal situations. Those who did were released and given an order to appear in court at a later date. Lastly, ICE handed out a list of attorneys who would take cases pro bono.

It should have been the perfect immigration raid -- considerate, humanitarian, efficient, the agency's standard since the debacle in New Bedford, Mass., last year when children, including a breast-feeding baby, suffered when their parents were taken away for days. But the Van Nuys action still resulted in a lawsuit -- which led to progress. Lawyers waiting to assist the immigrants filed an injunction against ICE after they were stopped from accompanying the immigrants to interviews, a clear violation of the constitutional right to representation. ICE settled the suit several days ago, and since then attorney access has been smoother.

This is the reform of immigration enforcement far from the halls of Congress. It is being cobbled together bit by bit, with compromises, cooperation and confrontation by naturally opposing forces -- those charged with enforcing the law and deporting illegal immigrants and those who advocate on their behalf.

Tuesday afternoon, outraged immigration activists picketed ICE's downtown intake station, protesting the detention of about 30 suspected illegal immigrants taken in what they believed were "raids" on warehouses. Even a well-conducted raid is a hypocrisy, they said, illustrating contradictions between immigration enforcement policies and immigration law: A humane raid would not separate mothers from their young children for a long time, but the law allows the harsher separation of deportation.

It turns out, however, that the people picked up Tuesday were taken in routine port customs security inspections of freight warehouses. Those businesses have to comply with a lengthy list of security requirements, one of which is to not hire illegal immigrants, who are particular security risks because their status makes them vulnerable to coercion. All reasonable. So Wednesday morning, immigration advocates and ICE officials were on the phone together, examining and clarifying Tuesday's events -- and preparing for the next time.

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

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Raids snare 38 illegal aliens

2008-04-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.taftmidwaydriller.com/articles/2008/04/01/news/news04.txt

Raids snare 38 illegal aliens

By Doug Keeler
Published: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 2:01 PM CDT
E-mail this story | Print this page

Midway Driller Editor

It started out as a simple code enforcement assignment for Kern County Sheriff's deputies and code enforcement officers Thursday afternoon.

It ended up as a major raid by deputies and federal immigration agents that led the apprehension and deportation of 38 undocumented aliens, all from Mexico, living at four locations in Ford City.

Deputies and code enforcement officers went to 216 Monroe St. to investigate code enforcement issues and found 18 men, all in this county illegally, living in a large room at the house.

“It was an (illegal alien) motel,” Sheriff's Sgt. Martin Downs said.

Downs contacted Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers who responded rapidly with a large bus.

The eighteen aliens detained on Monroe Street were loaded onto the bus, and deputies and ICE agents decided to check several more locations where aliens have been known to gather.

They went next to a house at 502 Tyler Street and found nine undocumented men.

They already had several detained from the house when three more walked up to the house and were taken into custody.

Next, a raid on a residence at 219 Van Buren turned up nine undocumented aliens and a fourth stop at a house on Buchanan Street added four more to the round-up.

The raids were halted only because they ran out of room on the bus.

All of the men detained were going to be taken to the United States-Mexican boarder and released into Mexico within about 12 hours.

Most are expected to get back into this country within a day or so, deputies and ICE agents said.

The structure the aliens were staying in on Monroe Street was an add-on to an existing home.

Downs said it contained cubicles for 18 people with a toilet and shower.

The men were paying $125 per month each for a spot in the structure, Downs said.

It was declared unsafe for occupancy by code enforcement officers.

“Deputies were surprised when they found so many people staying there.

“We went in and there was this group of people,” Downs said. “We just kept finding more and more and more of them.”

Instead of deputies holding the 18 men detained or just releasing them onto the street, Downs came up with a plan.

He contacted ICE officials in Bakersfield and they agreed to come pick the men up and stage raids at the other locations.

Agents raid restaurant

2008-03-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

From omaha.com

Published Friday | March 28, 2008
Agents raid restaurant

Immigration agents on Thursday arrested eight Sarpy County restaurant workers who they suspect are in the country illegally.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Tim Counts said the work site enforcement operation at Azteca Restaurant, 9429 S. 142nd St., occurred shortly before the lunch hour.

Six men and two women from Mexico and El Salvador were arrested on administrative immigration violations that were not criminal offenses, Counts said.

It was the second immigration raid in the Omaha area in as many days.

Wednesday, a months-long investigation into American Clothing Co., 3211 Nebraska Ave. in Council Bluffs, led to the arrests of 16 undocumented workers. All of those workers were being held on administrative immigration violations also.

Counts called the timing coincidental.

He said the cases were separate investigations that happened to culminate the same week. Such work site immigration raids, however, have increased over the past several years.

"The public should expect additional work site enforcement operations," Counts said. "We do have other investigations under way."

The Sarpy County Sheriff's Office assisted Immigration agents in Thursday's operation. — Cindy Gonzalez

E-mail raises suspicion of immigration raids’ timing

2008-01-28T12:22:00.000-08:00

E-mail raises suspicion of immigration raids’ timing

An e-mail acquired by the Associated Press on Saturday revealed that, one day before dozens of New Haven residents were arrested in federal immigrant raids last summer, local Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials notified the organization’s national director that the Board of Aldermen approved the Elm City Resident Card program.

The June 5 e-mail, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, also discloses that ICE — the largest arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which conducted the summer raids — expected the raids to garner substantial media attention. The raids took place in Fair Haven just two days after the Board of Aldermen passed the funds for the ID cards, which are available to residents regardless of immigration status.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. told the AP that the e-mail reinforces his belief that the timing of the June 6 arrests was not a coincidence and instead corresponded with the approval of the municipal ID program.

“It is really difficult to believe that the launch of our program has nothing to do with this,” City hall spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said Sunday. “When you read these e-mails, you are reminded of that.”

But Jessica Mayorga also clarified Sunday that DeStefano does not think the raids were “retaliatory,” despite claims to the contrary immediately following the arrests.

National ICE officials said it is common practice to send e-mails on immigration developments across the nation, as they come up, and that the news did not influence the timing. Federal ICE spokesperson Paula Grenier told the AP that the e-mail was “something we typically do [which] is to pass on information.”

The timing of the e-mail had nothing to do with date of the raids, she said.

In June, DeStefano released a six-page document arguing that the raids violated constitutional rights, caused trauma among the young children and did not “follow protocol.”

Although Department of Homeland Security spokesman William “Russ” Kanocke told the News in June that ICE typically contacts “relevant” city officials before conducting raids, City Hall officials said local police and city officials were never contacted in advance.

According to a June City Hall statement citing sworn witness testimony, ICE agents did not have warrants to enter households and failed to receive proper consent from residents and to identify themselves properly. In a June 14 letter to Connecticut leaders, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff disputed these claims.

For months, ICE officials have denied that the raids were motivated by the ID program, saying that the raid was planned for months and the timing was merely coincidental. Kanocke told the News last June that DeStefano’s accusation was “bogus.”

“When you have a local official that makes the suggestion that an enforcement action is somehow correlated to the political views or policies of a community, it’s just bogus,” Kanocke said. “That’s not at all how it works, and it’s not even close to grasping the sophistication and the planning that goes into an ICE enforcement action.”

The raids were originally scheduled for April 20, 2007, shortly after national media started to cover the Elm City Resident Card program, Law School attorneys have said based on their correspondence with ICE officals.

The raids were then pushed to May 2, confirmed by a redacted letter released through a June 26 FOIA request to Law School professor Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93, who is representing immigrants rights groups as well as the arrested immigrants. ICE officials told the News that the raids were pushed back to June due to problems with planning.

Wishnie told the AP that the e-mail does not indicate ICE officials “wanted to be prepared to respond to that expected attention.”

But, he said, “it certainly casts doubt on the statements that the raid had nothing to do with the ID program.”

Wishnie declined to the comment to the News on Sunday night.

ICE agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided at least four households in the predominantly Hispanic Fair Haven area on June 6 as part of “Operation Return to Sender,” a nation-wide ICE plan to issue deportation warrants.

On June 26, Wishnie and the Law School clinic attorneys, on behalf of JUNTA for Progressive Action and Unidad Latina en Accion, two local immigrant advocacy groups, applied for documents concerning the raids from the Conn. Department of Public Safety.

Citing a state FOIA law that prohibits the release of records concerning criminal investigations, the state Department of Public Safety refused to provide a portion of its records to the Yale attorneys representing the arrested residents in October. That prompted the attorneys to file an appeal, which was considered by the FOI commission on Nov. 1.

On Nov. 9, the commission ordered the DPS to release the raid documents Wishnie had requested. Attorneys then said they expected the new documents to strengthen existing evidence that the riots were reactionary.

Other than the list of 32 as-of-yet unspecified names, the documents requested by Wishnie include a 10-page operational plan for the ICE raids that the DPS received from Homeland Security on May 29. It is unclear whether Wishnie has received any documents since the Nov. 9 hearing, and he could not be reached for comment Sunday.

-The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Some illegal workers caught in area raids temporarily can stay in U.S.

2008-01-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

Some illegal workers caught in area raids temporarily can stay in U.S.

Frank X. Mullen (FMULLEN@RGJ.COM)
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
January 18, 2008

The federal government will allow at least two dozen of the 56 immigrants swept up in a September raid of area McDonald's restaurants to temporarily stay in Nevada as it continues its investigation of businesses that hire illegal workers.

The 56 suspected undocumented workers were arrested Sept. 27 in raids of 11 Reno-area McDonald's restaurants. So far, federal authorities have agreed to allow 24 of those workers to remain in the U.S. under a temporary status agreement, according to the lawyer representing 28 of the workers.

"Some of the individuals will be allowed to stay temporarily under a policy called deferred enforced departure," said Woody Wright. "It's a discretionary thing while (the government) is in the process of an investigation. They will hold off on any immigration court proceedings for a period of time."

Those who received temporary status are allowed to work and those who find jobs can be issued special Social Security cards, he said. The process could extend their stay from one to two years, said Wright, who represented the workers for free with the help of Nevada Hispanic Services.

"To my knowledge, none of my clients have any criminal charges pending," Wright said, but he noted the workers will eventually have to go through civil deportation proceedings in immigration court.

"Basically these clients got lucky, but it's only short-term luck," he said. "They still have to go before a judge."

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the McDonald's restaurants after receiving a tip that a manager in the Fernley McDonald's was working under someone else's Social Security number.

The agency arrested 54 people at 11 area McDonald's and two elsewhere. At the time ICE agents said the raids were part of an effort "to focus on employers who build in hiring illegal workers as part of their business practice."

Agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Thursday the investigation is ongoing and the agency "is not going to speculate about the possible outcome."

No charges have been filed against Luther Mack, owner of the McDonald's restaurants. Mack said Thursday he had no comment on the case.

Kice said she could not confirm the number of workers who were given deferred enforcement status in the McDonald's cases.

"(But) I want to underscore that ICE conducts enforcement actions lawfully, professionally and humanely and takes extraordinary steps to identify, document and act on humanitarian concerns of the illegal aliens arrested for immigration and other violations," she said. "The enforcement action in Reno and the ongoing investigation are no exception."

Of the 56 workers identified during the raids, ICE released two on-site. They were mailed notices to appear at future immigration proceedings.

The other 54 workers were sent to a processing center where 29 were released on their own recognizance based upon "humanitarian concerns," Kice said.

At least seven workers have been deported to Mexico because they had been arrested in the past and already had been through administrative proceedings in front of an immigration judge, ICE officials said.

Federal review of Bianco raid ordered

2008-01-18T00:28:00.000-08:00

Federal review of Bianco raid ordered

January 18, 2008 6:00 AM

The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has pledged to review Immigration Customs and Enforcement's actions during last year's Michael Bianco raid, which politicians and immigrant advocates say caused a "humanitarian crisis" by tearing families apart.

Inspector General Richard L. Skinner has agreed to launch a general review into the concerns raised in a letter that Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., sent just four days after the March 6, 2007, raid, an agency spokeswoman told The Standard-Times Thursday.

Sen. Kerry requested a "thorough investigation" into the agency's handling of the raid after immigration agents stormed the leather factory and nabbed 361 illegal workers, mostly women with young children. Detainees were quickly shipped off to detention centers in Texas, where some languished for months before being released and reunited with their families. Those who were not deported face hearings before a federal immigration judge.

"I am very concerned that there was a systematic failure in preparing for and executing the New Bedford immigration raid," Sen. Kerry wrote in a March 10 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"It is for that reason I am copying DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner on this letter and asking for a thorough investigation into how the raid was prepared and how it was executed," he wrote. "I believe the situation in New Bedford has become a classic example of what not to do in an immigration raid and I hope that we can have your agency's full cooperation in rectifying this crisis."

Tamara Faulkner, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security's Inspector General's Office, said it is "way too early to know what exactly will be the scope of the review."

While a general review does not have to meet the same standards as an audit, Ms. Faulkner said the office would "look at the issue as seriously and as deeply as we can."

It will start by putting "a team on the ground to talk to people" about the raid, she said.

The review will take about eight months to complete and will result in a published report, which could include recommendations for ICE, she said.

"I am pleased that the inspector general is taking this matter seriously and going forward with the investigation that I have requested," Sen. Kerry said in a statement. "Hopefully, we will finally get the truth about what happened in New Bedford. The families and community deserve as much."

ICE spokeswoman Pat Reilly defended the agency's conduct during the Bianco raid.

"We feel confident that the inspector general will not find anything remiss," she said. "We stand by what we did in New Bedford. We always comport ourselves in a professional manner."

Ms. Reilly noted that her agency has had no notification about the inspector general's review.

She described the Bianco raid as a "worksite enforcement that turns off the magnet for illegal immigration.

"We've done it throughout the country and we always do it to a very high standard," she said. "I think we've been very transparent about what we did at New Bedford and why we did it and what was subsequently done with the people who we arrested."

In November, following conversations with U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and U.S. Rep. William D. Delahunt, both D-Mass., ICE codified its guidelines for treating illegal immigrants and their families during raids involving more than 150 workers. The guidelines, which were distributed to ICE personnel, were not new rules, but rather existing rules pulled together into a single document, Ms. Reilly said.

Sen. Kerry's letter to Mr. Chertoff is loaded with questions about the treatment of detainees during and after the raid. He asks how soon detainees were given access to Department of Social Services representatives and whether any effort was made to keep them closer to Massachusetts. He questions what steps ICE took to make sure that children would not be stranded as a result of the raid.

The letter also raises questions about how much ICE knew about Michael Bianco Inc.'s contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense. Workers at the factory sewed backpacks and safety vests for the military under a federal contract.

"In addition to my concerns about the innocent children swept up in the aftermath of this raid, I also have significant questions about how a target of an ICE criminal investigation could also be the recipient of lucrative DOD contracts," Sen. Kerry wrote in the letter.

Contact Becky W. Evans at revans@s-t.com

Group outlines abuse claims in immigration sweeps

2008-01-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

Jan. 18, 2008, 1:41AM
Group outlines abuse claims in immigration sweeps

Hate and bigotry among items cited in critical report as conference opens

By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A national immigrant advocacy organization on Thursday released a report that accused U.S. officials of stepping up workplace raids and immigration sweeps to "instill fear in communities."

The report's release coincides with the opening of a national conference for the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which will be held today through Sunday at the downtown Houston Hyatt. The California-based group outlined a wide range of alleged human rights violations in its 108-page report, "Over-raided, Under Siege," based largely on news reports and interviews with community leaders.

Arnoldo Garcia, the director of the Immigrant Justice & Rights Program at NNIRR, described a "climate of hate and intolerance and bigotry" against immigrants in much of America. He said the report raises important questions about the timing and legality of recent immigration raids, citing a sweep last year in New Haven, Conn., that was conducted two days after the city approved issuing a municipal ID card that would allow all residents — regardless of their citizenship — to access certain city services.

"When they do those raids, it's a scary thing for people to see," Garcia said. "It intimidates people into giving up their rights. It's very deliberate."

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, disputed the allegations and said the raid in New Haven was planned more than a month in advance.

"ICE is a law enforcement agency," she said. "We are not trying to strike fear into anyone. We are enforcing the law. I think the American public has made it crystal clear that that is what they want."

Garcia said the conference organizers chose to hold the conference in Houston in part because of the city's size and diversity, and its location along the Gulf Coast.

Nestor Rodriguez, a University of Houston sociology professor and co-director of UH's Center for Immigration Research, said he plans to speak briefly at the conference this morning. He said such gatherings have great significance in helping to broaden the immigration debate.

"This is a key social issue for us today in this country, and something the presidential candidates and the public in general talks about," Rodriguez said. "The more we meet and discuss the significance of migration, the better off we are. I think the more informed we are, the better we're equipped to make decisions."

The conference will focus in part on developing a system to track and document human rights abuses and hold the government accountable for documented violations, Garcia said. Other goals include strategizing about the November political elections and crafting plans to lobby Congress to legalize the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Garcia said the conference registration is near capacity with about 500 people. Those interested in attending the conference at the Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana, can e-mail NNIRR at conference08@nnirr.org. For information, visit www.nnirr.org.

susan.carroll@chron.com

IMMIGRATION MATTERS: Defending the Civil Rights of Immigrants

2008-01-18T00:20:00.000-08:00

IMMIGRATION MATTERS: Defending the Civil Rights of Immigrants

Looking Back, Looking Forward

New America Media, Commentary, Maya Harris, Posted: Jan 18, 2008

Editor’s Note: 2007 was a grim year for many immigrants with the double whammy of failed comprehensive immigration reform and increased enforcement measures across the country. What's in store for 2008? Maya Harris is the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California, the organization’s largest affiliate in the country. She is the first African American and first Indian American to hold that position. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of the nation’s leading immigrant rights advocates.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – First-grader Kebin Reyes, a U.S. citizen who lives with his father in San Rafael, just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, missed a field trip with his class one day last March. In the early dawn hours, armed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stormed into the Reyes’ apartment, handcuffed Kebin’s father, and took both father and son into custody. The terrified six-year-old was locked in a room with his father for 10 hours, with nothing to eat but bread and water.

Kebin is one of our clients. A month after the raid, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the little boy for violation of his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

Kebin was just one of thousands of children across the country who were traumatized by the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Return to Sender” program last year, an initiative characterized not only by racial profiling and a disregard of constitutional rights, but by tremendous inefficiency. Though DHS chief Michael Chertoff claims that the ongoing campaign is aimed at capturing criminals and fugitives, less than one quarter of those arrested last year in Northern California had criminal records.

Despite the fact that Congress was unable to agree on a major immigration reform bill in 2007, state and local laws proliferated. This election year is sure to bring heightened rhetoric and even more draconian proposals. Some of these will be high-profile photo opportunities orchestrated to benefit politicians – like more neighborhood raids and an ever longer, stronger border fence. Others will be more subtle, contrived in the corridors of power, but whose influence will be felt sharply by families, students and workers.

Here are some priorities for the ACLU in the new year:

“No-Match” letters: In 2007, a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the AFL-CIO temporarily halted the federal government plan to punish employers who do not fire employees whose work authorizations are not in the Social Security database. The government has acknowledged that the database is rife with errors, and that more than 70 percent of the discrepancies are in records of U.S. citizens. The court predicted that the program could cause irreparable harm to more than 8 million workers and their employers. Nevertheless, the government intends to reintroduce its flawed proposal in March 2008.

REAL ID: Tucked away in a supplemental bill for the Iraq War and Tsunami relief in 2005, the REAL ID Act turns a driver’s license into a national identity card that everyone will need in order to travel by plane, enter government buildings or open a bank account. Under REAL ID, every person who applies for a driver’s license must prove to a Department of Motor Vehicles clerk that he or she is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. This national database will not solve the problem of illegal immigration or enhance national security – it will, however, endanger the privacy of all Americans. Seventeen states have registered their opposition to REAL ID, and a measure to repeal it is now pending in Congress.

Citizenship delays: As a “national security” measure, the government expanded its use of FBI background checks in 2007 to include a “name check” for each applicant against every name that appears as a reference (as a victim, witness, or other relevant party) in an FBI investigation database. This practice, which results in “false hits,” has caused delays for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country.

DREAM Act: The California Legislature passed a bill to ensure that all California high school graduates accepted into state public institutions of post-secondary education would be eligible for state-sponsored financial aid, regardless of their immigration status. Though the Governor vetoed the bill, it will be reintroduced this year in hopes that all California kids have a chance to fulfill their dreams of higher education.

Now for some good news. Last year, California became the first state to enact a law prohibiting landlords from checking the immigration status of tenants and prohibiting local governments from requiring such checks. The bill was sponsored by apartment owners who did not want to be put in the position of acting like Border Patrol agents. The California law, which was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was in direct response to local ordinances around the country that would ban landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants.

People often ask me, why is the ACLU involved in immigration issues?

There are very big reasons for doing so.

The ACLU was founded during the 1920s Palmer Raids, when our government ordered European immigrants detained and deported because of their political views. As the U.S. Supreme Court later established, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution apply to all persons in this country, not just to U.S. citizens.

There are also many small reasons. Like first-grader Kebin Reyes.

Seeking stability: Family believes raid was act of ‘selective enforcement’

2008-01-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

Seeking stability : Family believes raid was act of ‘selective enforcement’

By Evie Blad Staff Writer // evieb@nwanews.com

Posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/57611/

ROGERS — Serafina Reyes

still sheds tears when she

recounts the day she told her grandchildren their parents had been arrested. Dec. 10, 2007, started as a quiet day at the Reyes home at 2706 Creekside Drive. Quickly, it turned into chaos and confusion.

The change started with a dull thud — the sound of law-enforcement officers breaking through the door of the family’s home in a surprise raid, then ended with the petite matriarch holding her four eldest grandchildren as they returned home from school to find the floor of the home strewn with papers and clothing.

“ They said ‘ Mama ! Papa !’” she said through an interpreter.

In a near-simultaneous raid of multiple locations of the family’s Acambaro Restaurant chain, Garcia’s Distribution Center and the home, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers and local police arrested Reyes ’ son, Arturo Reyes Jr., 35, his wife, Silvia Reyes, 36, and Lucila Huaracha, 33, all of Rogers; and Armando Reyes, 33, of Lowell, on charges of harboring or shielding aliens for material gain.

The raids also yielded the arrest of 19 illegal immigrants working in the restaurants.

The arrests were made as part of the first large-scale action taken after formation of a regional immigrations task force operating under the federal 287 (g ) guidelines. The program gives local law enforcement the authority to detain suspected illegal immigrants, then check their citizenship status by accessing a federal immigration database. A total of 19 officers from the Springdale and Rogers police departments and Benton and Washington county sheriff’s offices are authorized for the program.

Arturo Reyes Jr. remains jailed awaiting a trial date. He was not released because he was judged to have the potential to flee to his family’s home in Mexico.

Silvia, who is three months pregnant and a mother of five, is out of jail on $ 25, 000 bond. She is under home arrest, with a monitoring unit strapped to her ankle.

Silvia and Arturo Jr. have worked in the United States as illegal immigrants for 14 years. Arturo’s parents are legal residents. The couple never sought legal status because the process of acquiring citizenship is cumbersome and the family’s children — all natural-born U. S. citizens — are not fluent in Spanish and would be uncomfortable living in an unfamiliar culture in Guanajuato, Mexico, where they would have to live during the process, she said. Memories of the raid

The monitoring bracelet on Silvia’s ankle alerts police if she leaves her home. She follows a handwritten list of times she’s allowed to leave the house to pick up her children from school and attend church. She clears doctor’s appointments related to her pregnancy in advance with police.

The raid has shaken up her children, she said. It’s difficult to be at home with so much uncertainty while her husband remains detained, Silvia said, but she knows it’s what Arturo wants her to do.

Daughter Josselyne, 3, who was present during the raid, now sleeps with the lights on.

Jessica, 14, wrote her mother a letter detailing her fears of ICE and her bad memories. The letter included a hand-drawn map showing where her parents, grandparents and siblings could sleep in one of the family’s other homes in Rogers. The move would help to avoid memories triggered by living where the raid happened, she wrote.

Serafina, 66, can still reenact every footstep of that morning. She was upstairs, giving her husband his heart medication, when she heard a loud sound like a gunshot at the front door. She walked into the atrium to find officers with weapons drawn. They had broken out a panel of the front door and forced entry into the home, she said.

Silvia, who wasn’t visibly pregnant at the time, remembers lying on the floor with Josselyne, covering her eyes to keep her from being afraid. ICE had already arrested Silvia’s husband at one of the restaurants, though she didn’t know it at the time.

The family doesn’t understand why force was used.

“ It would have taken one officer to arrest me, ” Silvia said.

Since the raids, rumors have also surfaced about inappropriate behavior by local police officers on the scene. Employees present at the raided restaurants claim officers mocked the seriousness of the event, putting on aprons and sombreros and dancing around, she said.

Sgt. Shane Pegram, public information officer for the Springdale Police Department, would not comment on the behavior of specific officers, citing the federal nature of the investigation.

Neither would Steve Helms, chief of the Rogers Police Department.

“ Any officer obviously is trained in etiquette and procedures, but I can’t speak directly to it, ” he said. “ We want our officers to act professionally, as any agency would. ”

A Homeland Security officer was present, supervising the process when the search warrant was executed at the residence, Helms said. Selective enforcement ?

Serafina, Silvia and Silvia’s brother, Isais Morales, 43, who works at the restaurants, agree that the raids were what some members of the twocounty Hispanic community have called selective enforcement.

Outside a recent court hearing, a group of several high-profile Hispanic business and community leaders distributed a document outlining plans to establish a fund for legal defense of local Hispanic business owners and diversity training for local officers involved in immigration enforcement.

Helms said the department already incorporates several forms of diversity training into basic training.

“ It’s basically preaching the Golden Rule: treat others as you would treat yourself, ” he said.

Pegram said the Springdale department hadn’t yet determined whether it would take part in training provided through the group’s fund.

“ It’s hard to say because we don’t know what that training would consist of, ” he said.

The Hispanic community group’s statement said officers “ unduly targeted the Reyes family for exceedingly harsh scrutiny and punishment. ”

“ Out of the thousands of businesses in NWA so far, ICE officials have targeted Hispanic-owned enterprises in their quest to rid NWA of ‘ undesirables, ’” said the statement, which was endorsed by Jim Miranda, a Hispanic activist, and Ana Hart, executive director of Just Communities of Northwest Arkansas.

Silvia agreed.

Officers could go into the kitchen of any northwest Arkansas restaurant, she said, and they would likely find illegal immigrants employed under the guise of false documents. The same could be said for large corporations, she said.

She denied knowingly employing illegal immigrants. Small businesses are not given the proper tools or training to determine that documents are authentic, she said.

Silvia said that when she first became involved with the business she had a soft approach toward documentation, because of her own lack of documentation. As the family learned more about the legal process, they took a more aggressive approach to investigating documents.

Under the more aggressive approach, when the company received notification of a questionable Social Security number from the Internal Revenue Service, managers would confront the employee. If the document was false, the employee would simply leave, she said.

In October, the family closed the restaurants for a few days when a group of employees — suspicious of people in what they believed were unmarked law-enforcement vehicles — refused to come to work out of fear of a raid. Many left the state, Silvia said. She said supervisors were unaware of the employees’ illegal status.

Of the 19 workers arrested in December, seven have been deported to Mexico and El Salvador, Morales said. Many of them left children behind, he said.

Federal authorities froze the restaurant chain’s bank accounts and seek to seize $ 3. 5 million worth of property allegedly purchased with money made from employing illegal immigrants — including the family’s four homes, five restaurants and a warehouse.

A federal complaint details suspicious financial activity at the businesses as an incentive for investigation, citing large cash deposits as evidence of potential wrongdoing.

Cash transactions are quite common in the Hispanic community, Morales said.

“ Am I supposed to tell a customer, ‘ No, you can’t pay me in cash’ ? ” he said through an interpreter.

Morales opened a vinyl bank bag, fanning out stacks of prepared deposits from Tuesday’s business at three of the restaurants. The records showed a total of $ 3, 179 in cash and $ 3, 075. 71 in creditcard or debit-card transactions. On Mondays, the chain would deposit a full weekend’s worth of cash from all of its restaurants, frequently a large sum, he said. A federal investigation

Morales said area immigration enforcement has been presented as a tool to rein in criminal activity. He doesn’t understand why his family, all involved in the business community, was the target of the first large-scale raid.

“ The police came here to take innocent people, ” he said.

Helms denies that the Reyes investigation was a misuse of local immigrationenforcement efforts. The investigation of the family originated with the Department of Homeland Security before local agencies secured 287 (g ) agreements, and before the task force was formed, he said.

“ The officers that were trained were brought in to finish that up, ” he said.

Bob Balfe, U. S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, would not speak on the specifics of the Reyes investigation. He denied accusations of targeting Hispanic business owners. Investigations are based on credible tips.

The Acambaro investigation has been ongoing since 2006, he said.

“ I strongly disagree with that characterization, ” Balfe said. “ We did not take out a Hispanic business directory and begin with the A’s. ”

Local officers were acting within the goals of the northwest Arkansas Immigration Criminal Apprehension Task Force, he said. The organization works with ICE to establish priority cases. The task force’s top priority is pursuing immigrants involved in violent crime. It next targets groups involved in other types of criminal activity such as document fraud and drug trafficking.

Because the first two goals involve reactive enforcement, which occurs once crimes are discovered, officers spend the remainder of their time focusing on larger investigations targeting the task force’s third goal — halting the hiring of illegal immigrants, Balfe said.

The region’s high job-creation rate draws the majority of illegal immigrants to northwest Arkansas. Employers frequently abuse illegal workers, denying benefits and pushing high overtime hours with substandard wages, Balfe said.

“ Until we hold these employers accountable, illegal immigrants are going to continue to be preyed upon, ” he said, speaking generally. “ We’re not focused on the race of the employers; we’re focusing on the criminality of the employer. ” The future of Acambaro

The future for the family and the restaurant chain remains uncertain, Morales said.

With a shortage of employees necessary to reopen all of the restaurants, the family has opened four of the seven locations. Even if the family is cleared of charges, Morales is convinced the attention from the legal proceedings may have a negative impact on the business.

The family, who has catered community events and fundraisers for years, has seen a swell of support from the community. Church congregations are praying for them, and patrons are returning to the restaurants. A white Bentonville couple, loyal customers for years, offered to attend a court hearing with the family, he said.

“ The first time they came back to the restaurant, they jumped up and down and said, ‘ I’m so glad you’re open !’” Morales said.

Francisco Ayala, managing editor of Noticias Libres, interpreted for this story and contributed to it.

San Diego Minutemen adopt a freeway

2008-01-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

San Diego Minutemen adopt a freeway

Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Opponents of the adoption say Caltrans ignored its own rule barring groups that advocate discrimination.

Caltrans grants a stretch of I-5 that includes a border patrol checkpoint to the foes of illegal immigration, a move some critics call "unfortunate."

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 12, 2008

SAN DIEGO -- The Knights of Columbus have adopted a highway. So have the Japanese American Citizens League, biker groups, Indian casinos and the International House of Pancakes.

Now add the San Diego Minutemen.

Caltrans has granted an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 to the ardent foes of illegal immigration -- and not just any stretch. The two miles of freeway the Minutemen will be charged with beautifying include the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near San Clemente.

"How great is that," Jeff Schwilk, the group's founder, told his members in an e-mail.

Critics disagreed, saying the California Department of Transportation ignored its own rule that bars groups that advocate violence or discrimination from participating in the program.

"The Adopt-A-Highway program was designed to allow organizations to show pride in the state of California . . . and it is unfortunate that the Minutemen, whose approach . . . includes advocating violence, have been allowed by Caltrans into the program," said Tina Malka, associate director of the San Diego branch of the Anti-Defamation League.

Schwilk denied Friday that his group advocates violence and said no member has ever been arrested for immigrant-related violence.

Caltrans spokesman Edward Cartagena said the Minutemen got the stretch of I-5 purely by chance. The group submitted its application in November, he added, and it was reviewed and found to comply with the rule. According to the agency's website, it bars "entities that advocate violence, violation of the law, or discrimination based upon race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry" and other factors.

"The Department will not discriminate against groups that otherwise meet the program criteria based on the fact that some members of the public might disagree with the particular group's agenda or reputation," Caltrans said in a prepared statement.

The group's two signs -- one on each side of the freeway -- went up in late December. Members have been given a safety course on how to clean the freeway. Their first cleanup day is set for next Saturday.

Schwilk said Caltrans rules bar demonstrations, and he and his crew would just be beautifying the roadway. "We'll be out there in dorky-looking vests, hard hats and goggles, picking up trash," he said. "We're a community activist group, so why wouldn't we take other steps to help our communities?"

Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, a San Diego-based immigrant rights group, questioned the Minutemen's motives and called Schwilk's move a publicity ploy.

"They're desperate to get attention, even if it means sweeping the freeway," he said.

The San Diego Minutemen operate mostly in north San Diego County, where members often demonstrate at day labor sites and trade accusations of violent behavior with anti-immigrant groups. Schwilk says the group has 600 members. Others say membership has dwindled to no more than 30.

A former Marine, Schwilk says on his website that he worked alongside hardworking Mexicans in a carwash for more than three years in the 1980s and that his best friend in school was half Mexican.

Andy Ramirez, chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, congratulated Schwilk on his great freeway location. It's entirely fitting, he said, that a group like his that supports the border patrol's mission be given the area near the checkpoint.

In fact, he said, "The irony is killing me. . . . Why didn't I think of that?"

richard.marosi@latimes.com

--

Local Police Taking On Immigration Enforcement

2008-01-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

From NPR

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Local Police Taking On Immigration Enforcement

by Jennifer Ludden

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Scott Olson

Demonstrators protest a resolution to adopt a federal program called 287G in Waukegan, Ill., last July. The program allows local law enforcement agencies to take on the role of federal immigration officers, to demand people prove their citizenship status and start deportation proceedings. AFP/Getty Images

All Things Considered, January 11, 2008 · In the past decade, thousands of immigrants have settled among the rolling hills of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, finding jobs in poultry processing, construction and the service industry. When local police would find they had arrested an illegal immigrant for some crime, they would call Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But Rockingham County Sheriff Don Farley says that, as often as not, federal agents were so busy that the immigrant would make bail and disappear before they ever showed up, and there was nothing Farley could do.

"When I have to respond to my community about this problem," Farley says, "I don't want to say, 'Well I have a badge but it doesn't work on immigration problems; it only works on speeding and cats in trees and that type of thing.' I didn't feel good at all about that."

So last year, Farley joined nearly three dozen other police agencies that have signed on to a Homeland Security program that lets local officers hold people on immigration charges. Five of his deputies received five weeks of training in immigration law. That now lets them check the legal status of everyone booked at the county jail in Harrisonburg.

Homeland Security Program

Officers can take fingerprints and check them against the federal immigration agency database. If there's no hit there, they can interview the suspect and investigate his legal status. If someone is deemed to be illegally present, the sheriff's office can then detain him and start the paperwork for the deportation process. Sheriff Farley says that since August, his force has detained 69 illegal immigrants.

"We're not going and pulling people off the street because they have a foreign look about them," he says.

Farley says he has taken heat from all sides over the program; immigrant advocates are worried that he'll conduct random raids, while others have criticized him because he's not conducting such raids. Farley says he has no plans to target otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants who are simply providing for their families. For one thing, he has no space for them in his crowded jail.

"If someone wants to build me a 10,000-person jail, maybe I'll start looking at all the illegals," Farley says, "but that's not going to happen."

Instead, in addition to the checks at the jail, Farley's officers focus on immigrants who are suspected drug dealers and gang members.

Fear of Reporting Crimes

Up a steep hill in Harrisonburg, Deputy Sheriff Corrie Bauserman patrols a run-down trailer park of mainly Hispanic families, pointing out layers of graffiti sprayed by competing gangs. In theory, Bauserman has authority to check the legal status of anyone here, even if there are no criminal charges against them. He's done that once. He says a gang member he knew to be here illegally was implicated in crime after crime, but the victims were afraid to press charges.

"I said, 'This guy is a problem. He's associated with recruiting 12-year-old children, 10-year-old children. He's setting up the meetings, he's doing this, he's doing that. We need to get rid of him,'" Bauserman says.

Bauserman dismisses fears that his new powers make people avoid sharing information with him. In fact, he says, Latinos here are eager to help because they are often the victims of the crimes he targets.

But not everyone is convinced.

"To me, it's just a matter of fear-mongering," says Rick Casteneda, chairman of the Harrisonburg Area Hispanic Services Council. He says immigrants — even legal ones whose family members are undocumented — are indeed more afraid to report crimes now.

"I've had situations where people called me directly and said I had $1,000 or something stolen, and I have an idea who did it but I'm afraid to go to the police," Castaneda says.

Delegating Powers Controversial

Harrisonburg lawyer Aaron Cook says he appreciates that Sheriff Farley and his deputies exercise discretion. But he says the other local police forces that also use the county jail may not. Since everyone at the jail is checked, Cook says, longtime residents with jobs and families can be deported after minor infractions like reckless driving or petty theft.

Cook had one client that he says was wrongly arrested when she was a passenger in a car accident. Cook was able to get that charge thrown out, but because the woman's legal status had been checked at the jail, she was deported anyway.

Even within the law enforcement community, delegating immigration powers is controversial. Hubert Williams, head of the research organization Police Foundation, worries about racial profiling and about the burden local agencies bear with this new responsibility. Williams says studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native born, so he believes this trend isn't as much about public safety as it is about politics.

"Right now (it's) being driven by impulse, emotions and fear of political backlash over the immigration problem," Williams says. "Over time, eyes will be opened, and people will give a lot more thought to the impact of this kind of decision."

Maybe. But right now, the movement toward local enforcement is so strong that the federal immigration agency has just set up a new office to coordinate it. The executive director is a former North Carolina sheriff, Jim Pendergraph, who says that every day he gets calls from other states interested in cooperating with ICE. In fact, demand is so great, Pendergraph has 90 local agencies on a waiting list to be trained in immigration enforcement.

"I don't see it reversing at all," Pendergraph says. "There have been too many people that have said immigration is a federal responsibility. Immigration is all of our responsibility, and it can never be successful without partnerships with state and locals."

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MIGRATION

2008-01-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MIGRATION
By David Bacon
New Labor Forum, June 2007

Note: This article previews an argument that will be made at book length in "Illegal - How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants," Beacon Press, Fall 2008

Mr. Sensenbrenner's Family Business

In December 2005, Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner convinced his Republican colleagues (and to their shame, 35 Democrats) to pass one of the most repressive immigration proposals of the last hundred years. His bill, HR 4437, would have made federal felons of all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., criminalized teachers, nurses or priests who helped them, and built a 700-mile wall on the U.S. Mexico border to keep people from crossing.

Representative Sensenbrenner is more than just a leader of Congressional xenophobes, however. His family is intimately involved in creating the conditions that cause migration, and then profits from the labor it makes available. In fact, the Sensenbrenner family connections are a microcosm of the political economy of migration itself.

James Sensenbrenner's grandfather started Kimberley Clark, one of the world's largest paper companies, and Sensenbrenner and the family trust remain important stockholders. The company's Mexican counterpart, Kimberley Clark de Mexico, is a close associate of the Mexican mining giant, Grupo Mexico. One of K-C's former executives, J. Eduardo Gonzalez, sits on its board.

Grupo Mexico was a big winner in the neoliberal economic reforms that transformed the Mexican economy over the last twenty years. In the 1990s, the corporation became the owner of two of the world's largest copper mines, in Cananea and Nacozari, which were formerly nationally-owned enterprises. The mines lie just a few dozen miles south of the Arizona border.

In 1998, Grupo Mexico provoked a strike in Cananea, over moves to reduce its workforce and labor costs. Close to a thousand miners lost their jobs. Many were blacklisted and left for "the other side."

Then last year the mining giant prevailed on the Mexican government to depose the president of the country's miners union, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia. Gomez had accused the company of industrial homicide after the terrible Pasta de Conchos disaster, when 68 men died in a coalmine explosion. Grupo Mexico also didn't like his drive to raise mining wages beyond government-set limits.

Miners in Cananea and Nacozari stopped work for months to force Gomez' reinstatement. Finally, last summer, the government gave Grupo Mexico the green light to fire all 2500 miners in Nacozari. Since there are no other jobs in tiny Sonoran mining towns the displaced families had to leave to survive. With the border just a few miles north, many sought their survival by crossing it. The profits of Grupo Mexico and its business partners went up as they destroyed unions, terminated thousands of workers, and forced their families into the migrant stream.

During those very months when workers began to go north, Sensenbrenner organized a series of rump Congressional hearings to defend his bill. He fulminated against undocumented immigrants, claiming they had no place in the United States and should leave. No one asked the Congressman about those miners from Cananea and Nacozari, however. Where did he think they would go?

Other voices in Congress criticized the Representative, arguing that the labor of migrants was needed in the U.S. economy. Not even Sensenbrenner could deny this. Some 16 million immigrants live in the U.S. with documents, and 12 million without them. If they actually did go home, whole industries would collapse. Some of the country's largest corporations, completely dependent on the work of immigrants, would go bankrupt.

One of these dependent corporations is Mr. Sensenbrenner's family business.

Every year, Kimberley Clark, a large paper company, . converts tons of wood pulp into leading brands of toilet paper. Deep in U.S. forests thousands of immigrant workers plant and tend the trees that produce that pulp..

Every year, laborers from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean are recruited for this job. In towns like La Democracia, Guatemala, where the global fall in coffee prices has driven families to the edge of hunger, recruiters promise jobs paying more in an hour than a coffee farmer can make in a day. They offer to arrange visas to come to the U.S. as guest workers. For their services they charge thousands of dollars. Hungry families will mortgage homes and land, just to put one person on the airplane north.

In the U.S., recruiters hand the workers over to labor contractors. They, in turn, work for land management companies, who tend the forests for their owners. The landowners grow the trees, and sell them to the paper companies.

The debts of guest workers are so crushing that in 1998, 14 men drowned as the van carrying them to work careened off a bridge into the Alagash River in a Maine forest. They were speeding because it had rained the day before, keeping them from working. Carrying that load of debt, even one lost day puts a family in jeopardy.

No one gets overtime, regardless of the law. Companies charge for everything from tools to food and housing. Guest workers are routinely cheated of much of their pay. If they protest, they're put on a blacklist and won't be hired the following year. Protesting wouldn't do much good anyway. The U.S. Department of Labor sees no problem with this abuse. It almost never decertifies a guest worker contractor, no matter how many complaints are filed against it.

The paper industry depends on this system. Twenty years ago, it stopped hiring unemployed workers domestically, and began recruiting guest workers. As a result, labor costs in the forests have remained flat, while paper profits have soared. Mr. Sensenbrenner's family business didn't invent this, but the low price of labor allows landowners to sell their trees for less. Kimberley Clark certainly profits from that.

Displaced People - an International Reserve Army of Labor

In Latin America, the neoliberal system displaces workers, from miners to coffee pickers, who join a huge flood moving north. When they arrive in the U.S., displaced workers become an indispensable part of the workforce, whether they are undocumented or laboring under work visas, in conditions of virtual servitude.

The U.S. immigration debate needs a vocabulary that describes what happens to them before they cross borders - the factors that force them into motion. In this political debate, people like the miners or pine tree planters are called job seekers, rather than political refugees. It would be more accurate to call them migrants, and the process migration.

The miner fired in Cananea or Nacozari is as much a victim of the denial of human and labor rights as he or she is a person needing to find a job in the U.S. to survive.

This year, teachers and farmers left Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, seeking a viable economic future, after they were beaten in the streets for protesting that their state's government can't and won't provide one. Oaxaca's poverty is worse than almost anywhere in Mexico, and last year teachers struck, and the capital erupted in a virtual insurrection because of it. An intransigent political elite, benefiting from the existing order, not only refused to consider any change, but tried to stop criticism with police attacks, arrests and even assassinations.

Are the fleeing Oaxacans job seekers or refugees? They're both, of course. But in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, economic rights are not considered human rights. In this official view, hunger doesn't create political refugees. In effect, the whole process that pushes people north is outside the parameters of political debate.

The key part of that process is displacement, an unmentionable word in the Washington discourse. Not one immigration proposal in Congress last year tried to come to grips with those policies that uprooted miners, teachers, tree planters and farmers, in spite of the fact that Congress' members in many cases voted for them.

Whether acknowledged or not, displacement has been indispensable to the growth of capitalism. As early as the 1700s, the English enclosure acts displaced home weavers by fencing off the commons where they raised sheep for wool. Hunger then drove weavers into the new textile mills, where they became some of the world's first wage workers. The textile mills produced the wealth of the first British capitalists. At the same time, displacement created the beginnings of the British working class.

Not long after, Karl Marx called Africa "a warren for the hunting of black skins," describing the bloody displacement of communities by the slave traders. Uprooted African farmers were then transported to the Americas, where they became an enslaved plantation workforce from Colombia and Brazil to the U.S. south. Their labor created the wealth that made the growth of capitalism possible in the U.S. and much of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Displacement and enslavement produced more than wealth. As slaveowners sought to
differentiate slaves from free people, they created the first racial categories. Society was divided into those with greater and fewer rights, using skin color and origin. When Mr. Sensenbrenner called modern migrants "illegals," he used a category inherited and developed from slavery.

Today displacement and inequality are just as deeply ingrained in capitalism today as they were during the slave trade and the enclosure acts of English in the 1700s when the system was born. In the global economy, people are displaced because the economies of their countries of origin are transformed. That transformation enables corporations and elites to transfer value, or wealth, out of those countries. After World War Two, the former colonies of the U.S., Europe and Japan sought to stop that export of wealth. In countries like Iraq, Mexico and the Philippines, they embraced national economic development plans, which encouraged industries and enterprises producing for their own people. Creating stable jobs and income helped build a national market where workers and farmers could buy what was produced. Foreign investors were kept out, and important industries like oil were nationalized.

The economic reforms that followed the end of the cold war, imposed by rich countries and institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, destroyed those systems of national development. It was a very brutal and chaotic process for those at the bottom of the income scale, but for those at the top, immensely profitable. Mexico created more billionaires during the 1990s than the United States, while at the same time the government documented an official poverty rate of 40%, and an extreme poverty rate of 25%.

Mexican mines like Cananea and Nacozari, along with factories, railroads and other industrial enterprises were sold off to private investors. New owners then increased profits by attacking unions and laying off thousands of workers.

The oil industry, nationalized with the contributions of schoolchildren in the 1930s, no longer produced money for loans to small farmers or enterprises. Instead, in 1994 as the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, US President Bill Clinton demanded that Mexico use oil exports to pay off U.S. banks, who bailed out U.S. investors in Mexican government securities.

NAFTA rules required the Mexican government to dissolve the Conasupo stores. This government enterprise bought corn from small farmers at subsidized prices to enable them to keep farming and stay on the land. Then the stores sold tortillas made from the corn, along with milk and other farm products, to poor urban consumers at subsidized prices. NAFTA rules called this form of social welfare a barrier to the free market.

Without price supports or rural credit, hundreds of thousands of small farmers found it impossible to sell corn or other farm products, even for what it cost to produce them. When NAFTA pulled down customs barriers, large U.S. corporations (receiving U.S. subsidies) dumped agricultural products on the Mexican market at low prices. Rural families went hungry when they couldn't find buyers for their crops.

One company, Gruma, monopolized tortilla production, while the largest retailer in Mexico became Wal-Mart. In February the price of tortillas doubled. A small group of investors in both countries got even richer. But where did they expect the people displaced by this process to go?

Where Do Displaced People Go?

Displaced people become an indispensable and growing part of the workforce in this new world order. Not all cross borders. The explosive growth of export processing zones, where maquiladora factories produce for export, depends on migrant labor.

The creation of the original maquiladora program, the Border Industrial Program, on the U.S. Mexico border in 1964, was originally conceived as a way to absorb thousands of unemployed braceros, who had been laboring in the U.S. during the 22 year run of this contract labor program. In 1964, Chicano activists like Cesar Chavez, Bert Corona and Ernesto Galarza led a movement that convinced the U.S. Congress to repeal Public Law 78, which set the program up. The Mexican government then needed to find jobs for those workers, many of whom were living in burgeoning cities just south of the border.

To supply those jobs, it changed laws that had prohibited direct U.S. ownership of factories in Mexico, allowing investors to build plants taking advantage of lower Mexican wages, producing goods for the U.S. market. Over 40 years this model grew to include more than 3000 factories, employing two million people. Cities like Tijuana, Mexicali, Juarez and Matamoros mushroomed.

The maquiladora workforce was drawn from the south, from migrants displaced by the same economic changes - privatization, rural poverty, job elimination - that permitted construction of the maquiladoras themselves. A new labor regime was put in place to attract foreign investment, including the brutal repression of independent unions or challenges to the low-wage model.

Prior to the economic reforms, the U.S. Mexico border was a remote area, with a very low population, far from Mexico's industrial base and workforce. Without the simultaneous dislocation of workers from Mexican factories, and farmers from south Mexico's countryside, there would have been no labor force available to make maquiladora development possible.
This development model has since been reproduced in developing countries all over the world. In the early 1990s the U.S. Agency for International Development not only financed the construction of industrial parks in rural El Salvador and Honduras, but then contracted with Price Waterhouse to study ways of producing workers for the factories. The recommended the incorporation of women into the maquiladora workforce at ages as young as 14, taking them from school and family farms. To keep these young women at their machines through their most productive years, USAID taught the companies to distribute birth control pills to keep them from getting pregnant.

Attention has focused on the construction of the factories and industrial parks, while the dislocation that produced the workforce has been much more hidden. Yet maquiladora workers often later become migrants traveling far beyond the nearest export processing zone. When the maquiladoras are located a stone's throw from the border, crossing it is almost inevitable.

In developed countries migrant labor is even more important.

In the U.S., industrial agriculture has always depended on it. The farm labor workforce in the U.S. southwest was formed from waves of Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Mexicans, and more recently, Central Americans. A growing percentage of farm workers are now indigenous people speaking languages other than Spanish, an indication that economic dislocation has reached far into the most remote parts of Mexico's countryside. On the U.S. east coast, migrants come from the Caribbean as well, joining large numbers of African Americans displaced from rural, or even urban communities.

In other industrial countries, a rising percentage of the rural workforce is now made up of migrants. Industrial agriculture based on migrant labor has expanded to developing countries also. Large corporations like Dole and Del Monte draw a workforce from displaced and impoverished rural communities, like those of AfroColombians in Colombia, or Oaxacans in Mexico.

Migrants now dominate the service industry workforce in most developed countries. As the most recent job seekers, they begin in the most marginal and contingent jobs. Day laborers on California street corners arrive from Mexico and Central America, while in Britain they come from Romania and Africa.

But migrant labor doesn't remain at the fringe of the economy. The world's oil industry is completely dependent on it. The oil kingdoms of the Gulf states - Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi - have many more immigrant workers than native-born ones. It was no coincidence that Halliburton Corporation brought migrants from Bangladesh and the Philippines into Iraq in the wake of the advancing U.S. invading force in 2003, intending to use them to replace Iraqi workers on the oil rigs and pipelines. Only organized action by the Iraqi oil workers forced Halliburton to retreat, and prevented the company from taking control of their industry.
Once the oil is put aboard tankers, more migrant workers guide them to their destinations. The seafaring workforce in large scale shipping today comes overwhelmingly from the Philippines and Indonesia. Migrant workers provide the world's oil and transport its goods to market.

What's In It for Employers?

Employers gain great advantages from this system, particularly lower labor costs and increased workforce flexibility. Large meatpacking companies in the U.S. Midwest, for instance, hire a workforce in which immigrants make up a majority. A steady stream of migrants crosses the border, finds its way to small meatpacking towns, and gets jobs.
Over the last 20 years, the industry's wages have steadily fallen behind the manufacturing average, a major accomplishment, from the companies' point of view. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1980 slaughtering plant wages were 1.16 times the manufacturing average. After twenty-five years, they are now .76 times that average. US manufacturing wages certainly haven't soared - in fact, they've fallen behind inflation. But meatpacking wages, in relative terms, have fallen faster.

Companies depend on this river of labor - not just on the workers in the plants themselves, but on the communities from which they come. If those communities stop producing workers, the labor supply dries up.

Seeking to keep wages low, meatpackers don't want to pay the social cost of maintaining communities that supply workers to the plants. In the tiny Mexican and Guatemalan towns that now provide workers for the plants, that cost is very low, and getting lower as economic reforms take hold. Free-market and free-trade policies have eliminated rural credit, the Conasupo system and the other subsidies.

The government budget in Guatemala's Santa Eulalia, for instance, does not provide any healthcare system for the town's residents. In public schools parents and teachers must buy the paper, pencils, books and other materials. If a road needs repair, residents can't expect a government repair crew to fix it.

The cost of all these services is now borne by workers themselves, in the form of remittance payments sent back from jobs in Nebraska slaughterhouses. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox boasted that in 2005 his country's citizens working in the U.S. sent back $18 billion. Some estimate that in 2006 that figure reached $25 billion.

The real beneficiaries of this huge flow of money are the companies that employ the labor in the U.S. Meatpackers already pay a low wage in U.S. terms. From it, workers pay not only for their own subsistence, but for that of their families thousands of miles away. Indirectly, the companies pay a much lower cost for the production of a new generation of future workers than they would if their families were living in Iowa or Nebraska. No company pays directly for a single school or clinic, nor do any pay taxes in Mexico or Guatemala that could provide those services.

At the same time, companies dependent on this immigrant stream have great flexibility in adjusting for the highs and lows of market demand. U.S. employers historically have treated immigrant labor as a convenient faucet, easily turned on and off. In the depression of the 1930s, Mexican workers were rounded up and deported by the thousands when the unemployment rate went up. When World War Two started, the U.S. government negotiated their return as braceros, when growers needed workers, but didn't want to raise wages to draw them from cities.

Guest worker and employment-based visa programs were created to acommodate the labor needs of employers. When demand is high, employers recruit workers. When demand falls, those workers not only have to leave their jobs, but the country entirely. Disabled guest workers, injured because of high line speed on the killing floor, can't stay in the community around the plant, making demands for treatment. They have to go back to hometowns where there is virtually no medical care at all. The employer doesn't have to provide compensation for those forced out of the country.

The rule of this new system, which the British government calls "managed migration," is that immigration policy and enforcement should direct immigrants to industries when their labor is needed, and remove them when it's not. As President George Bush puts it, the government should "connect willing employers with willing employees."

As guest worker programs expand, large corporations become even less responsible for the conditions of their workforce. The pine tree planters don't work directly for the paper companies, but for labor recruiters and contractors. The paper corporations control labor costs indirectly, through the price they pay for harvested trees or wood pulp. This has been the employment model in the garment and janitorial industries and in agriculture for decades, industries that depend completely on immigrants.

As these conditions are established, they expand to other industries. In the 1970s, production workers in Silicon Valley electronic plants worked directly for big manufacturers. Today women working on the line assembling printers for Hewlett Packard work for Manpower, a temporary employment agency with an office in the plant itself. Sometimes they do the same job they did when they worked for HP directly, but now without healthcare or other benefits. They get a lower wage, and can be terminated at any time. Most are women from the Philippines, Mexico and the countries of Latin America and the Asian Pacific rim.

Immigrants and Unemployment

It's no wonder that native born workers and settled immigrant communities look at the growth of this employment system with alarm. This system fosters competition among workers for jobs, and uses it to expand the section of the workforce with lower wages and fewer rights. It's not hard for people to see the system's impact on their own lives, even if they can't always identify its cause.

One of the biggest mistakes made by immigrant advocates in the last decade was arguing that immigrants have no impact, or only a positive impact, on the wages or jobs of people in the communities around them, or that immigrants are just taking the "abandoned" jobs others won't do. This denies a reality workers can easily see for themselves. More important, advocates thus stop making clear the real causes of migration, unemployment, low wages and job competition, and no longer point to the system and corporations responsible.

The first targets of competition are other workers of color. In Los Angeles in the early 1980s, the janitor's union was driven out of the city's office buildings when contractors dumped their union workers, most of whom were African American. New janitorial contractors appeared, with no union, hiring the wave of refugees flooding into LA from repression and civil war in Central America.

Contractors and building owners thought they'd found a docile, low wage workforce, but they miscalculated. Immigrant workers used popular education and the militant union traditions of Central America, making common cause with the national organizing department of the Service Employees International Union. Together they built the first Justice for Janitors campaign in Los Angeles. Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Mexican janitors poured into the streets, confronted building owners and the LA Police Department, and eventually won new union agreements. The campaign became a model for organizing immigrant workers across the country, and rebuilt the presence of SEIU in building services. SEIU head John Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO, using this campaign as a symbol of his commitment to organizing and revitalizing the labor movement.

But the African American community has faced a color line keeping employment very low in janitorial services in Los Angeles ever since, despite the high Black unemployment rate. In San Francisco hotels, where a similar demographic transformation took place, the percentage of African American workers is falling as industry employment grows. African Americans now make up less than 6% of the San Francisco hotel workforce, and only 6.4% of the LA hotel workforce.

In 2005 the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found that between 2000 and 2004, jobs held by immigrants rose by 2 million. At the same time, the number of employed native-born workers fell by 958,000, and of longtime resident immigrants by 352,000. According to the report's authors, "the net growth in the nation's employed population between 2000 and 2004 takes place among new immigrants, while the number of native-born and established immigrant workers combined declines by more than 1.3 million."
Black unemployment nationally has grown at a catastrophic rate - from 10.8% to 11.8% in May of 2005 alone. Nearly half (172,000) of the 360,000 people who lost their jobs in June, 2005, were African American, although they were just 11% of the workforce. In New York City, only 51.8% of Black men from 16 to 65 had jobs in 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For Latinos it was 65.7%, and for whites 75.7%.

Very little of the rise in African American unemployment is a result of direct displacement by immigrants. It's caused overwhelmingly by the decline in manufacturing and cuts in public employment. In the 2001 recession 300,000 of 2,000,000 Black factory workers lost their jobs to relocation and layoffs.

But demographics in the workplace changed during a period of massive plant closings, which eliminated the jobs of hundreds of thousands of African American and Chicano workers in unionized industries. Through the postwar decades, those workers broke the color line, spent their lives in steel mills and assembly plants, and wrested a standard of living that supported stable families and communities. In the growing service and high tech industries of the 80s, those displaced workers were anathema. Employers often identified them with pro-union militancy, according to sociologist Patricia Fernandez Kelly.

In the face of this reality, the unity needed by workers today to rebuild unions and working-class political strength can't be achieved by stirring speeches. Concrete problems affect relations between immigrant and non-immigrant workers. Trying to solve these problems unites people.

Unions Struggle to Respond

The age-old question confronting the U.S. labor movement, and increasingly those of other industrial countries, is inclusion or exclusion. In the past decade, U.S. unions made real progress in organizing immigrants, and connecting migration issues to the effects of free trade and free market policies.. This was a significant change from the cold war period, in which unions supported U.S. foreign and trade policy abroad. They ignored its disastrous impact on workers of developing countries, and even assisted the destruction of the most militant sections of their labor movements.

During the cold war, unions clung to an official ideology of partnership with large corporations, maintained discriminatory policies towards women and people of color, and viewed immigrants as job competitors. In 1986 the AFL-CIO's supported the Immigration Reform and Control Act because it contained employer sanctions, which prohibit employers from hiring workers without papers. If those workers couldn't get jobs, the argument went, they'd leave.

The impact of the law was disastrous, however, especially for those unions trying to organize new members in industries like janitorial services and garment manufacturing. The new law made it a federal crime for an undocumented immigrant to hold a job, and employers used it to fire union supporters. Eventually, when organizing new workers became a higher priority, the AFL-CIO changed its position at the Los Angeles convention in 1999. It called for repeal of employer sanctions, amnesty for all undocumented people, immigration based on family reunification, and expanding the organizing rights of immigrant workers. The federation already opposed expanded guest worker programs, because of their long record of abuse and exploitation.

Unions began to see inclusion as the key to their survival. Labor support for immigrant rights was not a moral issue, but a pragmatic one. Immigrants today are the backbone of organizing drives from the Smithfield pork plant in North Carolina to Houston janitors and Cintas industrial laundry workers. The unions that are growing are mostly those that understand the willingness of many immigrants to fight and join. As a result, immigrants have gained a growing base in union leadership, and now speak out on political questions from the war in Iraq to immigration and labor law reform.

This was not an easy process. Often newly organized immigrants found themselves members of established organizations that wanted their dues and numerical strength, but not necessarily their participation in leadership. Some union leaders still see immigration itself as a threat. The 2006 national convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers invited Lou Dobbs as its keynote speaker, whose anti-immigrant tirades rival James Sensenbrenner.
On the other hand, two unions, SEIU and UNITE HERE, abandoned their support for the position they won at the 1998 AFL-CIO convention. Instead, together with national advocacy organizations like National Council of La Raza and the National Immigration Forum, they joined an alliance dominated by the country's largest employers. Employers' main purpose is convincing Congress to set up new guest worker programs.. Two farm worker unions, the United Farm Workers and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, signed union agreements with guest worker contractors.

The meatpacking industry started lobbying for guest workers in the late 1990s, when companies organized a shadowy group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC). Today it encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Associated Builders and Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional cover.

The corporate lobby made other inroads. John Gay, who heads the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, became board chair of the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington lobbying group. The list of corporate sponsors for the National Council of La Raza includes Wal-Mart and 14 other multinationals. They all set up umbrella groups to advocate the EWIC agenda, including the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

While Republicans are strong guest worker supporters, the bills in Congress creating the programs have been bipartisan, with active participation from liberals like Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Luis Gutierrez. Their immigration proposals would have allowed corporations to bring in almost a million guest worker a year, and expanded the kind of immigration enforcement that has led to workplace raids around the country. The Bush administration proposed scrapping immigration based on family reunification (an achievement of the rights movement) for a point system favoring skills desired by large corporations. Liberals justify these proposals by arguing that employer support was necessary to gain some kind of legalization for 12 million undocumented people. Guest worker and enforcement programs were the price for that support. The Senate finally failed to approve an immigration reform bill in 2007, but it is highly likely that employers will make similar proposals after the November, 2008 elections. And after the bill failed, the administration began implementing some of the most repressive enforcement provisions by administrative order.

Meanwhile, unions have failed to formulate a bill that would unite the needs of workers across race and national lines, and campaign in Congress to pass it. Winning amnesty and greater rights for immigrants could be linked to the creation of jobs programs to reduce unemployment in those communities where it exists at crisis levels. This was the approach taken by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who introduced a proposal to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants and simultaneously establish job training and creation programs in communities with high unemployment.

Some unions have tried to link these issues together in bargaining. In San Francisco hotels, UNITE HERE Local 2 already has strong contract language protecting the rights of its immigrant members. In the 2006 negotiations, it added new language requiring hotels to set up a diversity committee to increase the percentage of African American workers. This could become a step toward an affirmative action program requiring hiring reflecting the diversity of San Francisco's overall workforce, benefiting immigrants and non-immigrants alike.

But unions trying to grapple with the impact of migration have to decide with whom they want to build alliances to win power. Winning affirmative action and jobs programs, linking them to amnesty and immigrant rights, would help build an alliance between workers - immigrants and native-born, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and whites. But some unions see an alliance with employers as the key, and are willing to give them new guest worker programs. This would increase job competition, put downward pressure on wages, and make affirmative action in hiring impossible. Concrete gains in jobs and wages would become much harder, and unity among workers more difficult to achieve.

Alternatives to Growing Inequality

In all industrial countries the problem of unity between immigrants and non-immigrants is becoming much more important. The anti-immigrant riots in the UK, France and Germany are a window on what the future could be in the U.S., if unions and working communities don't make progress in resolving it. Understanding the importance of community and equality is they key to making that progress.

Migration is a complex economic and social process in which whole communities participate.. Migration creates communities, which today pose challenging questions about the nature of citizenship and equality.

Migrants are creating transnational communities all over the world. They exist at different stages of development in the flow of migrants from Algeria to France, Turkey to Germany, Pakistan to the UK, South Korea to Japan, and from developing to developed countries worldwide. According to Migrant Rights International, over 180 million people live outside the countries in which they were born - a permanent factor of life on the planet.

Today US immigration policy (and that of other industrial countries) is institutionalizing this global flow. Increasingly, the mechanisms for managing it are guest worker programs. In the Hong Kong negotiations of the World Trade Organization, corporations tabled a proposal regulating migrant labor, called Mode 4, which would establish a new, international guest worker scheme.

Conservative governments of developing countries, which have abandoned national development policies and have adopted the free market framework, see big advantages in a deal with corporations. They would gain access to workers' remittances, already the top source of foreign exchange for many, and could use them to finance services formerly financed by taxes. They could even eliminate those paid by their own elites. This would institutionalize not only inequality between migrants and non-migrants in developed countries where they work, but would divide even further the rich and poor in their countries of origin. It would create whole new forms of inequality.

Inequality is the most important product of US immigration policy, and a conscious one. Washington's current reform proposals all assume that immigrants should not be the equals of the people around them, or have the same rights. This assumption denies the reality that the migration of people is as much a product of the global economy as the migration of capital. At the same time, the philosophy these proposals reflect would reverse a 400-year history of struggle in the US to expand the rights of all people.

US immigration policy doesn't deter the flow of migrants across the border. Its basic function is defining the status of people once they're here. And a policy based on supplying labor to industry, at a price it wants to pay, has inequality built into it from the beginning.
Immigrant communities from Latin America and Asia face a hypocritical exclusion, which demands that people give up their culture, language and identity, while maintaining a color line that denies them equal social status. Chinatowns and Manilatowns owe their existence, not simply to the desire for community and group identity, but to a century of social segregation. Filipino farm workers were forbidden from marrying women of other races. Chinese immigrants were brought as debt-enslaved workers on railroads, and then prohibited from owning land. Braceros were recruited from Mexico from 1942 to 1964, on temporary work visas, contracted to western growers. The objective was the same in every case - the creation of a mobile, rootless low-wage labor force.

The roots of this inequality lie in slavery. The current concept of the "illegal" person has its roots in the Black Codes, used to define who could be enslaved and who couldn't. It reinterprets the idea that a slave counted as only three-fifths of a person.

Calling someone an "illegal" doesn't refer to an illegal act or the violation of a law. It is the existence, the status of the person that is illegal, or illegitimate. This justifies exclusion from the rights and social benefits accorded people in the surrounding community. Braceros called themselves illegal, even though they had temporary visas, because they used the word in this sense of exclusion.

Illegality is a social category. Workers forced into it receive a smaller share of the value they produce, an additional exploitation. The value they produce, but don't receive, is a source of additional profit for companies dependent on that labor. Inequality is profitable.

An immigration policy that denies community inevitably produces rootless people, vulnerable to exploitation. It undermines workplace and community rights, affecting non-immigrants as well. It inhibits the development of families and culture.

The alternative is a policy that recognizes and values communities, and sees their creation and support as desirable. It reinforces indigenous culture and language, protects the rights of everyone, and seeks to integrate immigrants into the broader society.

The UN's International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families proposes this kind of framework, establishing equality of treatment with citizens of the host country. Both sending and receiving countries are responsible for protecting migrants, and retain the right to determine who is admitted to their territories, and who has the right to work.

Predictably, the countries that have ratified it are the sending countries. Those countries most interested in guest worker schemes, like the U.S., have not. In the global migration of labor, the countries sending migrants have little influence over the conditions facing their citizens in the places they go to work, or the rules under which migration is possible.

In evaluating the various proposals for immigration reform in Congress and elsewhere, labor and immigrant rights activists need clear criteria to decide which promote equality and community, and which don't. Some ideas for criteria include:

- A long-term perspective. Some proposals help to prepare for longer-range efforts to change a system that produces insecurity and inequality. Others, like guest worker programs or increased enforcement of employer sanctions, create a playing field on which progressive movement becomes even more difficult.
- Greater equality, which itself is the prerequisite for unity among workers across race and national lines. Proposals to deny people rights or benefits because of immigration status move away from equality. Equal status itself is a common ground, a goal uniting many diverse communities.
- Immigration status must not be linked to employment. That link is one main characteristic of guest worker programs, and the common thread running through exploitative schemes going back a century. Workers can't be free if they have to leave the country if they lose their jobs. Healthy immigrant communities need employed workers, but they also need students, old and young people, caregivers, disabled and those who don't have traditional jobs.
- More protection for the right to organize. To raise the low price of immigrant labor, immigrant workers have to be able to organize. Given half a chance, immigrant workers and their communities will organize for better jobs and wages, schools and healthcare. When they gain political power for themselves, other working class communities around them benefit. Measures like permanent legal status make it easier to organize. Employer sanctions, enforcement and raids, even as a price for legalization, make organizing much more difficult.
- Linking trade and migration. Modern migration is a "problem" because so much of it caused by forcible dislocation. Changing corporate trade policy and stopping neoliberal reforms is as central to immigration reform as gaining legal status for undocumented immigrants.
- Greater solidarity between workers and unions. U.S. workers have been forced into a global labor market. They have a direct interest in helping workers abroad to organize and raise living standards, fighting privatization and the plunder of developing countries, and stopping U.S. wars and military intervention. They need not minor protections in trade agreements, but unity with workers globally to scrap those agreements, and to change the economic and political structure of which they're a part.
- Protecting the right to move. Freedom of movement is a human right. Even in a more just world, migration will continue. Families and communities are now connected over thousands of miles and many borders. Links between people will grow - they are part of the human potential. Immigration policy should make movement easier, without selling workers to employers as a price for it.
- Creating common ground between immigrants and other workers. It's not possible to win major changes in immigration policy without making it part of a struggle for other goals. To end job competition, workers need the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. To gain organizing rights for immigrants, all workers need the Employee Free Choice Act.

Congress isn't deciding "what can stop immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living outside their countries of origin, nothing can. The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people here. Outside the Washington beltway, community coalitions, labor and immigrant rights groups are advocating alternatives that would give immigrants far more rights and equality than employment-based visas. Congress could, for instance,

- Give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the chance to come and go - to work, study, or take care of family in the U.S. or their home country. Green card holders can't be deported if they lose a job.
- Expand the number of green cards available for new migrants, opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through family networks. Eliminating the years-long backlog in processing family reunification visas would help them, and strengthen communities.
- Allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after they've been here a few years. The U.S. wouldn't develop the huge undocumented population it has today.
- Stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.
- Prohibit companies from recruiting outside the U.S. - formerly a traditional part of US immigration policy. At Ellis Island, having a pre-arranged job was grounds for being sent back. Companies can always hire immigrants with green cards (or anyone else) living here, and green card holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher wages.

It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program. That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants in Washington must choose whose side they're on.
Today working people of all countries are asked to accept continuing globalization, in which capital is free to go wherever it can earn the highest profits. By that same token migrants must have the same freedom, with rights and status equal to those of anyone else. People in Mexico, Guatemala, China, the US and every other country need the same things. Secure jobs at a living wage. Rights in our workplaces and communities. The freedom to travel and seek a future for our families. The borders between our countries should be common ground to unite us, not lines to divide us.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a788259794~db=all~order=page

Calderon calls on Mexico to 'close ranks' against border gangs

2008-01-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, pictured at a press conference last month, has made fighting drug gangs a cornerstone of his administration. ALFREDO GUERRERO: AFP/Getty Images

Jan. 10, 2008, 9:03AM

Calderon calls on Mexico to 'close ranks' against border gangs

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau

MEXICO CITY — With drug violence raging unchecked along the border with Texas and deep into Mexico's heartland, President Felipe Calderon called Wednesday for the country's security forces and citizens to "close ranks" against its powerful criminal gangs.

"It's indeed possible to win the battle," Calderon said at a meeting with Cabinet ministers involved in law enforcement. "But to achieve that, we must remain united. We must close ranks against criminality."

The president announced that more than $600 million in federal funds would be channeled to local and state governments this year to help improve their police forces.

He called for better training of police at the local, state and federal levels; increased cooperation among the country's police forces; and the creation of a system for citizens to inform on drug gangs operating in their communities.

"Fighting delinquency is now a national priority and a duty," Calderon said.

Bloodshed continues

He has made the crackdown on Mexico's drug gangs a cornerstone of his 13-month-old administration. But while the campaign has scored some notable successes — including the seizure of more than 40 tons of U.S.-bound cocaine and other narcotics — it so far has failed to stanch the bloodshed.

Two federal police officers were killed Tuesday night in an ambush by suspected drug traffickers in Reynosa, on the Rio Grande near McAllen. On Monday, soldiers and police killed three suspected narco-gunmen in Rio Bravo, a small city 12 miles down river from Reynosa.

Despite the dispatch of thousands of police and soldiers to several violence-plagued areas last year, underworld rivalries killed more than 2,500 people across Mexico, about the same as in prior years.

"These events show us that the battle, as we predicted, has not been easy and that much remains to be done," Calderon said.

The Bush administration has proposed giving Mexico $1.4 billion in aid over the next two or three years for additional Mexican military helicopters, drug-sniffing dogs and telecommunications equipment.

Traffickers now control some local governments and receive protection from politicians. Local and state police have ranked high among the casualties in the recent bloodshed.

Much of the violence has occurred in Tamaulipas state, bordering South Texas from Laredo to the Gulf of Mexico.

This is the territory of the Gulf drug-trafficking cartel and the assassins working for it known as the Zetas. Osiel Cardenas, the organization's reputed head, is jailed in Houston awaiting trial on federal narcotics charges. Calderon ordered him extradited to the U.S. last year.

Founded by deserting special forces soldiers, the Zetas served as bodyguards and assassins for cartel bosses, but a few have become kingpins themselves. Officials say the three gunmen killed Monday in Rio Bravo belonged to a gang loyal to Heriberto Lazcano, nicknamed El Lazcas, who in Cardenas' absence has become one of several top cartel chieftains.

"The assassins have assumed control of the criminal organizations, which has spawned greater violence," Genaro Garcia Luna, Calderon's secretary of public security, said at Wednesday Cabinet meeting.

Began at checkpoint

Calderon ordered 3,500 troops and paramilitary federal police to the border after the assassination nearly six weeks ago in Rio Bravo of politician Juan Guajardo. The former mayor and federal lawmaker was gunned down along with four federal agents acting as his bodyguards.

Monday's shootout in Rio Bravo, in which at least 10 policemen and soldiers also were wounded, began when the alleged gunmen flashed their weapons at one of those checkpoints. A firefight ensued, at the checkpoint and again near the municipal police offices.

After the shootout, officials arrested 10 other alleged gunmen — including two men from Detroit and another from Texas — and confiscated a large cache of automatic weapons, grenades and grenade launchers.

The Tuesday attack on the police patrol in Reynosa — the federal police are patrolling that and other cities in pickups — was retaliation for the Rio Bravo gunfight, officials said.

dudley.althaus@chron.com

Supreme Court shows support for voter ID law

2008-01-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus10jan10,1,6914927.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true

From the Los Angeles Times

Supreme Court shows support for voter ID law

Some justices are skeptical of a lawsuit challenging Indiana's stringent photo identification measure. They see no proof of discrimination.

By David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — For a second time this week, a liberal challenge to a disputed state law floundered in the Supreme Court because lawyers could not show hard evidence that anyone had been harmed by the statute.

At issue Wednesday was Indiana's election law, the strictest in the nation, which requires voters to show an official photo identification, such as a driver's license or a passport, before casting a ballot.

Democrats challenged the law as a voting rights violation, contending the Republican-backed measure would deter thousands of poor, minority or elderly voters from casting a ballot.

But they filed their lawsuit in 2005, before the law had gone into effect and without naming any people who said they would be prevented from voting by the photo identification rule. That led to a round of skeptical questions from the court's conservatives, including how the law might have hurt voters.

"You want us to invalidate a statute on the grounds that it's a minor inconvenience to a small percentage of voters?" Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked near the end of the hourlong arguments.

Led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the high court has been increasingly unwilling to strike down state laws or regulations based on broad, hypothetical complaints. Roberts has insisted on real plaintiffs who cite specific problems.

The same theme was on display Monday when the court heard a challenge to lethal injections in a Kentucky death penalty case.

Defense lawyers insisted that the method of carrying out executions should be struck down as unconstitutional because, if done wrong, the condemned person might suffer searing pain. But the lawyer arguing the case had to admit there was no evidence that the method had been done wrong in Kentucky, which has not carried out an execution since 1998.

During Wednesday's arguments, Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia questioned whether the Democrats' challenge should be thrown out because no voters were cited in the lawsuit.

Roberts, who grew up in northern Indiana, noted the ruling of the trial judge who had upheld Indiana's law. "You had not come up with a single instance of somebody who was denied the right to vote because they didn't have a photo ID," Roberts told Washington lawyer Paul M. Smith, who represented the Indiana Democrats.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. also expressed skepticism in his questioning of Smith.

There appeared to be five votes to uphold Indiana's law, counting Justice Clarence Thomas, who said nothing during the arguments but who reliably votes with the conservatives.

Voting rights experts have called the Indiana case the most important election law dispute in the high court since the Bush vs. Gore case that decided the presidential election in 2000.

Republicans have pressed for stricter voter identification laws in states across the nation. They say the laws are needed to prevent fraudulent votes from noncitizens and in the name of dead people.

Democrats say the GOP's targeting of voter fraud is a fraud, since Republicans have been unable to point to cases of ballots being cast in the name of a still-registered dead person. An easier way to vote fraudulently is by mail, Democrats say, but the photo identification law does not affect people who vote by mail.

If the high court upholds Indiana's law, it should clear up legal doubts about other, less-stringent voter identification measures in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Florida. A victory for Indiana also could encourage states to adopt similar laws.

Democrats say they fear the restrictions could dissuade a small percentage of legal voters -- perhaps 1% or 2% of the electorate -- from casting a ballot. And that, they say, might tip the balance in close races for Congress, legislatures or even president.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the Indiana law was unfair and should be struck down. She said indigent people were not likely to have a valid driver's license, and they were not going to be able to go to a courthouse to get an identification card.

Ginsburg said Indiana election officials in Marion County said 32 legal voters had their ballots rejected in November because they did not furnish proof of their identities.

"That's not hypothetical. That's real," she said.

The 32 voters were not plaintiffs in the lawsuit, she said, but "it isn't mere speculation that there are going to be many people whose vote will not count."

How many remains the subject of dispute.

Smith, the Democrats' lawyer, estimated that 400,000 Indiana residents did not have a valid driver's license, and perhaps half of them might have difficulty furnishing a birth certificate to county officials.

Thomas Fisher, the state's lawyer, disputed that the 32 voters from Marion County were treated poorly.

"For all we know, those may have been fraudulent ballots," he told Ginsburg.

U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the Bush administration, urged the court to uphold the Indiana law, but also to allow new lawsuits from individuals.

He called the pending lawsuit a "kind of grab-bag challenge" that did not focus on voters or real problems.

One election law expert questioned the wisdom of opening the door to lawsuits from people who say they were barred from voting.

This "would create more litigation at exactly the wrong time, just before or just after an election," said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He said it would undercut the public's confidence in the election and the judges who had to decide the disputes.

The high court will rule in the Indiana case, Crawford vs. Marion County, by late June.

david.savage@latimes.com

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