quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Yeah really dangerous "criminals" they have here!

Exactly! These raids are only a political ploy to pacify the anti-immigrant activist groups. They fail to realize the dehumanizing and crippling effects it has on the detained immigrants and their families.

Care to explain the dehumanizing and crippling effects when a foreign-born fraudster immigrant files false VAWA action against USC and takes away all your wealth. I guess USC are no human then. It is OK if USC gets screwed.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/05/08/20080508pastor0508.html

Illegal-immigrant crackdowns have Valley churches on edge

Worshipers deported after retreat

by Daniel Gonzá*** - May. 8, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Once a month, Manuel Maldonado leads a group on a spiritual retreat to the mountains in central Arizona, where out in nature members feel closer to God.

But an April 12 retreat to a campground near Prescott was devastating to the group.

A camper complained the group was making too much noise. Yavapai County sheriff's deputies arrived, questioned the church members about their citizenship and called federal immigration officials. Nine church members, including the pastor, Maldonado, were detained; seven were later deported to Mexico.

"We are brothers who went there to praise God, and they treated us like delinquents," said Maldonado, pastor of Iglesia Cristiana Agape in west Phoenix.

The deportations have sent a shock wave through the large and fast-growing network of Latino evangelical churches in Arizona and across the nation, many of which are filled with undocumented immigrants.

Local pastors fearful of stepped-up immigration enforcement are canceling retreats north of the Phoenix area. Some national church leaders are concerned the deportations could open the door for immigration raids at churches.

The Prescott deportations echoed incidents in the Valley that have raised tensions between church leaders and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. A crime sweep by sheriff's deputies in September resulted in arrests of undocumented day laborers near a church sanctuary in Cave Creek, and another on Good Friday led to arrests of illegal immigrants in east Phoenix.

"We don't feel safe for the Latino people," said Hector Ramirez, pastor of Iglesia Wesleyana in Phoenix. He canceled a trip this weekend to the Assembly of God Camp in Prescott that involved seven Valley Latino evangelical churches and 80 members. The retreat will be at one of the churches.

"We are afraid not only that our undocumented members could be deported but that members with papers could be hassled about their immigration and detained," he said.

Authorities say they aren't targeting church gatherings or churches. The Prescott incident was in response to a noise complaint. The deportations, however, show how local police, even in rural areas, are becoming more aggressive in calling federal authorities when they encounter suspected illegal immigrants.

Retreat plans changed

The men from Maldonado's church originally planned to hold their spiritual retreat near Sedona. They changed plans after hearing that police in northern and central Arizona were cracking down on smugglers transporting loads of illegal immigrants.

They decided instead to hold their retreat at the White Spar Family Campground.

Maldonado said there were 11 men in his group. One also brought his 12-year-old son.

The group arrived at the campground in three vans about 3 a.m. He said some members set up tents; others slept in their vans.

Maldonado said the group started singing and praying around 6 a.m. One member played a guitar.

The church's worship style is loud and animated. But at the campground, Maldonado said, they kept their voices down.

"We were praying and singing very peacefully," he said.

A little after 7 a.m., Yavapai County sheriff's deputies arrived and said someone had complained about noise.

Deputies asked members for identification and, after several showed Mexican ID cards, began asking church members whether they were in the country illegally. After they said yes, a deputy called Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"At this point, we were terrified," Maldonado said.

An ICE official questioned each member over the phone and determined that nine of the 12 were possibly in the country illegally. Deputies handcuffed them and drove them to the Prescott jail in vans, Maldonado said. ICE officials then transported them to Phoenix for processing.

Solitude important

Alfredo Aragon, a Latino Christian missionary, said spiritual retreats are an important aspect of church life. They provide members a chance to worship in solitude away from the distractions of the city, he said. Many congregations hold a retreat once a month in places such as Sedona, Flagstaff, Payson and Prescott, especially during the warmer months, he said.

"(Now), the ones who don't have papers are not going to want to travel to these places," Aragon said.

Local and national church leaders say they are afraid the deportations may open the door for law-enforcement officials to begin conducting immigration raids at churches. Along with schools and hospitals, they have generally been regarded as off-limits.

"The federal government basically had . . . an unstated agreement with the church, with clergy that said, 'We are never going to go into your churches. We are not going to go and ask you to identify who is undocumented. We respect your constitutional right . . . to exercise your religious convictions,' " said Samuel Rodriguez Jr., president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Rodriguez contends that spiritual retreats are considered by law an extension of churches because, under the U.S. Constitution, people have the right to worship freely.

ICE officials would not comment about Rodriguez's claim that ICE has an unofficial policy not to question people in churches about immigration status.

Rodriguez said he is mobilizing the organization's network of 18,000 Latino Christian churches to call on the three presidential candidates to condemn the deportations.

"If they were all White, and they were making noise and they were celebrating with Celtic music and the local authorities were to come in, would they have asked for proof of citizenship? My inclination is absolutely not," Rodriguez said.

Dwight D'Evelyn, a spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, denied deputies racially profiled to question the church members about their citizenship. He pointed out that the deputies were responding to a noise complaint.

D'Evelyn said it is standard procedure for deputies to ask for identification while investigating crimes.

"Whether it is a church group or a bunch of bikers, it doesn't matter," he said.

The Sheriff's Office has a policy against asking crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status. But deputies have discretion to call ICE if they encounter someone they suspect is in the country illegally, D'Evelyn said.

Fighting deportation

Meanwhile, Maldonado is back living with his wife and five children in a trailer park off Buckeye Road and preaching at his 70-member church.

He is the only one of the nine church members detained who is fighting deportation. The last of the nine detainees was released after ICE officials determined he was in the country legally with a work permit.

Maldonado was taken to a federal detention center in Florence, where he spent 17 days.

He was released April 29 after pastors and church members raised $4,000 for his bond. He is awaiting a deportation hearing.

"Troll Alert"

quote:

Originally posted by speed_025:
"Troll Alert"

STALKING AGAIN. YOU CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH

quote:

Originally posted by whiteUSCNeedsHelp:

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Yeah really dangerous "criminals" they have here!

Exactly! These raids are only a political ploy to pacify the anti-immigrant activist groups. They fail to realize the dehumanizing and crippling effects it has on the detained immigrants and their families.

Care to explain the dehumanizing and crippling effects when a foreign-born fraudster immigrant files false VAWA action against USC and takes away all your wealth. I guess USC are no human then. It is OK if USC gets screwed.

"USC are no human" - guess your command of the English language isn't so good. What do false VAWA claims have to do with the articles that have been posted in this thread? You are not only off topic, but are hi.jack.ing this thread. Get lost, you loser.

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Originally posted by whiteUSCNeedsHelp:

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:

quote:

Yeah really dangerous "criminals" they have here!

Exactly! These raids are only a political ploy to pacify the anti-immigrant activist groups. They fail to realize the dehumanizing and crippling effects it has on the detained immigrants and their families.

Care to explain the dehumanizing and crippling effects when a foreign-born fraudster immigrant files false VAWA action against USC and takes away all your wealth. I guess USC are no human then. It is OK if USC gets screwed.

"USC are no human" - guess your command of the English language isn't so good. What do false VAWA claims have to do with the articles that have been posted in this thread? You are not only off topic, but are hi.jack.ing this thread. Get lost, you loser.

VAWA is being abused now a days by illegal aliens to commit immigration fraud. Thus the connections. I say increase the RAIDS and get rid of people. Hey our gas prices will come down due to low consumption.

http://www.kansascity.com/276/story/627052-p2.html

Are immigration raids really doing what backers claim?By MARY SANCHEZ

The Kansas City Star


Marchers chant Sunday at the locked gates of the National Cattle Congress meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. The federal government has been hard at work in Iowa lately.

In May, federal officials quietly leased a huge cattle complex in Waterloo, Iowa. Soon citizens were speculating about what might possibly be coming to the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds. A simulation exercise for federal officials to practice responding to an incident of mass terrorism?

Soon it was learned that the acreage was to be used as a giant holding facility. The stock would be human. On May 12, federal agents raided the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in the tiny nearby town of Postville, hauling in 390 immigrant workers, the majority from Guatemala. Most were accused of working illegally in the United States.

Postville, federal officials boasted, is the largest immigration raid in history — so far.

Clearly, such “operations” (as the raids are known in fedspeak) have increased astronomically. Federal workplace arrests of immigrants have increased tenfold in five years, with virtually no portion of the country left untouched.

For the “deport em all” crowd, this is no doubt cause for joyous applause.

For those prone to deeper thinking, an obvious question presents itself: Are the raids really affecting the problem of illegal immigration?

Clues to the answer can be found in towns such as Greeley, Colo. A plant there owned by Swift Co. was part of a six-state operation against that firm that netted nearly 1,300 immigrants in December 2006. As a result of the raid, Swift claims, the Greeley plant lost $30 million worth of productivity. The plant was sold to a Brazilian firm and is still in operation, but reportedly has had trouble filling shifts.

People in Greeley say many of the illegal immigrants have simply returned or been replaced by newer, also illegal workers. Others report that the raid created an anti-Latino mood, causing some legally resident Latinos to leave town, lest they be targeted, too.

And there is a new influx to Greeley: hundreds of Somali refugees, who are legally allowed to live and work in the United States. The same situation is playing out in Grand Island, Neb., also the scene of a 2006 Swift raid. Hundreds of Somalis, many from Minnesota, are arriving to take the jobs once held by the Latino immigrants. But officials there also do not believe the illegal or legal Latino population has changed much.

Some argue that undocumented Latinos are taking jobs that could be filled by native-born workers. In the case of slaughterhouses — where wages start at $12 an hour — this seems not to be true. If it were, why are they now being filled by Somalis, who have crossed the world, and then the nation, to resettle in mid-sized American cities?

Somalis and other refugees are hardly the answer to this nation’s low-wage labor needs, however one may feel about their appearance in Greeley and Grand Island. Those needs can only be solved by Congress — which, by failing to alter immigration laws so that Latino immigrant workers could arrive and be hired legally, laid the path for these federal raids.

The real quarry of these raids, to hear federal officials tell it, are the employers who hire undocumented immigrants. And a few have been ensnared. But cases against them are far more difficult to build and prosecute. According to immigration officials, “Developing sufficient evidence against employers requires complex, white-collar crime investigations that can take years to bear fruit.” Meanwhile, the ones who suffer — in addition to the poor immigrants and their families — are the communities.

Postville’s school Superintendent David Strudthoff perhaps summed it up best. “We had 10 percent of our entire community arrested in 12 hours,” he told the Des Moines Register.

“We’re into new territory here in Postville that’s never been seen before. It’s just like having a tornado that wiped out an entire part of town.” And the town’s mayor noted that if Agriprocessors closes its doors, “it’ll be a ghost town here.”

This is the best the government can do? The very officials who argued about how “broken” the immigration system was to Congress with the hope of reform, now are enforcing the very laws they once criticized.

Addressing true labor needs? Solving illegal immigration? That will be for another day. The feds have leased the Iowa cattle fairgrounds until Sunday. After that, the place will likely be turned back over to its normal inhabitants, cattle. And it will be off to the next “operation.”

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6227111

Immigration raid at SE Houston business

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 | 12:16

By Andy Cerota

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Immigration officers have converged on a southeast Houston business. Authorities are investigating whether illegal immigrants are working at that facility.
Federal agents arrived to conduct what they called a targeted worksite enforcement operation just as Action Rags employees began showing up for work.

Greg Palmore with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, "There were individuals found trying to locate hiding spaces inside. At this point we are still working to secure the facility."

At this facility, workers sort used clothes, which are then sold overseas. Today's operation is the culmination of a year-long investigation. While it's not clear just how many people were taken into custody, concerned family members were desperate to find out if their loved ones were among them. Louis Patino has two aunts who work here. He says they are in this country illegally.

"When you need money, you'll work anywhere," Patino said. "That's what it is."
Eric Venegas wonders what this means for his family. His mother has worked at the business for three years, but he admits she doesn't have a permit to work in the US.
He said, "She's our only mom, we don't have a dad or anything."

Many of those who arrived on the scene did so with documentation to prove their relatives are in the US legally. Federal authorities were quick to release anyone who was able to provide such proof.

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/89251/?ses=5dc5df7e...93c43405c781f0b84ac1

Children Paying a Heavy Price for ICE's Showy Immigration Raids

By Kay Steiger, In These Times. Posted June 24, 2008.

The children of those arrested in flashy-but-ineffectual ICE raids -- many of whom are U.S. citizens -- suffer dire consequences.

At 10 a.m. on May 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended on a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa, about 200 miles northwest of Des Moines. ICE agents arrested 389 workers who it determined were undocumented -- 304 of whom were indicted on various charges, mostly related to their immigrant status. The list of arrested did not include the owners or managers at the meat processing plant.

After Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2006, ICE adopted what is referred to as an "enforcement-only" approach to immigration. The incident in Postville is one example.

ICE arrests have increased 45-fold since 2001, according to the National Council of La Raza, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit. In 2007, nearly 5,000 workplace immigration arrests occurred nationwide.

The children of those arrested -- many of whom are U.S. citizens -- suffer consequences. The raid in Iowa "created panic in the school," said Janet Murgu'a, president of the National Council of La Raza, during a May 20 hearing before the House subcommittee on workforce protections. She said it forced St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville to mobilize and feed 450 migrants the first night of the raid, and to shelter 150 children who spent the night on mats and in pews.

The number of children with undocumented parents is unknown, but a March 2005 report by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 4.9 million children are in families with at least one undocumented parent. Of those, 3.1 million -- or 63 percent -- are U.S. citizens.

Last November, ICE adopted humanitarian guidelines after Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and others pushed for their implementation. The discretionary guidelines require agents to investigate whether humanitarian concerns exist among those arrested -- including "those with serious medical conditions ... pregnant women, nursing mothers, parents who are the sole caretakers of minor children or disabled or seriously ill relatives, and parents who are needed to support their spouses in caring for sick or special needs children or relatives."

Agents are also asked to coordinate with other institutions, such as foster care systems and the Department of Heath and Human Services.

"What we'd like to see is those regulations enforced on a consistent basis -- strictly enforced and not applied in a discretionary way," Murgu'a testified.

Kathryn Gibney is principal of an overwhelmingly (96 percent) Latino elementary school in San Pedro, Calif., a community that experienced a raid in March 2007. She told lawmakers that members of her community have witnessed white ICE vans stationed near school grounds in Oakland and Berkeley to ensnare parents.

Gibney said the effect on her school has been "ongoing relentless terror."

"The impact of these raids has been devastating," she said. "Absentee rates have soared. Test scores have dropped. Students who do make it to school remain distracted, as they worry about whether their families will be at home when they return."

The San Pedro raid last year occurred in the predawn hours before a state-mandated exam. About 40 students were absent that day -- seven times greater than the school's normal absence rate.

According to Gibney, in San Rafael, Calif., on May 8, ICE agents stopped a second-grade girl who was on her way to school with her father. The agents couldn't communicate with the father in his native language, so the girl served as translator. The agents eventually arrested her father.

ICE insists it acts humanely when rounding up illegal aliens. Acting Deputy Assistant Director of ICE James Sperro told Congress that agents involved in the Postville incident questioned detainees "no less than three times about humanitarian issues, such as child custody concerns." He said agents eventually released 62 of those arrested, but added that those released are still likely to be charged.

As Gibney told the committee: "There must be a way to execute a federal mandate in a more humane manner."

I think they got this one a.ss backwards!


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5857042.html

Employer arrests could follow Houston immigration raid

June 26, 2008, 12:10AM

Immigration agents detain 166 undocumented workers at east side plant


Ten women are led out of Action Rags USA into a Homeland Security van after federal immigration agents raided Action Rags USA in east Houston.
Julio Cortez: Chronicle


By JAMES PINKERTON and SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

As anxious relatives stood outside, van after van of mostly female undocumented workers were removed from a sweltering rag-sorting factory on Houston's east side and whisked to an immigration processing facility.

The early morning raid Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, while netting 166 undocumented workers, did not include arrests of company officials with Action Rags USA. But those charges may be on the way.

"The office of investigation is looking at allegations of the hiring of illegal aliens, which is a crime," said Special Agent Bob Rutt, of the Houston ICE office. Arresting illegal immigrants was "a collateral part" of the investigation, he said. "Our focus, ICE's overall focus, is targeting the employer."

Rutt, however, referred inquiries about possible criminal charges in Wednesday's raid case, as well as one at Shipley Do-Nuts in Houston, to federal prosecutors. There have been no arrests of Shipley managers or company officials.

"As it pertains to Shipley Do-Nuts, we cannot confirm or deny the existence of a criminal investigation," said Angela Dodge, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston.

"I think everybody recognizes that to get a handle on this, ... you have to go after the employer," said Steven Camarota, director of research with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter immigration controls.

In fiscal 2007, ICE secured fines and forfeitures of more than $30 million in worksite enforcement cases, according to the agency's annual report. ICE did not provide statistics on the number of employers criminally charged last year.

Employer prosecutions aren't "the biggest bang for the buck, as far as the way ICE is thinking about it," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank based in Washington, D.C.

"It's much easier and gets more headlines to arrest a lot of people," Papademetriou said. "To make a case against an employer requires time and significant investments of investigative resources. Sometimes it takes half a year, or a year."

ICE began investigating Action Rags USA a year ago after learning about hiring practices from a former employee.

The Wednesday raid, which involved 200 ICE agents, started shortly after work began at 7 a.m. at the sorting facility at 1225 Port Houston.

Late Wednesday, ICE officials said of the 166 workers they detained, 130 were females, including 10 who were pregnant. In all, 66 undocumented workers were released for humanitarian reasons, including pregnancy and child care issues, and were told to report to an immigration judge.

The workers who remain detained could be processed for removal from the U.S. The arrest tally included 135 from Mexico, 12 from Honduras, 10 from Guatemala, eight from El Salvador, and one whose nationality is unknown, ICE officials said.


'We were like a family'
The raid surprised many workers as they began a day of sorting bales of used clothing in the un-airconditioned facility. The clothing is shipped worldwide, according to a company Web site, or processed into rags for industry.

A woman who identified herself as a company supervisor said many of the workers initially didn't believe a raid was under way, noting false reports of raids in the past year.

"But when I came out to look, the agents were at the doors, and they had surrounded the warehouse," said Brenda, who gave only her first name. "They started yelling for us to sit down. They started searching us to see if we had knives or weapons."

Brenda said workers who ran from federal agents or tried to hide were handcuffed "and treated like criminals."

"When I left I was crying, because we all got along well," she said. "We were like a family."

ICE officials said four workers were taken to area hospitals due to anxiety attacks and heat-related illness; one woman fell 20 feet from a stack of pallets in which she was hiding.

Repeated attempts to contact company officials at the facility Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Action Rags lost its corporate status in July 2007 due to a tax forfeiture, according to Texas Secretary of State records. The records listed Mubarik Kahlon as the company's registered agent and director.

Secretary of State spokesman Scott Haywood confirmed that Action Rags is no longer a registered LLC in Texas, but said he could not comment on any potential legal implications.

A woman who answered the door at Kahlon's home in Humble said he was not there.


Critics call raid a waste
As ICE continues its investigation, pro-immigrant activists blasted the raid as a waste of taxpayer money which will have hurt Houston's economy and workers' families.

"Are we safer because they arrested immigrant women who are working?" asked Maria Jimenez, with the Center for Central American Resources in Houston. "I mean, 200 agents went to basically capture women who were contributing to the economy. What have we gained for society by removing mothers, wives and sisters from their family?"

Men were also detained, including the husband of Juana Ramirez, who acknowledged her spouse is not in the country legally.

"All he does is go to work, comes home and takes care of the kids when I go to work," said an angry Ramirez, who works at a fast-food restaurant and is expecting the couple's third child. "He doesn't drink or do drugs. It's not good at all."

Papademetriou called raids like Wednesday's the "low-hanging fruit" of operations.

"They don't require an enormous amount of investment on the part of ICE. They make headlines. The numbers look substantial," he said.

According to ICE statistics for the 2007 fiscal year, ICE made 863 criminal arrests and 4,077 administrative arrests as a result of worksite enforcement efforts nationally.

Camarota said even though the number of arrests is small in relation to the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the raids have a significant impact.

"If you're on a highway and thousands of people were speeding and one person gets pulled over, compliance with the law shoots up dramatically. Any law enforcement action has a much greater effect than just on the individuals who are subject to it," he said.

One former ICE prosecutor, Austin attorney Kevin Lashus, said worksite raids are designed to frighten companies who hire undocumented workers.

"What they're hoping to do is be able to use these stepped-up raids to force employers to reconsider their employment verification policies," said Lashus, who is now a member of the Tindall & Foster immigration law firm in Austin. "They're trying to scare the hell out of them — their intent is to force employers to police themselves."

Hmmm . . . no mention of any fines imposed on the employer.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/256/story/451627.html

Raid nabs 32 illegal immigrants at Arlington plant

Jun, 27, 2008

ARLINGTON, Wash. -- Immigration agents have arrested 32 people at an Arlington, Wash., manufacturing plant that supplies parts for commercial and military aircraft, including some made by Boeing.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement office says the agency raided Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies on Thursday after an audit indicated some of the company's work force used fake documents.

The agency says the company provides frame and interior parts for a number of popular planes, including Boeing's 737 and 777.

Thirty people from Mexico and two from El Salvador were arrested. All now face deportation.

Special agent Leigh Winchell says the raid was part of nationwide efforts to shut down the employment fueling illegal immigration.

This is too good to be true..

quote:

Originally posted by ProudUSC:
Hmmm . . . no mention of any fines imposed on the employer.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/256/story/451627.html

Raid nabs 32 illegal immigrants at Arlington plant

Jun, 27, 2008

ARLINGTON, Wash. -- Immigration agents have arrested 32 people at an Arlington, Wash., manufacturing plant that supplies parts for commercial and military aircraft, including some made by Boeing.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement office says the agency raided Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies on Thursday after an audit indicated some of the company's work force used fake documents.

The agency says the company provides frame and interior parts for a number of popular planes, including Boeing's 737 and 777.

Thirty people from Mexico and two from El Salvador were arrested. All now face deportation.

Special agent Leigh Winchell says the raid was part of nationwide efforts to shut down the employment fueling illegal immigration.

This is incredible. The fakes are so good that this was not verified right away. This is national security issue because it involves some federal aviation airlines. This is getting out of control, and continues to invade every aspect of employment. this is not field workers, lawn cutting , restaurant work. These were jobs that citizens and lpr could have had.