Recently in ICE raids Category

What Luis said:

"It is open season on the Latino community in Arizona. In Phoenix, Tucson, and across the state, people in Latino neighborhoods are afraid to leave their houses, afraid to be apart from their children for even a minute, and afraid to walk the streets because they feel their arrest on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant could happen at any moment. It is a horrifying glimpse at what our future holds across the country if we continue down the path the Obama administration is leading us on immigration.

This week, we saw how destructive things are getting. The combination of a harsh piece of anti-immigrant legislation advancing in the Arizona legislature and a massive, well-publicized federal enforcement action against a broad human smuggling network has sent the unmistakable message to Arizona's one million immigrants and two million Hispanics: there is a target on your backs and authorities are coming after you.

President Obama, who promised immigration reform but has failed to make it a priority or use his office to make good on his campaign promises, is now able to see what lies ahead. The Obama administration has escalated mass deportation as our singular approach to immigrants and this has combined in Arizona with anti-immigrant hysteria that is festering to the point that state and local elected opportunists are taking matters into their own hands - with complete federal acquiescence.

We are now deporting people at a rate of 1,000 per day . . .

. . .

And we have heard nothing from the President.

A man who told the Latino electorate that he saw undocumented immigrants as future citizens, not criminals or deportees, has not lifted a finger. It isn't as if his administration doesn't have a clear immigration policy; they do. It's called deportation only. And they are removing immigrants, mostly Latino, at a faster pace than the Bush administration ever did. All of the rhetoric that a new enforcement strategy targeting serious violent criminals was being adopted has been revealed as empty rhetoric.

When the Washington Post published internal memos from Homeland Security headquarters to their field agents instructing them that their job performance would be judged by filling deportation quotas for simple visa and immigration violations, all of the President's lofty promises about a new approach went out the window. Either the President, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, and ICE Assistant Secretary Morton have been misleading the American people and Congress about their enforcement priorities or they have no control over what their agencies are doing."

Via Dee.

Yes, this is a sad attempt at photoshop--consider it a request for a better version from you, dear Reader. Direct me to your ICE Agent Obama in comments.

It's difficult for me to blog about anything else when I feel so accountable to unauthorized migrant youth, but this trailer for the documentary "In The Shadow of the Raid" takes me back to the reason I got involved in U.S. migration policy in the first place.

In the Shadow of the Raid - trailer from Streetdog Media on Vimeo.

The Bush Administration continues to abuse immigration law to trump up the stories of security threats it wishes immigrants posed--voters are much more compliant when they believe they are facing imminent external threats.  George Bush looks wistfully back at his post-9/11 approval ratings and dreams of a populace permanently under siege.

First, Lyglenson Lemorin, the Haitian-born bumbler who threatened national security with ninja stars (not joking), to whom the feds couldn't get any criminal charges to stick, was recently ordered deported by Immigration Judge Kenneth Hurewitz in Miami.  No such thing as double jeopardy for immigrants!

Judge Hurewitz's asylum denial rate, incidentally: 89.4%.  The national rate: 59.8%.  Interesting that Hurewitz was the one selected to hear the case.  Did I mention that Immigration Judges and DHS prosecuting attorneys are both part of the executive branch?

Please visit change.gov and let President Elect Obama know what you want done.  Even though I don't agree with many of Obama's stances on immigration I've always seen his presidency as a first step towards taking back the government.  Bush and Cheney have hijacked so much of the it that we've got a lot to get back.

Hopefully letting your voice be heard at change.gov will be more than a cathartic exercise.  I believe the first thing we need to do is ask that the raids be stopped and then I'd like to see the DREAM Act passed. 

If you're a pro-migrant reader of this blog let us know what you'd like to see. 

It looks like someone finally got Immigration and Custom's Enforcement to show the U.S. public their balance sheet.  Through a freedom of information request, the Des Moines Register was able to find out that the cost for the Postville raid "totaled $5,211,092 as of Aug. 21" meaning "it has cost taxpayers an average of $13,396 for each of the 389 illegal immigrants taken into custody."

Multiply that by 12 million and the U.S. is going to have to spend $160 billion to deport every unauthorized migrant in the U.S. the Postville way.  And that assumes they're all neatly working together in a factory like in Postville. 

You see, nativists would have you believe that it helps the economy to pursue this deportation-only policy.  You see how much U.S. taxpayers are spending for the Postville raid, or you you look at a place like Riverside, New Jersey, and it's pretty clear that's not the case.    

If you need anymore proof that nativists are lying about the correlation between crime and unauthorized migrants see this article from the Associated Press on the Postville raid:

POSTVILLE, Iowa - Postville's police chief says he's trying to add another officer to his staff as crime has risen in the city after an Immigration raid in May.

The Agriprocessors meatpacking plant was raided May 12, when 389 people were charged with being in the country illegally. Most were also charged criminally.

Postville Police Chief Michael Halse says the workers who have come to replace those picked up in the raid are temporary. He says he doesn't know their backgrounds or where they came from.

Halse says he hopes life will return to the way it was before the raid, but predicted that normalcy could be years away.

Associated Press (7 September 2008)

Then again, nativists don't like to listen to local police chiefs when they say they shouldn't be enforcing broken federal immigration law, so I can't imagine they'd care about this.

As the Democratic National Convention gets underway, DHS continues its campaign to terrorize immigrant communities for the administration's political ends.  Adam Nossiter reports in the NY Times today:

LAUREL, Miss. -- In another large-scale workplace immigration crackdown, federal officials raided a factory here on Monday, detaining at least 350 workers they said were in the country illegally.

Numerous agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on a factory belonging to Howard Industries Inc., which manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

As of late Monday afternoon, no criminal charges had been filed, said Barbara Gonzalez, an agency spokeswoman, but she said that dozens of workers had been "identified, fingerprinted, interviewed, photographed and processed for removal from the U.S."

The raid follows a similar large-scale immigration operation at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in May when nearly 400 workers were detained. That raid was a significant escalation of the Bush administration's enforcement practices because those detained were not simply deported, as in previous raids, but were imprisoned for months on criminal charges of using false documents.

The mass rapid-fire hearings after the Postville raid took place in a temporary court facility on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa. An interpreter was later sharply critical of the proceedings, saying the immigrants did not understand the charges against them.

It's been years since I've sat down and wrote an op-ed to be published.  I had forgotten how hard it is.  I write my blog posts like I write emails.  I don't fret over every word.  I don't pay attention to the structure. 

With op-eds it's different.  There's a specific formula to them.  I'm sorry to say that my return to formal opinion journalism hasn't resulted in my best work, but it gets the point across.  Without further ado I link you to my first published piece with New America Media.

Over at the Sanctuary, Duke has posted the account of interpreter Erik Camayd-Freixas, who has gone into more depth then anyone about the proceedings in Postville, Iowa.  I think it's one of the most valuable first-hand accounts of what happened in Postville and it also busts the myth of the criminality of these migrants.  Some of my favorite quotes though, are the ones that humanize the migrants of which we have heard so little.  You should read the whole thing here, but I'll highlight some of them below:

Saturday, June 14 (Flag Day)

11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.

at the Regional Transportation Center (Greyhound Bus and Amtrak Train Stations)

Join this lively, yet peaceful solidarity action

*  Distribute flyers  *  Inform travelers of their rights  * 

*  Show solidarity with those at risk of deportation  *  Hold Banners & Signs *

Crossing A Border is NOT a Crime, but a Civil Offense - Yet Families are being Torn Apart because of Border Patrol's activities at the Regional Transportation Center

All Those Who Show Up will Get an Attractive "United Nation's Blue" Wrist Band that says "Justice for Immigrants"

Bring a flag, help distribute "Know Your Rights" literature

We will supply you with a sign

Continue for Directions: