Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 31 - August 26, 2006
1. New York Protest, Upstate Raid
2. Day Labor Arrests in Mississippi
3. Iranian Brothers Sue
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. NEW YORK PROTEST, UPSTATE RAID
On Aug. 25, dozens of people marched in New York City to demand justice for immigrants after the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee cancelled a "field hearing" it had planned for that day in Glens Falls, New York. "Congress members organize hearings in the most remote places and only invite the 'minutemen' and anti-immigrant groups," said Kavitha Pawria, an organizer with Immigrant Communities in Action, which called the protest. "We believe [the House field hearings have] the purpose of mobilizing the conservative bases as the elections approach." Immigrant Communities in Action says at least 100 people were set to travel 200 miles from New York City for an Aug. 25 "counter-hearing" in Glens Falls to challenge the anti-immigrant message. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/26/06, quotes retranslated from
Spanish; Immigrant Communities in Action 8/7/06, 8/23/06]
Congressional leaders cancelled the Glens Falls field hearing on Aug. 18, a day after Judiciary Committee spokesperson Terry Shawn told the Glens Falls daily Post-Star that a list of committee members and local experts invited to testify was still being finalized. No reason was given for the cancellation. The Glens Falls hearing was to focus on identification requirements at the border and the risks of terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. [AP 8/18/06; Post-Star 8/18/06]
On Aug. 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a Thai restaurant in Glens Falls, apparently looking for a former employee. The former employee wasn't there, but the agents arrested four other Thai immigrants who were found to have overstayed their visas. The restaurant, Siam Thai Sushi, reopened on Aug. 22 after the owner, Darrell Spraragen, brought in a new chef and other staff members. [Post-Star 8/22/06]
*2. DAY LABOR ARRESTS IN MISSISSIPPI
On Aug. 7, ICE agents arrested 37 immigrant day laborers outside a Home Depot store on Highway 49 in Gulfport, Mississippi. ICE spokesperson Temple Black said most of those arrested were from Honduras and Mexico. The workers are apparently being detained at local jails and detention centers for removal. A contractor who witnessed the raid told Vicki Cintra of the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance (MIRA) that he saw eight Gulfport Police Department cars at the site. The Gulfport Police Department admitted to Cintra that they carried out a joint operation with ICE. [CLINIC Newsletter #12, 8/23/06]
*3. IRANIAN BROTHERS SUE
On Aug. 14, four Iranian immigrant brothers filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Los Angeles against former attorney general John Ashcroft, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller III, FBI Agent Christopher Castillo and other officials, charging that the government detained them illegally for nearly four years to punish them for refusing to work as informants.
Mohsen, Mohammad, Mojtaba and Mostafa Mirmehdi were ordered deported in 1999 for allegedly having lied on their asylum applications. They were detained on Oct. 2, 2001 on immigration violations and denied release because of their alleged support for the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group. The MEK was added to the State Department's list of terrorist organizations in 1997, but dozens of members of the US Congress have expressed support for the group since then. The Mirmehdi brothers admitted attending demonstrations in the US sponsored by the MEK, but deny having been members or associates of the group. On Aug. 20, 2004, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) ruled that the Mirmehdis have no ties to terrorism. The BIA upheld their deportations but said they could not be sent back to Iran because they could be tortured there for anti-government activities. The four brothers were finally released on Mar. 16, 2005; they live in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, where three of them work as real estate agents.
According to the 49-page complaint, FBI agent Castillo relied on informants who falsely identified the brothers as associates of the MEK. Castillo then tried "to force their cooperation through continued punitive detention, even after admitting that a crucial informant had been 'just speculating' when he described the Mirmehdis as associates of the MEK," the lawsuit states. "Castillo approached the Mirmehdis on no less than five occasions to demand their cooperation in exchange for freedom." According to the lawsuit, if Castillo had not provided "false and misleading testimony" at a 2001 hearing--where he was the government's only witness and portrayed the brothers as security threats--the Mirmehdis could have been released on bond as early as Dec. 10 of that year. [Los Angeles Times 8/15/06]
The lawsuit also claims the brothers suffered mistreatment in detention, including being locked down in isolation for up to 23 hours a day, being strip-searched after every visit with their attorneys, having their phone calls with attorneys illegally monitored, being denied medical care and being subjected to "routine ethnic insults and prejudice." The lawsuit seeks attorney fees and unspecified damages, but Mohsen Mirmehdi said its intention is to hold government officials accountable. "They accused us of something we weren't a part of. They ruined our reputations and our business." [LAT 8/15/06; CBS2.com 8/14/06]
"The Mirmehdi brothers were casualties of the war on terror and had their lives destroyed based on the misconduct of the federal officials who sought their detention knowing that they had only engaged in peaceful First Amendment activity in opposition to the current regime in Iran," said attorney Paul Hoffman. [AP 8/14/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
INB 8/19/06: Activist Takes Sanctuary in Chicago
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 30 - August 19, 2006
1. Activist Takes Sanctuary in Chicago
2. Chinese Immigrant Allowed to Stay
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ACTIVIST TAKES SANCTUARY IN CHICAGO
On Aug. 15, at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, immigrant activist Elvira Arellano told supporters she would not report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office that day for deportation, as she had been ordered to do by 9am. Instead, she announced she would take sanctuary in the church, with the support of the pastor and her fellow parishioners, in an effort to remain in the US with her seven-year-old son, a US citizen. [Chicago Tribune 8/15/06]
Pastor Walter Coleman said his congregation offered Arellano refuge after praying about her plight. "She represents the voice of the undocumented, and we think it's our obligation, our responsibility, to make a stage for that voice to be heard," said Coleman. [AP 8/16/06]
Arellano was arrested in a December 2002 immigration raid at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked doing cleaning. She fought her deportation to Mexico and joined with others to found United Latino Family, of which she is president. She and Flor Crisostomo--one of 26 Chicago employees of the IFCO pallet company arrested in an immigration raid last Apr. 19--carried out a hunger strike last May 10 to June 1, demanding a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/14/06, 5/28/06, 6/4/06].
A private relief bill for Arellano was introduced to the Senate in 2003, based on her son's health problems. While the bill is stalled, it resulted in three stays of deportation, the last of which expired Aug. 15. [CT 8/15/06, 8/16/06] "One year ago, I was granted a stay while private bills on my behalf were pending in Congress," Arellano said. "Nothing has changed since that stay was granted. Homeland Security has the legal power--and, I believe, obligation--to extend this stay of deportation." [Chicago Journal 8/16/06 from Medill News Service]
In an Aug. 15 statement, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he would not help Arellano seek another stay, in part because her son's condition has improved. "We cannot fix the injustices of this system with private bills," said Durbin. "Only comprehensive immigration reform can permanently remedy this situation." Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), speaking in Springfield on Aug. 15, expressed similar concerns: "I don't feel comfortable carving out an exception for one person when there are hundreds of thousands of people just in the Chicago region alone who would want a similar exemption," he said. [CT 8/15/06, 8/16/06]
On Aug. 16, about 100 people gathered in front of the church to support Arellano. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) came by to offer his support; the previous day Gutierrez wrote to President George W. Bush, asking him to extend Arellano's right to stay in the US. [CT 8/16/06]
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said Arellano is now considered a fugitive. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said agents have the authority to go into a church or anywhere else to make an arrest. "We will take action at the time and place of our choosing," Counts said. [CT 8/15/06] But on Aug. 18, an immigration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "We have no plans to enter the church to arrest Mrs. Arellano." [Chicago Sun-Times 8/19/06] The official said Arellano's case carries "no more priority than any of the other 500,000 fugitives nationally." She will be apprehended "at an appropriate time and place," the official said. [AP 8/18/06]
Central American refugees took sanctuary in US churches in the 1980s, and the use of sanctuary to fight deportation has become common recently in Canada: as of August 2004, at least six people, mainly failed refugee claimants, were in sanctuary in Canadian churches. Canadian authorities violated sanctuary once, in March 2004, when they arrested Algerian Mohamed Cherfi at a Quebec City church. Cherfi was deported to the US, where he later was granted asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
As of August 2006 there are at least four prominent sanctuary cases in Canada: Latvian Alexi Kolosov has been in sanctuary in a church in St. John's, Newfoundland, since April 2005; Algerian refugee Abdelkader Belaouni has been in sanctuary in a Montreal church since Jan. 1, 2006; Pakistani refugee Hassan Raza and his wife Sarfraz Kausar took sanctuary with their six children in a Winnipeg church on Aug. 4; and Israeli immigrant Angela Portnoy is living in a church basement in Marystown, Newfoundland, where she took sanctuary with her four children last Oct. 2. (Immigration authorities gave Portnoy a temporary reprieve to allow her to give birth to her fifth child in the hospital on Aug. 12 and recover from the birth without fear of arrest.) [CBC News 8/5/04, 4/25/06, 8/4/06, 8/16/06; Canadian Press 8/17/06; No One Is Illegal 4/26/06; Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council website]
*2. CHINESE IMMIGRANT ALLOWED TO STAY
ICE officials have agreed to let Chinese immigrant Zhen Xing Jiang remain in the US with her husband while the couple pursue administrative and legal appeals on their asylum cases. Their attorney, Richard Bortnick of the Cozen O'Connor firm, said he is still investigating the possibility of a civil lawsuit against the government. Jiang was 13 weeks pregnant with twins on Feb. 7 when she arrived at the immigration office in Philadelphia for what she thought would be a routine interview. Instead, as her husband and two sons waited in the lobby, ICE drove Jiang to JFK airport in New York for deportation. After her initial complaints of abdominal pain were ignored, Jiang was taken to the hospital, where doctors confirmed the miscarriage. The incident sparked protests among the Chinese immigrant community in Philadelphia and New York [see INB 2/18/06]. [Philadelphia Inquirer 7/28/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 30 - August 19, 2006
1. Activist Takes Sanctuary in Chicago
2. Chinese Immigrant Allowed to Stay
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ACTIVIST TAKES SANCTUARY IN CHICAGO
On Aug. 15, at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, immigrant activist Elvira Arellano told supporters she would not report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office that day for deportation, as she had been ordered to do by 9am. Instead, she announced she would take sanctuary in the church, with the support of the pastor and her fellow parishioners, in an effort to remain in the US with her seven-year-old son, a US citizen. [Chicago Tribune 8/15/06]
Pastor Walter Coleman said his congregation offered Arellano refuge after praying about her plight. "She represents the voice of the undocumented, and we think it's our obligation, our responsibility, to make a stage for that voice to be heard," said Coleman. [AP 8/16/06]
Arellano was arrested in a December 2002 immigration raid at O'Hare International Airport, where she worked doing cleaning. She fought her deportation to Mexico and joined with others to found United Latino Family, of which she is president. She and Flor Crisostomo--one of 26 Chicago employees of the IFCO pallet company arrested in an immigration raid last Apr. 19--carried out a hunger strike last May 10 to June 1, demanding a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/14/06, 5/28/06, 6/4/06].
A private relief bill for Arellano was introduced to the Senate in 2003, based on her son's health problems. While the bill is stalled, it resulted in three stays of deportation, the last of which expired Aug. 15. [CT 8/15/06, 8/16/06] "One year ago, I was granted a stay while private bills on my behalf were pending in Congress," Arellano said. "Nothing has changed since that stay was granted. Homeland Security has the legal power--and, I believe, obligation--to extend this stay of deportation." [Chicago Journal 8/16/06 from Medill News Service]
In an Aug. 15 statement, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he would not help Arellano seek another stay, in part because her son's condition has improved. "We cannot fix the injustices of this system with private bills," said Durbin. "Only comprehensive immigration reform can permanently remedy this situation." Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), speaking in Springfield on Aug. 15, expressed similar concerns: "I don't feel comfortable carving out an exception for one person when there are hundreds of thousands of people just in the Chicago region alone who would want a similar exemption," he said. [CT 8/15/06, 8/16/06]
On Aug. 16, about 100 people gathered in front of the church to support Arellano. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) came by to offer his support; the previous day Gutierrez wrote to President George W. Bush, asking him to extend Arellano's right to stay in the US. [CT 8/16/06]
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said Arellano is now considered a fugitive. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said agents have the authority to go into a church or anywhere else to make an arrest. "We will take action at the time and place of our choosing," Counts said. [CT 8/15/06] But on Aug. 18, an immigration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "We have no plans to enter the church to arrest Mrs. Arellano." [Chicago Sun-Times 8/19/06] The official said Arellano's case carries "no more priority than any of the other 500,000 fugitives nationally." She will be apprehended "at an appropriate time and place," the official said. [AP 8/18/06]
Central American refugees took sanctuary in US churches in the 1980s, and the use of sanctuary to fight deportation has become common recently in Canada: as of August 2004, at least six people, mainly failed refugee claimants, were in sanctuary in Canadian churches. Canadian authorities violated sanctuary once, in March 2004, when they arrested Algerian Mohamed Cherfi at a Quebec City church. Cherfi was deported to the US, where he later was granted asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
As of August 2006 there are at least four prominent sanctuary cases in Canada: Latvian Alexi Kolosov has been in sanctuary in a church in St. John's, Newfoundland, since April 2005; Algerian refugee Abdelkader Belaouni has been in sanctuary in a Montreal church since Jan. 1, 2006; Pakistani refugee Hassan Raza and his wife Sarfraz Kausar took sanctuary with their six children in a Winnipeg church on Aug. 4; and Israeli immigrant Angela Portnoy is living in a church basement in Marystown, Newfoundland, where she took sanctuary with her four children last Oct. 2. (Immigration authorities gave Portnoy a temporary reprieve to allow her to give birth to her fifth child in the hospital on Aug. 12 and recover from the birth without fear of arrest.) [CBC News 8/5/04, 4/25/06, 8/4/06, 8/16/06; Canadian Press 8/17/06; No One Is Illegal 4/26/06; Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council website]
*2. CHINESE IMMIGRANT ALLOWED TO STAY
ICE officials have agreed to let Chinese immigrant Zhen Xing Jiang remain in the US with her husband while the couple pursue administrative and legal appeals on their asylum cases. Their attorney, Richard Bortnick of the Cozen O'Connor firm, said he is still investigating the possibility of a civil lawsuit against the government. Jiang was 13 weeks pregnant with twins on Feb. 7 when she arrived at the immigration office in Philadelphia for what she thought would be a routine interview. Instead, as her husband and two sons waited in the lobby, ICE drove Jiang to JFK airport in New York for deportation. After her initial complaints of abdominal pain were ignored, Jiang was taken to the hospital, where doctors confirmed the miscarriage. The incident sparked protests among the Chinese immigrant community in Philadelphia and New York [see INB 2/18/06]. [Philadelphia Inquirer 7/28/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Saturday, August 12, 2006
INB 8/12/06: Raids in NY, Wisconsin, NC & Alaska
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 29 - August 12, 2006
1. Fair Raided Near Buffalo
2. Wisconsin Factory Raided
3. Workers Arrested on NC Coast
4. Fish Plant Raided in Alaska
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. FAIR RAIDED NEAR BUFFALO
On Aug. 10, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 41 alleged unauthorized immigrant workers who had been hired by a subcontractor to clean up at "America's Fair," a county fair in Hamburg, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. The 23 men and 18 women from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Honduras were detained pending appearances in immigration court. The raid was prompted by what Thomas DiSimone, acting special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Buffalo, called an "excellent tip from a concerned member of the public," received late on Aug. 9. No criminal charges were immediately filed against the subcontracting company, but ICE said the investigation was continuing. [ICE News Release 8/10/06; AP 8/10/06]
*2. WISCONSIN FACTORY RAIDED
On Aug. 8, agents from the ICE office in Chicago joined with Walworth County sheriff's deputies and Whitewater police in executing a search warrant at the Star Packaging factory in Whitewater, Wisconsin, southwest of Milwaukee, where they arrested the owner, Allen L. Petrie, and 25 Mexican workers, 13 of them women. The Social Security Administration (SSA) also collaborated in the operation. ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro said the workers were taken to Dodge County Jail in preparation for deportation proceedings.
Whitewater police were to ask the Walworth County district attorney to charge Petrie with party to conspiracy to commit misappropriation of identification. Whitewater acting police chief Lisa Otterbacher said the investigation began in February, and Petrie was warned repeatedly about hiring unauthorized immigrants. Petrie was released from Walworth County Jail on a $50,000 signature bond on Aug. 9. His attorney, Frank Lettenberger, said on Aug. 10 that his client had hired the workers from a temporary agency. [AP 8/9/06, 8/10/06]
Following the raid, about 75 people, mainly family members of those arrested, gathered outside the police department looking for information. Otterbacher invited them inside the municipal building to get their questions answered about the raid. "We put a stop to the inappropriate and incorrect information that had been passed around," Otterbacher said. [Janesville Gazette 8/10/06; AP 8/9/06; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 8/10/06] At the meeting, ICE officers told the group the Star Packaging arrests were "just the tip of the iceberg," according to Otterbacher. [JG 8/10/06]
An immigration officer told the families the arrested workers would be sent "home--to Mexico." "We have been living in the United States for 20 years," responded one relative. "Our home is here, our job; we have children." In response to a question, the immigration officer suggested that the relatives should not bother hiring lawyers. "If you are an illegal alien in the United States, you can pay thousands of dollars and you know what the answer is going to be? A judge is going to send you home," said the officer. Sandra Jimenez, a legal immigrant from Mexico, asked the immigration officer to stop calling the detainees "illegal aliens." "The word alien makes me think of strange little creatures," said Jimenez. "I am not a Martian." [MJS 8/10/06]
*3. WORKERS ARRESTED ON NC COAST
On Aug. 8, the US Coast Guard stopped four boats taking 29 immigrant workers from Southport, North Carolina to construction jobs on exclusive Bald Head Island, where some 200 people live in luxury homes. The US Department of Justice said 22 of the immigrants were charged with illegal entry into the US, a misdemeanor, and all quickly pled guilty to the charge in federal court. One of the workers was from Canada; the rest were from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Four were juveniles, according to ICE. The Coast Guard detained four or five US citizens who were operating the boats, but it is not known whether they will be charged with a crime. ICE later placed a lien on the four boats.
The raid came after the Coast Guard noticed overloaded boats taking construction workers to Bald Head Island, and began stopping the boats for routine safety checks. When Coast Guard agents realized many of the workers had no US identification, they notified immigration agents. The two agencies cooperated, said Oak Island Coast Guard Station Petty Officer Kurt Yockel, and "within three days, we had the operation set up." [Wilmington Star-News 8/11/06; WECT 8/10/06]
*4. FISH PLANT RAIDED IN ALASKA
On July 28, ICE agents arrested 23 young Mexican workers in a raid on the Snug Harbor Seafoods plant in Kenai, Alaska. Another two workers fled into the woods; immigration officials say they were eventually caught. The raid came after Alaska state trooper Larry Erickson visited the plant looking for a vehicle that had been in an accident. He found the driver and passengers of the car camped out with other cannery workers on the plant grounds, and asked to see their documents. The Mexicans showed the trooper valid tourist visas and said they were just visiting. The troopers then notified ICE that the Mexicans were suspected of working illegally at the plant.
The arrested workers, all between 18 and 20 years old, were transported to Anchorage, where they were put on a flight to Seattle for deportation proceedings. "They were good kids," Snug Harbor Seafoods owner Paul Dale said of the workers. "We regret the incident." [Anchorage Daily News 8/3/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 29 - August 12, 2006
1. Fair Raided Near Buffalo
2. Wisconsin Factory Raided
3. Workers Arrested on NC Coast
4. Fish Plant Raided in Alaska
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. FAIR RAIDED NEAR BUFFALO
On Aug. 10, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 41 alleged unauthorized immigrant workers who had been hired by a subcontractor to clean up at "America's Fair," a county fair in Hamburg, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. The 23 men and 18 women from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Honduras were detained pending appearances in immigration court. The raid was prompted by what Thomas DiSimone, acting special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Buffalo, called an "excellent tip from a concerned member of the public," received late on Aug. 9. No criminal charges were immediately filed against the subcontracting company, but ICE said the investigation was continuing. [ICE News Release 8/10/06; AP 8/10/06]
*2. WISCONSIN FACTORY RAIDED
On Aug. 8, agents from the ICE office in Chicago joined with Walworth County sheriff's deputies and Whitewater police in executing a search warrant at the Star Packaging factory in Whitewater, Wisconsin, southwest of Milwaukee, where they arrested the owner, Allen L. Petrie, and 25 Mexican workers, 13 of them women. The Social Security Administration (SSA) also collaborated in the operation. ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro said the workers were taken to Dodge County Jail in preparation for deportation proceedings.
Whitewater police were to ask the Walworth County district attorney to charge Petrie with party to conspiracy to commit misappropriation of identification. Whitewater acting police chief Lisa Otterbacher said the investigation began in February, and Petrie was warned repeatedly about hiring unauthorized immigrants. Petrie was released from Walworth County Jail on a $50,000 signature bond on Aug. 9. His attorney, Frank Lettenberger, said on Aug. 10 that his client had hired the workers from a temporary agency. [AP 8/9/06, 8/10/06]
Following the raid, about 75 people, mainly family members of those arrested, gathered outside the police department looking for information. Otterbacher invited them inside the municipal building to get their questions answered about the raid. "We put a stop to the inappropriate and incorrect information that had been passed around," Otterbacher said. [Janesville Gazette 8/10/06; AP 8/9/06; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 8/10/06] At the meeting, ICE officers told the group the Star Packaging arrests were "just the tip of the iceberg," according to Otterbacher. [JG 8/10/06]
An immigration officer told the families the arrested workers would be sent "home--to Mexico." "We have been living in the United States for 20 years," responded one relative. "Our home is here, our job; we have children." In response to a question, the immigration officer suggested that the relatives should not bother hiring lawyers. "If you are an illegal alien in the United States, you can pay thousands of dollars and you know what the answer is going to be? A judge is going to send you home," said the officer. Sandra Jimenez, a legal immigrant from Mexico, asked the immigration officer to stop calling the detainees "illegal aliens." "The word alien makes me think of strange little creatures," said Jimenez. "I am not a Martian." [MJS 8/10/06]
*3. WORKERS ARRESTED ON NC COAST
On Aug. 8, the US Coast Guard stopped four boats taking 29 immigrant workers from Southport, North Carolina to construction jobs on exclusive Bald Head Island, where some 200 people live in luxury homes. The US Department of Justice said 22 of the immigrants were charged with illegal entry into the US, a misdemeanor, and all quickly pled guilty to the charge in federal court. One of the workers was from Canada; the rest were from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Four were juveniles, according to ICE. The Coast Guard detained four or five US citizens who were operating the boats, but it is not known whether they will be charged with a crime. ICE later placed a lien on the four boats.
The raid came after the Coast Guard noticed overloaded boats taking construction workers to Bald Head Island, and began stopping the boats for routine safety checks. When Coast Guard agents realized many of the workers had no US identification, they notified immigration agents. The two agencies cooperated, said Oak Island Coast Guard Station Petty Officer Kurt Yockel, and "within three days, we had the operation set up." [Wilmington Star-News 8/11/06; WECT 8/10/06]
*4. FISH PLANT RAIDED IN ALASKA
On July 28, ICE agents arrested 23 young Mexican workers in a raid on the Snug Harbor Seafoods plant in Kenai, Alaska. Another two workers fled into the woods; immigration officials say they were eventually caught. The raid came after Alaska state trooper Larry Erickson visited the plant looking for a vehicle that had been in an accident. He found the driver and passengers of the car camped out with other cannery workers on the plant grounds, and asked to see their documents. The Mexicans showed the trooper valid tourist visas and said they were just visiting. The troopers then notified ICE that the Mexicans were suspected of working illegally at the plant.
The arrested workers, all between 18 and 20 years old, were transported to Anchorage, where they were put on a flight to Seattle for deportation proceedings. "They were good kids," Snug Harbor Seafoods owner Paul Dale said of the workers. "We regret the incident." [Anchorage Daily News 8/3/06]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Sunday, August 6, 2006
INB 8/6/06: Palestinian Freed at Last; Raids in Oklahoma, Arkansas
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 28 - August 6, 2006
1. Palestinian Freed at Last
2. Saddle Company Raided in Oklahoma
3. Construction Raid in Arkansas
4. Chicago's IFCO Arrestees Win Stay
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. PALESTINIAN FREED AT LAST
Shortly after 9:30pm on July 31, after more than two years of detention, Muslim community leader Abdel Jabbar Hamdan walked out of the Terminal Island federal detention center in San Pedro, California, and returned to his Buena Park home with his wife and six US-born children.
Hamdan's release came after a day of last-ditch legal efforts by the government to keep him detained. On July 27, and again on July 28 in response to a government challenge, US District Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. had ordered Hamdan released "forthwith" [see INB 7/30/06]. But Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials claimed they could continue holding Hamdan because government lawyers in Washington planned to file an emergency request to block Hatter's order. That request was filed late on July 31 with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which quickly rejected it in a three-sentence ruling, upholding Hatter's order and confirming that Hamdan should be released "forthwith."
Earlier in the day, Hatter had ordered Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to release Hamdan by 5pm on July 31 or appear in his Los Angeles courtroom at 11am on Aug. 1 "to show cause, if you have any, why you should not be held in contempt." American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Ranjana Natarajan said government lawyers assured her they plan no further appeals.
Hamdan is Palestinian; he was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank when it was under Jordanian control. He was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 28, 2004; earlier he had worked as a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity shut down by US officials in December 2001 for allegedly raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian organization the US has designated as terrorist. Hamdan was not charged with any crimes but was ordered deported for overstaying a student visa and was held by ICE without bond as an alleged national security threat.
In its July 31 brief, the government claimed that Hamdan's release could have "adverse foreign policy ramifications" because it could create "the perception that the US cannot keep alien fundraisers detained pending removal." Hamdan's lawyers had anticipated the government's move and filed a response before seeing its brief, noting that Holy Land Foundation officials charged with terrorism-related crimes were released on their own recognizance to await trial, and were not deemed dangers to national security.
In a statement, ICE said Hamdan would have to comply with an electronic monitoring program requiring him to be at home from 10 pm to 6 am daily and stay within a 50-mile radius of his home. DHS and the Department of Justice "will continue the vigorous effort to remove" Hamdan from the US, the statement said. [Los Angeles Times 8/1/06; Orange County Register 8/1/06] On Aug. 1, Hamdan declined to answer whether he was wearing an electronic monitor and steered clear of making controversial statements on his attorney's advice. [LAT 8/2/06]
*2. SADDLE COMPANY RAIDED IN OKLAHOMA
On Aug. 2, ICE agents arrested 51 immigrants working at Billy Cook's Harness and Saddle in Sulphur, Oklahoma. The arrests were made at the company's main address at 320 Muskogee Street while agents executed two federal search warrants for business records at businesses associated with the company. Agents from the Social Security Administration (SSA) assisted with the operation. The 30 men and 21 women arrested are Mexican citizens ranging in age from 18 to 60. [ICE News Release 8/2/06]
*3. CONSTRUCTION RAID IN ARKANSAS
On July 18, ICE agents raided a construction site in Springdale, Arkansas, and arrested 27 workers--25 of them from Mexico, two from Guatemala--on administrative immigration violations. According to Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder, 24 men and one woman were being detained in the Washington County Jail. [ICE News Release 7/21/06; Northwest Arkansas Times 7/20/06]
ICE also arrested a manager and a crew leader of the construction firm, Arevalo Framing Associates, on criminal charges. Manager Alejandro Arevalo was charged with harboring illegal aliens and re-entry after deportation. Crew leader Rodrigo Arevalo was charged with re-entry after deportation. Searches conducted during the investigation resulted in the seizure of four vehicles, $1,943 in US currency and an assault-type shotgun. Additional federal charges are expected. [ICE News Release 7/21/06]
*4. CHICAGO'S IFCO ARRESTEES WIN STAY
On July 31, immigration judge Carlos Cuevas in Chicago granted a one-year stay of deportation to 11 undocumented immigrants who were arrested in a mass nationwide raid last April of the IFCO Systems pallet company [see INB 4/22/06]. The 11 were among 26 workers arrested Apr. 19 at an IFCO facility in Chicago. Cuevas had previously given the 11 workers a two-month stay when they appeared at a June 1 hearing.
The workers had strong backing from the community; about 120 supporters greeted them as they emerged from immigration court. Alderman Daniel Solis, who joined the workers in the immigration courtroom, and members of Congress had lobbied the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on their behalf. Attorneys also presented a petition with hundreds of signatures supporting the workers. One of the "IFCO 26," Flor Crisostomo, led a hunger strike from May 10 to June 1 to demand a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/28/06, 6/4/06]. [Chicago Tribune 8/1/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 28 - August 6, 2006
1. Palestinian Freed at Last
2. Saddle Company Raided in Oklahoma
3. Construction Raid in Arkansas
4. Chicago's IFCO Arrestees Win Stay
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. PALESTINIAN FREED AT LAST
Shortly after 9:30pm on July 31, after more than two years of detention, Muslim community leader Abdel Jabbar Hamdan walked out of the Terminal Island federal detention center in San Pedro, California, and returned to his Buena Park home with his wife and six US-born children.
Hamdan's release came after a day of last-ditch legal efforts by the government to keep him detained. On July 27, and again on July 28 in response to a government challenge, US District Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. had ordered Hamdan released "forthwith" [see INB 7/30/06]. But Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials claimed they could continue holding Hamdan because government lawyers in Washington planned to file an emergency request to block Hatter's order. That request was filed late on July 31 with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which quickly rejected it in a three-sentence ruling, upholding Hatter's order and confirming that Hamdan should be released "forthwith."
Earlier in the day, Hatter had ordered Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to release Hamdan by 5pm on July 31 or appear in his Los Angeles courtroom at 11am on Aug. 1 "to show cause, if you have any, why you should not be held in contempt." American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Ranjana Natarajan said government lawyers assured her they plan no further appeals.
Hamdan is Palestinian; he was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank when it was under Jordanian control. He was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 28, 2004; earlier he had worked as a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity shut down by US officials in December 2001 for allegedly raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian organization the US has designated as terrorist. Hamdan was not charged with any crimes but was ordered deported for overstaying a student visa and was held by ICE without bond as an alleged national security threat.
In its July 31 brief, the government claimed that Hamdan's release could have "adverse foreign policy ramifications" because it could create "the perception that the US cannot keep alien fundraisers detained pending removal." Hamdan's lawyers had anticipated the government's move and filed a response before seeing its brief, noting that Holy Land Foundation officials charged with terrorism-related crimes were released on their own recognizance to await trial, and were not deemed dangers to national security.
In a statement, ICE said Hamdan would have to comply with an electronic monitoring program requiring him to be at home from 10 pm to 6 am daily and stay within a 50-mile radius of his home. DHS and the Department of Justice "will continue the vigorous effort to remove" Hamdan from the US, the statement said. [Los Angeles Times 8/1/06; Orange County Register 8/1/06] On Aug. 1, Hamdan declined to answer whether he was wearing an electronic monitor and steered clear of making controversial statements on his attorney's advice. [LAT 8/2/06]
*2. SADDLE COMPANY RAIDED IN OKLAHOMA
On Aug. 2, ICE agents arrested 51 immigrants working at Billy Cook's Harness and Saddle in Sulphur, Oklahoma. The arrests were made at the company's main address at 320 Muskogee Street while agents executed two federal search warrants for business records at businesses associated with the company. Agents from the Social Security Administration (SSA) assisted with the operation. The 30 men and 21 women arrested are Mexican citizens ranging in age from 18 to 60. [ICE News Release 8/2/06]
*3. CONSTRUCTION RAID IN ARKANSAS
On July 18, ICE agents raided a construction site in Springdale, Arkansas, and arrested 27 workers--25 of them from Mexico, two from Guatemala--on administrative immigration violations. According to Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder, 24 men and one woman were being detained in the Washington County Jail. [ICE News Release 7/21/06; Northwest Arkansas Times 7/20/06]
ICE also arrested a manager and a crew leader of the construction firm, Arevalo Framing Associates, on criminal charges. Manager Alejandro Arevalo was charged with harboring illegal aliens and re-entry after deportation. Crew leader Rodrigo Arevalo was charged with re-entry after deportation. Searches conducted during the investigation resulted in the seizure of four vehicles, $1,943 in US currency and an assault-type shotgun. Additional federal charges are expected. [ICE News Release 7/21/06]
*4. CHICAGO'S IFCO ARRESTEES WIN STAY
On July 31, immigration judge Carlos Cuevas in Chicago granted a one-year stay of deportation to 11 undocumented immigrants who were arrested in a mass nationwide raid last April of the IFCO Systems pallet company [see INB 4/22/06]. The 11 were among 26 workers arrested Apr. 19 at an IFCO facility in Chicago. Cuevas had previously given the 11 workers a two-month stay when they appeared at a June 1 hearing.
The workers had strong backing from the community; about 120 supporters greeted them as they emerged from immigration court. Alderman Daniel Solis, who joined the workers in the immigration courtroom, and members of Congress had lobbied the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on their behalf. Attorneys also presented a petition with hundreds of signatures supporting the workers. One of the "IFCO 26," Flor Crisostomo, led a hunger strike from May 10 to June 1 to demand a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/28/06, 6/4/06]. [Chicago Tribune 8/1/06]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Sunday, July 30, 2006
INB 7/30/06: Algerian Detainee Released;Arrests at Mississippi Airport
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 27 - July 30, 2006
1. Algerian Detainee Released
2. Judge Orders Palestinian Freed
3. Employers Get Criminal Charges
4. Arrests at Mississippi Airport
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ALGERIAN DETAINEE RELEASED
After spending nearly five years detained in the US for overstaying his visa, Algerian citizen Benamar Benatta was freed July 20 following negotiations between his attorneys and the US and Canadian governments. Benatta was allowed to cross the border into Canada, where officials questioned him and released him. Two days earlier, July 18, the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit confirmed that Canada had issued Benatta a temporary resident permit "for the purpose of allowing [him] to enter into Canada to pursue a claim for refugee status in that country."
Benatta, an Algerian air force lieutenant, came to the US in 2000 for military training and overstayed his six-month visa. He arrived at the Peace Bridge near Buffalo seeking political asylum in Canada on Sept. 5, 2001. Canadian officials detained him, then after the Sept. 11 terror attacks turned him over to the US government, which held him in solitary confinement while investigating him. In November 2001 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally concluded that Benatta had no connection to terrorism. But Benatta was detained while he sought asylum in the US. His asylum case was rejected, and at one point he was offered release on a $25,000 bond but was unable to pay. Later, when his attorneys sought his release on bond, the government declined. [Washington Post 7/21/06]
*2. JUDGE ORDERS PALESTINIAN FREED
On July 27, US District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles ordered the government to free Southern California Muslim community leader Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, a Palestinian who has spent two years detained on an immigration violation. Department of Justice lawyers responded to the judge's order by filing a last-minute motion on July 28, seeking an emergency stay and claiming that Hamdan is a danger to the public and that he might flee while his deportation case is pending in the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Hatter denied the request the same day, but it was unclear when Hamdan would actually be released from the Terminal Island detention center where he has been held since his arrest on July 28, 2004.
His attorney, Ranjana Natarajan of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Los Angeles were supposed to draw up conditions of a supervised release. "The judge clearly said the government has no business detaining him," said Natarajan. Hamdan's daughter, Yaman Hamdan, said her family was afraid that the government could still find a way to keep her father locked up.
The government had never charged Hamdan with a crime, but alleged in immigration proceedings that he was linked to terrorism because of his former job as a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Dallas, Texas-based charity which allegedly channeled funds to the Palestinian armed group Hamas [see INB 12/18/04, 2/12/05, 3/25/06, 6/18/06]. [Los Angeles Times 7/29/06]
*3. EMPLOYERS GET CRIMINAL CHARGES
On July 20 in London, Kentucky, two limited liability companies pleaded guilty to criminal charges of harboring illegal aliens and money laundering in connection with an illegal employment scheme at local area hotels. Asha Ventures, LLC, and Narayan, LLC, agreed to pay $1.5 million cash in lieu of forfeiture and create internal compliance programs. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 20. [ICE News Release 7/21/06]
On July 20 in Cincinnati, Ohio, restaurant owner Jiang Fei Jiang was charged in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio with one count of encouraging or inducing aliens to illegally reside in the US. Jiang was arrested on June 5; 10 employees of Jiang's Bee's Buffet restaurant in Fairfield were arrested at Jiang's home the same day [see INB 6/10/06]. Jiang and six of the workers were found to be illegally in the US. The other four were found to have cases on appeal or immigration benefits pending. [ICE 7/21/06; Journal-News (Hamilton, OH) 7/20/06]
On July 25, a federal grand jury in Cincinnati unsealed a 40-count criminal indictment charging two temporary labor companies, the president of these companies and two of their corporate officers with conspiring to knowingly employ more than 1,000 unauthorized immigrant temporary workers. The workers were hired between December 1999 and January 2005 to sort freight under contract for ABX Air, Inc., which provides air cargo transportation services. The defendants are Garcia Labor Company, Inc, of Morristown, Tennessee; Garcia Labor Company of Ohio, Inc, based in Wilmington, Ohio; Maximino Garcia, president and co-owner of the two companies; Dominga McCarroll, sister of Garcia and former vice president of both companies; and Gina Luciano, director of Human Relations for Garcia Labor Company in Tennessee. Garcia and Luciano are also charged with inducing "aliens" to remain in the US and harboring them. [ICE 7/25/06]
*4. ARRESTS AT MISSISSIPPI AIRPORT
On July 25, ICE agents arrested three undocumented Mexican workers for using fraudulent documents and making false statements to gain employment at the Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport in Mississippi. The three men were employed by an airport sub-contractor and were applying for training at the airport in an effort to receive airport security identification badges. Airport personnel contacted ICE to examine the workers' documents; ICE then determined the documents were fraudulent. The three workers were arrested and transported to the Harrison County Detention Center; all three have been charged by the US Attorney's office on criminal counts of possessing counterfeit documents. [ICE News Release 7/28/06]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 27 - July 30, 2006
1. Algerian Detainee Released
2. Judge Orders Palestinian Freed
3. Employers Get Criminal Charges
4. Arrests at Mississippi Airport
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ALGERIAN DETAINEE RELEASED
After spending nearly five years detained in the US for overstaying his visa, Algerian citizen Benamar Benatta was freed July 20 following negotiations between his attorneys and the US and Canadian governments. Benatta was allowed to cross the border into Canada, where officials questioned him and released him. Two days earlier, July 18, the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit confirmed that Canada had issued Benatta a temporary resident permit "for the purpose of allowing [him] to enter into Canada to pursue a claim for refugee status in that country."
Benatta, an Algerian air force lieutenant, came to the US in 2000 for military training and overstayed his six-month visa. He arrived at the Peace Bridge near Buffalo seeking political asylum in Canada on Sept. 5, 2001. Canadian officials detained him, then after the Sept. 11 terror attacks turned him over to the US government, which held him in solitary confinement while investigating him. In November 2001 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally concluded that Benatta had no connection to terrorism. But Benatta was detained while he sought asylum in the US. His asylum case was rejected, and at one point he was offered release on a $25,000 bond but was unable to pay. Later, when his attorneys sought his release on bond, the government declined. [Washington Post 7/21/06]
*2. JUDGE ORDERS PALESTINIAN FREED
On July 27, US District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles ordered the government to free Southern California Muslim community leader Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, a Palestinian who has spent two years detained on an immigration violation. Department of Justice lawyers responded to the judge's order by filing a last-minute motion on July 28, seeking an emergency stay and claiming that Hamdan is a danger to the public and that he might flee while his deportation case is pending in the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Hatter denied the request the same day, but it was unclear when Hamdan would actually be released from the Terminal Island detention center where he has been held since his arrest on July 28, 2004.
His attorney, Ranjana Natarajan of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Los Angeles were supposed to draw up conditions of a supervised release. "The judge clearly said the government has no business detaining him," said Natarajan. Hamdan's daughter, Yaman Hamdan, said her family was afraid that the government could still find a way to keep her father locked up.
The government had never charged Hamdan with a crime, but alleged in immigration proceedings that he was linked to terrorism because of his former job as a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Dallas, Texas-based charity which allegedly channeled funds to the Palestinian armed group Hamas [see INB 12/18/04, 2/12/05, 3/25/06, 6/18/06]. [Los Angeles Times 7/29/06]
*3. EMPLOYERS GET CRIMINAL CHARGES
On July 20 in London, Kentucky, two limited liability companies pleaded guilty to criminal charges of harboring illegal aliens and money laundering in connection with an illegal employment scheme at local area hotels. Asha Ventures, LLC, and Narayan, LLC, agreed to pay $1.5 million cash in lieu of forfeiture and create internal compliance programs. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 20. [ICE News Release 7/21/06]
On July 20 in Cincinnati, Ohio, restaurant owner Jiang Fei Jiang was charged in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio with one count of encouraging or inducing aliens to illegally reside in the US. Jiang was arrested on June 5; 10 employees of Jiang's Bee's Buffet restaurant in Fairfield were arrested at Jiang's home the same day [see INB 6/10/06]. Jiang and six of the workers were found to be illegally in the US. The other four were found to have cases on appeal or immigration benefits pending. [ICE 7/21/06; Journal-News (Hamilton, OH) 7/20/06]
On July 25, a federal grand jury in Cincinnati unsealed a 40-count criminal indictment charging two temporary labor companies, the president of these companies and two of their corporate officers with conspiring to knowingly employ more than 1,000 unauthorized immigrant temporary workers. The workers were hired between December 1999 and January 2005 to sort freight under contract for ABX Air, Inc., which provides air cargo transportation services. The defendants are Garcia Labor Company, Inc, of Morristown, Tennessee; Garcia Labor Company of Ohio, Inc, based in Wilmington, Ohio; Maximino Garcia, president and co-owner of the two companies; Dominga McCarroll, sister of Garcia and former vice president of both companies; and Gina Luciano, director of Human Relations for Garcia Labor Company in Tennessee. Garcia and Luciano are also charged with inducing "aliens" to remain in the US and harboring them. [ICE 7/25/06]
*4. ARRESTS AT MISSISSIPPI AIRPORT
On July 25, ICE agents arrested three undocumented Mexican workers for using fraudulent documents and making false statements to gain employment at the Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport in Mississippi. The three men were employed by an airport sub-contractor and were applying for training at the airport in an effort to receive airport security identification badges. Airport personnel contacted ICE to examine the workers' documents; ICE then determined the documents were fraudulent. The three workers were arrested and transported to the Harrison County Detention Center; all three have been charged by the US Attorney's office on criminal counts of possessing counterfeit documents. [ICE News Release 7/28/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Sunday, July 23, 2006
INB 7/23/06: 10,000 March in Chicago; Border Deaths Near Record?
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 26 - July 23, 2006
1. 10,000 March in Chicago
2. "Return to Sender" Hits Central States
3. More Military Base Raids
4. Border Deaths Near Record?
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. 10,000 MARCH IN CHICAGO
An estimated 10,000 people marched through Chicago in 90-degree weather on July 19, from Union Park to a two-hour rally in Grant Park, to demand legalization for undocumented immigrants and a moratorium on deportations while Congress considers immigration reform. Speakers at the rally included congressional representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), religious leaders and Asian, Arab and Polish community advocates. Immigration advocates plan to march for three days in August from Union Park in Chicago to US House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in Batavia. [Daily Herald (Arlington Hts, IL) 7/20/06]
*2. "RETURN TO SENDER" HITS CENTRAL STATES
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continued the second phase of its "Return to Sender" interior enforcement operation July 12-20 with raids through the state of Oklahoma and the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; and Kansas City, Missouri. The same operation brought the arrest of 154 immigrants in a July 10-14 sweep through three Ohio cities [see INB 7/16/06]. In the first phase of Return to Sender, 2,179 immigrants were arrested nationwide from May 26 to June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. The operation targets immigrants who have final orders of deportation.
On July 12, before the Ohio raids were even over, ICE began a four-day sweep in Oklahoma. ICE arrested 46 Mexican immigrants in Tulsa on July 12; all were deported the same day. ICE arrested another 81 people in Oklahoma City July 13-15. The vast majority of the 127 people arrested in the two cities were Mexican, and as of July 17, 100 of them had already been returned to Mexico. The others were from Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Zimbabwe. The Oklahoma City Police Department, Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Parole and Probation, US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force and the Muskogee Police Department assisted with the operation. [ICE News Release 7/17/06]
In simultaneous four-day sweeps July 17-20, ICE agents arrested 37 immigrants in and around Kansas City, 17 in the Chicago area and 12 in Louisville. ICE was helped in the Kansas City raid by the police department of Kansas City, Kansas; in Chicago by the Franklin Park police department; and in Louisville by the Grayson County Sheriff's Department of Leitchfield, Kentucky. In the Kansas City area, 28 people were arrested in the state of Kansas and nine were arrested in Missouri. Those arrested were citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Cameroon; four of the 37 had criminal convictions and 11 had final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge. [ICE 7/21/06; Kansas City Star 7/22/06] In Chicago they came from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, China, Tunisia, Albania, Poland and Ukraine; six of the 17 had criminal convictions and 12 had final orders of removal. In Louisville, those arrested were from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Gambia, Mauritania and Philippines; nine of the 12 had final orders of removal and one had a criminal conviction. [ICE 7/21/06]
In a seven-day operation that ended July 14, ICE deportation officers assigned to the Miami Field Office Fugitive Operations Team arrested 61 immigrants in various Florida cities. Most of the arrests took place in South Florida, with 35 in Miami-Dade and 16 in Broward County. The operation targeted people who had remained in the US after losing their asylum cases. In its news release announcing the arrest, ICE did not identify the Florida sweep as part of operation "Return to Sender." [ICE 7/18/06; AP 7/20/06; South Florida Sun-Sentinel 7/20/06]
*3. MORE MILITARY BASE RAIDS
In the early morning of July 18, security officers from the Fort Bragg Directorate of Security and Emergency Services detained 58 contract workers allegedly using false documents to attempt to enter the army base in North Carolina. People whose vehicles clearly identified them as contract workers or people who identified themselves as contract workers were isolated for in-depth document checks, said Fort Bragg spokesperson Tom McCollum. The 58 detainees were turned over to federal agents, who took them to the ICE office in Cary. Some of the arrested workers were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, said ICE spokesperson Marc Raimondi. The US Marshals, Defense Criminal Investigation Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Attorney's Office in Raleigh assisted in the investigation. In the past year, Fort Bragg officials have detained more than 150 people--the vast majority of them construction workers--who allegedly sought access to the base under false pretenses. [ICE News Release 7/18/06; Fayetteville Online 7/19/06]
On July 21, ICE agents arrested 25 immigrant contract workers doing construction and landscaping at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The Air Force collaborated in the operation. The workers' names were put on a list by the six companies doing business on the base, said Frank Hartnett, a spokesperson for the 2nd Bomb Wing at the base. [Shreveport Times 7/22/06; AP 7/22/06]
*4. BORDER DEATHS NEAR RECORD?
Between Oct. 1, 2005, and July 16, 2006, the US Border Patrol recorded 319 deaths by people apparently trying to enter the US, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Border Patrol tabulated 326 deaths over the same period last year, and a record high of 472 for the fiscal year. Deaths, rescues and detentions are down in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector as increased enforcement in Arizona seems to have driven would-be immigrants east to Texas or west to California. Deaths are up this year in Texas, except in the Laredo area. [UPI 7/22/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 26 - July 23, 2006
1. 10,000 March in Chicago
2. "Return to Sender" Hits Central States
3. More Military Base Raids
4. Border Deaths Near Record?
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. 10,000 MARCH IN CHICAGO
An estimated 10,000 people marched through Chicago in 90-degree weather on July 19, from Union Park to a two-hour rally in Grant Park, to demand legalization for undocumented immigrants and a moratorium on deportations while Congress considers immigration reform. Speakers at the rally included congressional representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), religious leaders and Asian, Arab and Polish community advocates. Immigration advocates plan to march for three days in August from Union Park in Chicago to US House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in Batavia. [Daily Herald (Arlington Hts, IL) 7/20/06]
*2. "RETURN TO SENDER" HITS CENTRAL STATES
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continued the second phase of its "Return to Sender" interior enforcement operation July 12-20 with raids through the state of Oklahoma and the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; and Kansas City, Missouri. The same operation brought the arrest of 154 immigrants in a July 10-14 sweep through three Ohio cities [see INB 7/16/06]. In the first phase of Return to Sender, 2,179 immigrants were arrested nationwide from May 26 to June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. The operation targets immigrants who have final orders of deportation.
On July 12, before the Ohio raids were even over, ICE began a four-day sweep in Oklahoma. ICE arrested 46 Mexican immigrants in Tulsa on July 12; all were deported the same day. ICE arrested another 81 people in Oklahoma City July 13-15. The vast majority of the 127 people arrested in the two cities were Mexican, and as of July 17, 100 of them had already been returned to Mexico. The others were from Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Zimbabwe. The Oklahoma City Police Department, Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Parole and Probation, US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force and the Muskogee Police Department assisted with the operation. [ICE News Release 7/17/06]
In simultaneous four-day sweeps July 17-20, ICE agents arrested 37 immigrants in and around Kansas City, 17 in the Chicago area and 12 in Louisville. ICE was helped in the Kansas City raid by the police department of Kansas City, Kansas; in Chicago by the Franklin Park police department; and in Louisville by the Grayson County Sheriff's Department of Leitchfield, Kentucky. In the Kansas City area, 28 people were arrested in the state of Kansas and nine were arrested in Missouri. Those arrested were citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Cameroon; four of the 37 had criminal convictions and 11 had final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge. [ICE 7/21/06; Kansas City Star 7/22/06] In Chicago they came from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, China, Tunisia, Albania, Poland and Ukraine; six of the 17 had criminal convictions and 12 had final orders of removal. In Louisville, those arrested were from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Gambia, Mauritania and Philippines; nine of the 12 had final orders of removal and one had a criminal conviction. [ICE 7/21/06]
In a seven-day operation that ended July 14, ICE deportation officers assigned to the Miami Field Office Fugitive Operations Team arrested 61 immigrants in various Florida cities. Most of the arrests took place in South Florida, with 35 in Miami-Dade and 16 in Broward County. The operation targeted people who had remained in the US after losing their asylum cases. In its news release announcing the arrest, ICE did not identify the Florida sweep as part of operation "Return to Sender." [ICE 7/18/06; AP 7/20/06; South Florida Sun-Sentinel 7/20/06]
*3. MORE MILITARY BASE RAIDS
In the early morning of July 18, security officers from the Fort Bragg Directorate of Security and Emergency Services detained 58 contract workers allegedly using false documents to attempt to enter the army base in North Carolina. People whose vehicles clearly identified them as contract workers or people who identified themselves as contract workers were isolated for in-depth document checks, said Fort Bragg spokesperson Tom McCollum. The 58 detainees were turned over to federal agents, who took them to the ICE office in Cary. Some of the arrested workers were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, said ICE spokesperson Marc Raimondi. The US Marshals, Defense Criminal Investigation Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Attorney's Office in Raleigh assisted in the investigation. In the past year, Fort Bragg officials have detained more than 150 people--the vast majority of them construction workers--who allegedly sought access to the base under false pretenses. [ICE News Release 7/18/06; Fayetteville Online 7/19/06]
On July 21, ICE agents arrested 25 immigrant contract workers doing construction and landscaping at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The Air Force collaborated in the operation. The workers' names were put on a list by the six companies doing business on the base, said Frank Hartnett, a spokesperson for the 2nd Bomb Wing at the base. [Shreveport Times 7/22/06; AP 7/22/06]
*4. BORDER DEATHS NEAR RECORD?
Between Oct. 1, 2005, and July 16, 2006, the US Border Patrol recorded 319 deaths by people apparently trying to enter the US, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Border Patrol tabulated 326 deaths over the same period last year, and a record high of 472 for the fiscal year. Deaths, rescues and detentions are down in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector as increased enforcement in Arizona seems to have driven would-be immigrants east to Texas or west to California. Deaths are up this year in Texas, except in the Laredo area. [UPI 7/22/06]
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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Sunday, July 16, 2006
INB 7/16/06: California Pipeline Firm Raided;Senate OKs Border Funding
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 25 - July 16, 2006
1. California Pipeline Firm Raided
2. Absconder Raids Hit Ohio
3. Cleveland Imam Still Jailed
4. NY Court Backs License Restrictions
5. Senate OKs Border Funding
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. CALIFORNIA PIPELINE FIRM RAIDED
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 39 immigrants on June 28 at homes in San Diego county, California. Those arrested included 22 Mexican men employed by Burtech Pipeline, a company based in Encinitas which in the past has provided contract services to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in Oceanside. ICE spokesperson Lauren Mack said none of the arrested Burtech employees worked on the base. The company's contract with Camp Pendleton ended in July 2005, she said.
ICE agents reviewed the hiring records of more than 180 Burtech employees and found 72 of them to be deportable. The agents carrying out the raids were only able to locate and arrest 22 of the workers, but while raiding the homes they arrested another 17 people, including roommates and family members, on immigration violations. One of the arrested Burtech employees was a permanent legal resident with a prior narcotics conviction, whom ICE will now seek to deport; the others lacked legal immigration status.
The arrests were part of an ongoing worksite joint investigation involving ICE and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) under what ICE calls "Operation Safe Cities," allegedly geared to protecting the security of sensitive businesses. Burtech Pipeline cooperated fully with the investigation, according to ICE spokesperson Nadia Koroma. Since 2003, ICE agents have audited nearly 900 companies throughout San Diego county which have contracts with or links to national security facilities. [San Diego Union-Tribune 6/29/06; Washington Times 6/30/06]
*2. ABSCONDER RAIDS HIT OHIO
From July 10-14, ICE agents from Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Detroit fanned out around the Ohio cities of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland to find 150 immigrants, nearly all of whom were deemed to have ignored deportation orders. The Ohio sweep was part of a national effort dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," in which ICE arrested 2,179 immigrants between May 26 and June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. Local police and sheriffs collaborated in the Ohio operation, helping ICE to confirm the identities and homes of the targeted immigrants. James E. Brown Jr., a deportation officer for the Immigration Fugitives Operation Unit in Boston, said agents received leads from other law enforcement agencies and by running database searches against immigration court files.
In the end, ICE arrested 68 of the Ohio residents they had sought, as well as 86 other people who happened to be at the raided sites. Out of the total 154 immigrants picked up in the sweep, 20 had either been convicted of crimes or were also being sought on criminal charges, according to ICE. The arrested immigrants came from 31 countries, but the vast majority--82 of them--were from Mexico, followed by smaller groups from El Salvador (19) and Mauritania (seven). All but eight of the Mexicans were sent back to Mexico within two days of their arrest. The other people arrested in the sweep are being detained in the Seneca County Jail. ICE now plans to set up a permanent "fugitive operations" team for Ohio by Sept. 30, made up of seven agents working out of an office in Cleveland. [Columbus Dispatch 7/14/06, 7/15/06; Wcpo.com 7/14/06]
*3. CLEVELAND IMAM STILL JAILED
Fawaz Damra, a Palestinian who served as imam of Ohio's biggest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland, remains in what appears to be indefinite immigration detention, seven months after reaching a deal with the US government to be deported. Damra, who has lived in the US since the mid-1980s and was a naturalized US citizen, was convicted in June 2004 of failing to mention in his US citizenship application that he had ties to a group affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Under the agreement, announced last Jan. 5, Damra was to be deported to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Egypt or the Palestinian territories [see INB 1/6/06]. But officials say none of those countries have agreed to accept Damra. "He's a man without a country," his friend Haider Alawan said. [AP 7/14/06]
*4. NY COURT BACKS LICENSE RESTRICTIONS
On July 6, a New York state appeals court ruled 5-0 that the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) can make proof of legal immigration status a requirement to obtain a driver's license. The Appellate Division in Manhattan reversed a ruling issued on May 10 of last year by Justice Karen S. Smith. Smith had told the DMV it exceeded its authority when it began requiring license holders to prove they had valid Social Security numbers and were legally present in the US [see INB 5/14/05]. The appeals court said Smith erred in barring the identity procedures DMV Commissioner Raymond Martinez put in place and said they were "within his authority and enforceable." Foster Maer, a lawyer for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), which represented the plaintiffs, said his group was considering an appeal. [AP 7/7/06]
*5. SENATE OKS BORDER FUNDING
On July 11, the US Senate approved $350 million for "border security" as part of a $32.8 billion domestic security spending bill for the federal fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2006. The appropriation would go for aircraft, buses and other vehicles for the Border Patrol and to improve fences and other border infrastructure. It would be paid for by increasing fees for immigration and customs services. The border security amendment came from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who also won an amendment providing $648 million for more port inspectors and advanced equipment to scan shipping containers. The border security and port security appropriations are not included in the version of the fiscal 2007 domestic security spending bill already passed by the House. [Reuters 7/11/06]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 9, No. 25 - July 16, 2006
1. California Pipeline Firm Raided
2. Absconder Raids Hit Ohio
3. Cleveland Imam Still Jailed
4. NY Court Backs License Restrictions
5. Senate OKs Border Funding
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. CALIFORNIA PIPELINE FIRM RAIDED
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 39 immigrants on June 28 at homes in San Diego county, California. Those arrested included 22 Mexican men employed by Burtech Pipeline, a company based in Encinitas which in the past has provided contract services to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in Oceanside. ICE spokesperson Lauren Mack said none of the arrested Burtech employees worked on the base. The company's contract with Camp Pendleton ended in July 2005, she said.
ICE agents reviewed the hiring records of more than 180 Burtech employees and found 72 of them to be deportable. The agents carrying out the raids were only able to locate and arrest 22 of the workers, but while raiding the homes they arrested another 17 people, including roommates and family members, on immigration violations. One of the arrested Burtech employees was a permanent legal resident with a prior narcotics conviction, whom ICE will now seek to deport; the others lacked legal immigration status.
The arrests were part of an ongoing worksite joint investigation involving ICE and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) under what ICE calls "Operation Safe Cities," allegedly geared to protecting the security of sensitive businesses. Burtech Pipeline cooperated fully with the investigation, according to ICE spokesperson Nadia Koroma. Since 2003, ICE agents have audited nearly 900 companies throughout San Diego county which have contracts with or links to national security facilities. [San Diego Union-Tribune 6/29/06; Washington Times 6/30/06]
*2. ABSCONDER RAIDS HIT OHIO
From July 10-14, ICE agents from Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Detroit fanned out around the Ohio cities of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland to find 150 immigrants, nearly all of whom were deemed to have ignored deportation orders. The Ohio sweep was part of a national effort dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," in which ICE arrested 2,179 immigrants between May 26 and June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. Local police and sheriffs collaborated in the Ohio operation, helping ICE to confirm the identities and homes of the targeted immigrants. James E. Brown Jr., a deportation officer for the Immigration Fugitives Operation Unit in Boston, said agents received leads from other law enforcement agencies and by running database searches against immigration court files.
In the end, ICE arrested 68 of the Ohio residents they had sought, as well as 86 other people who happened to be at the raided sites. Out of the total 154 immigrants picked up in the sweep, 20 had either been convicted of crimes or were also being sought on criminal charges, according to ICE. The arrested immigrants came from 31 countries, but the vast majority--82 of them--were from Mexico, followed by smaller groups from El Salvador (19) and Mauritania (seven). All but eight of the Mexicans were sent back to Mexico within two days of their arrest. The other people arrested in the sweep are being detained in the Seneca County Jail. ICE now plans to set up a permanent "fugitive operations" team for Ohio by Sept. 30, made up of seven agents working out of an office in Cleveland. [Columbus Dispatch 7/14/06, 7/15/06; Wcpo.com 7/14/06]
*3. CLEVELAND IMAM STILL JAILED
Fawaz Damra, a Palestinian who served as imam of Ohio's biggest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland, remains in what appears to be indefinite immigration detention, seven months after reaching a deal with the US government to be deported. Damra, who has lived in the US since the mid-1980s and was a naturalized US citizen, was convicted in June 2004 of failing to mention in his US citizenship application that he had ties to a group affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Under the agreement, announced last Jan. 5, Damra was to be deported to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Egypt or the Palestinian territories [see INB 1/6/06]. But officials say none of those countries have agreed to accept Damra. "He's a man without a country," his friend Haider Alawan said. [AP 7/14/06]
*4. NY COURT BACKS LICENSE RESTRICTIONS
On July 6, a New York state appeals court ruled 5-0 that the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) can make proof of legal immigration status a requirement to obtain a driver's license. The Appellate Division in Manhattan reversed a ruling issued on May 10 of last year by Justice Karen S. Smith. Smith had told the DMV it exceeded its authority when it began requiring license holders to prove they had valid Social Security numbers and were legally present in the US [see INB 5/14/05]. The appeals court said Smith erred in barring the identity procedures DMV Commissioner Raymond Martinez put in place and said they were "within his authority and enforceable." Foster Maer, a lawyer for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), which represented the plaintiffs, said his group was considering an appeal. [AP 7/7/06]
*5. SENATE OKS BORDER FUNDING
On July 11, the US Senate approved $350 million for "border security" as part of a $32.8 billion domestic security spending bill for the federal fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2006. The appropriation would go for aircraft, buses and other vehicles for the Border Patrol and to improve fences and other border infrastructure. It would be paid for by increasing fees for immigration and customs services. The border security amendment came from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who also won an amendment providing $648 million for more port inspectors and advanced equipment to scan shipping containers. The border security and port security appropriations are not included in the version of the fiscal 2007 domestic security spending bill already passed by the House. [Reuters 7/11/06]
----------------------------------------------------------------
END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
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