Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 7 - April 11, 2008
1. Virginia Resort Raided
2. ICE Arrests 332 in South Florida
3. “Fugitive” Raids in Midwestern States
4. NJ Lawsuit Challenges Home Raids
5. Kids Sue Detention Center Over Abuse
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 posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. VIRGINIA RESORT RAIDED
Early on Apr. 8, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents interrogated some 100 employees working at the luxury Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, in northern Virginia's Loudoun County. ICE reported that 53 of the workers were arrested as "immigration status violators"; two of them, both women, were released at the site for humanitarian concerns. ICE agents arrested another six immigrants outside the facility. All 59 of the arrested men and women face removal proceedings, and two of them have been charged with criminal violations such as identity theft or obtaining genuine documents fraudulently. The arrested immigrants are nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, according to ICE.
The ICE investigation into the Lansdowne Resort's hiring practices started in early July 2007 following a routine inspection of all I-9 employment forms at the resort. ICE agents identified information in the I-9 forms that led them to suspect that many employees had used fraudulent or stolen identity documents to get jobs at the resort. The investigation is ongoing, said ICE in a news release.
Cheryl Kilday, president and CEO of the Loudoun Convention & Visitors Association, said she had spoken with a Lansdowne Resort executive about the incident, and that the company had been collaborating with ICE throughout the investigation. "Lansdowne had been working with them since August," said Kilday. "Lansdowne had been expecting them. They were cooperating in every way they could. This was something Lansdowne had been complying with."
Some of the arrested workers will be held in facilities awaiting transfer to detention centers, while others will be released on their own recognizance or released with a GPS tracking unit. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office was informed the previous week about the planned raid at the hotel, and assisted ICE with the arrests during the actual operation, confirmed Kraig Troxell, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office.
The raid came less than three weeks after ICE arrested 34 immigrants working for CMC Concrete Construction in Manassas, Virginia [see INB 3/29/08]. The two operations appear to have been the largest workplace raids conducted by immigration authorities in the Washington, DC region in the past two years. [ICE News Release 4/8/08; Washington Post 4/9/08; Leesburg Today 4/9/08]
*2. ICE ARRESTS 332 IN SOUTH FLORIDA
In a two-week operation that ended Apr. 4, ICE agents from the Miami Fugitive Operations Team arrested 332 people for violating immigration laws. Michael Rozos, ICE Florida Field Office Director for the Office of Detention and Removal, announced the results of the enforcement action at an Apr. 7 news conference in Miami. ICE arrested 147 people in Miami-Dade, 104 in Broward County and 81 in Palm Beach. According to ICE, 300 of those arrested were what the agency calls "fugitives," immigrants who had failed to comply with final orders of deportation. ICE said the other 32 people arrested "were immigration violators...who have been convicted of various crimes." Those arrested came from countries including Angola, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mauritania, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Surinam, Ukraine and Venezuela.
Out of the total 332 people arrested, 68 who were verified as sole caregivers or having medical concerns were released on orders of supervision and placed on the Alternatives to Detention Program (ATD), which according to ICE "has provided effective community based supervision to eligible aliens." The rest of those arrested were detained. [ICE News Release 4/7/08; Miami Herald 4/7/08]
*3. "FUGITIVE " RAIDS IN MIDWESTERN STATES
In a two-day operation ending Mar. 30, ICE Fugitive Operations Team agents arrested 28 immigrants in Liberal, Kansas. Those arrested were 23 men and five women. Twenty of them were from Guatemala, six were from Mexico, and two were from El Salvador. Four of the 28 had criminal convictions; 18 had prior orders of deportation. All those arrested have been placed in deportation proceedings. Officers from the Liberal Police Department provided leads and otherwise assisted ICE during the operation. [ICE News Release 4/4/08]
In a two-day operation ending Mar. 27, ICE Fugitive Operations Teams arrested 18 men and seven women in Grand Island, Nebraska, and surrounding communities. Out of the total 25 people arrested, 15 are from Guatemala, eight are from Mexico, one is from El Salvador and one is from Iran. Nineteen of the 25 were "fugitives" who had failed to comply with earlier deportation orders; ICE described the other six as "immigration violators encountered by ICE officers during their targeted arrests." Five of the 25 had criminal convictions. [ICE News Release 3/28/08]
In a four-day sweep ending Feb. 25, ICE agents arrested 225 immigrants in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Wisconsin and Missouri. The individuals arrested had outstanding deportation orders to 12 countries including Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, India and Poland. Thirty of the arrests took place in the Chicago area. [AP 2/26/08, 2/27/08; Chicago Tribune 2/27/08]
ICE has 75 Fugitive Operations Teams deployed across the country. Congress has authorized ICE to add 29 more Fugitive Operations Teams in fiscal year 2008. According to ICE, the success of its Fugitive Operations Teams can be partly attributed to the new Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) in Vermont, which aids in gathering and analyzing information on fugitive cases across the country. Since opening in 2007, this center has since provided ICE agents with more than 150,000 case leads. [ICE News Release 4/4/08]
*4. NJ LAWSUIT CHALLENGES HOME RAIDS
On Apr. 3, Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice and Lowenstein Sandler, PC, filed suit in Federal District Court in New Jersey, alleging that federal law enforcement officials violated the rights of people whose homes they entered during pre-dawn immigration raids. The 10 plaintiffs include two US citizens, a permanent resident, and a person who was lawfully present in the US under protected status. The plaintiffs charge that officials violated their constitutional privacy and due process rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by entering their homes without consent or a judicial warrant during eight home raids across New Jersey between August 2006 and January 2008.
During these raids, the lawsuit states, most of the plaintiffs were awakened by loud pounding on their doors and answered the door, fearing an emergency. ICE agents subsequently either lied about their identity or purpose to gain entry, or simply shoved their way into the home. During each raid the agents swept through the house and, displaying guns, rounded up all the residents for questioning. In some cases they ordered children out of their beds, shouted obscenities, shoved guns into residents' chests, and refused to allow them to call their lawyers. In the case of plaintiff Maria Argueta, a legal resident, agents lied to get into her home then refused to even to look at her immigration papers proving her status. Detained at 4:30 in the morning, she was held for 24 hours without food or water. In at least half the raids, the officers purported to be searching for a person who did not even live at the address raided.
"None of the home raids in today's case involved valid warrants allowing the agents to enter, and none of the residents gave consent," noted plaintiffs' attorney Scott Thompson, of Lowenstein Sandler. "The Constitution is very clear about the circumstances under which law enforcement may enter a private home, and the entries in this case did not even come close."
The complaint asserts that such violations are typical operating procedures for the ICE program called "Operation Return to Sender," which purports to target people who have failed to comply with deportation orders. According to the complaint, ICE agents carrying out this program have been ordered to meet dramatically increased immigrant arrest quotas using outdated address information and without having been trained on lawful procedures. The complaint points out that of the 2,079 people arrested in New Jersey last year under this program, 87% had no criminal record, and as few as one in three had outstanding deportation orders. The suit charges that the program is used as a pretext for dragnet searches in which ICE makes thousands of what it calls "collateral arrests" of people who are not being sought but who are discovered at the raided homes and are found to be out of status.
The complaint names senior federal officials including ICE chief Julie Myers, saying they knew about the practice and allowed it to continue. The complaint also seeks to hold responsible local police officers who participated in one of the raids alongside ICE agents. The Center for Social Justice and the newspaper Brazilian Voice had filed a Freedom of Information Act suit in federal court on Jan. 28, challenging the government's withholding of documents about the raids. Documents relating to these lawsuits are online at http://law.shu.edu/csj/iceraids.html. [Seton Hall Law School Press Release 4/3/08]
*5. KIDS SUE DETENTION CENTER OVER ABUSE
Eight teenage male immigrant detainees filed a federal lawsuit on Apr. 3, claiming they were beaten and subjected to other excessive force at a privately-run 122-bed detention facility in San Antonio, Texas. The plaintiffs from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Cuba are being represented in the suit by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. According to the lawsuit, the beatings were so severe that some of the boys required hospital treatment for their injuries, and at least one boy was knocked unconscious. Complaints to facility administrators about the abuse were ignored. Officials at the detention center, officially called the Abraxas Hector Garza Treatment Center, also denied the boys access to attorneys by unnecessarily transferring them to other facilities before scheduled lawyer meetings, the lawsuit alleges.
The detention center is run by Houston-based Cornell Companies Inc. under a contract with the US Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for the care of unaccompanied minors found to be without status in the US. The suit names Cornell Companies, numerous employees of the facility, federal officials and San Antonio police. It does not name ORR itself because the plaintiffs have not filed or exhausted their administrative claims against the agency, a requirement that must be fulfilled before the federal government can be sued. [Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Press Release 4/2/08; AP 4/3/08]
-----------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see
publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
***************************************************************
Friday, April 11, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
INB 4/6/08: LA Area Warehouses Raided; Amtrak Arrests Protested
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 6 - April 6, 2008
1. LA Area Warehouses Raided
2. Day Laborers Arrested in Northern California
3. Nightclub Security Guards Arrested in Dallas
4. Idaho Pallet Company Raided
5. Activists Protest Arrests on Amtrak, Greyhound
6. Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence
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 posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com. Starting with 2008, INB issues on the blog include clickable links to all available cited sources. Please use the blog to access sources and back issues and to search by key word.
*1. LA Area Warehouses Raided
On Apr. 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 44 workers at the warehouses of three distribution companies--Samsung, Frontier and Imperial CSS--in an industrial park in Torrance, California, just south of Los Angeles. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said all but two of the 44 people arrested are Mexican. Kice said 17 of those arrested were released for humanitarian reasons. [Diario Hoy (LA/Chicago) 4/2/08, 4/3/08; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 4/3/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08] The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles reported that its personnel were able to speak with 34 of the arrested Mexicans and offer them orientation about their legal situation. [El Financiero (Mexico) 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC] William Jarquin, the consul of El Salvador in Los Angeles, said he was informed that two of those arrested were Salvadoran, and that one of the two had been released. [Diario Hoy 4/2/08]
At least 11 of the Mexican workers who were arrested on Apr. 1 were deported that same night, said Angélica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). She added that it "seemed strange" that they were "deported so quickly, because that doesn't happen unless they have final orders of deportation, and none of these people even had the chance to talk to a lawyer."
Salvadoran immigrant Nemesio Hernández said he was arrested on Apr. 1 despite having valid Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Hernández explained his situation to the ICE agents but they threw him violently to the floor, handcuffed him and jailed him for seven hours, said his sister, Isabel Hernández. He was then released without so much as an apology. [La Opinión 4/3/08]
Miguel Angel Reyes, a Mexican immigrant who had worked for four years at Imperial CFS, described how managers there collaborated with ICE to carry out the Apr. 1 raid: "The managers said we were going to have a meeting. They had us sit down in the lunchroom and then Immigration began to ask for California identification. They put us on the floor one by one. After about two hours they started to take everyone in the van." Reyes said many of the workers did not try to escape because "the managers said everything was fine, that it was a routine check, that nothing was going to happen. When I turned around, all the immigration agents were right there in front of me." [Diario Hoy 4/3/08]
Salas said that according to workers at the raided companies, ICE agents only checked the documents of the workers who appeared to be of Latin American origin. [La Opinión 4/3/08] CHIRLA organized a press conference and demonstration on the afternoon of Apr. 1 outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where some of the arrested workers were apparently taken. The protest was attended by dozens of people, including family members of the workers arrested that morning and workers who had been arrested in a Feb. 7 raid at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys. [CHIRLA Email Alert 4/2/08; Diario Hoy 4/2/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08] One woman who attended the protest, María Cruz, said her husband had been arrested on Apr. 1 at the Amay's Bakery and Noodle Co. factory in central Los Angeles. He had been a legal resident in the US for 25 years, but in 2001 authorities dug up a 20-year old felony case they said made him deportable. Cruz said her husband suffers from epilepsy; the family is worried that his condition will be exacerbated by the stress of detention. [Diario Hoy 4/2/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08]
ICE spokesperson Lori Haley claimed the operation in Torrance was simply a routine inspection of customs bonded warehouses. "We do this type of routine audit to make sure everything is safe and sound," said Haley. "In the course of the inspection, we found people who were in the country illegally and we arrested them." [Diario Hoy 4/2/08]
The raids in the area south of Los Angeles continued on Apr. 2 with operations at the warehouses of Nippon Express Inc. on Francisco Street in Torrance and The Trading Center in Long Beach, and at a factory in Wilmington where some 25 ICE agents detained at least 10 workers, most of them women. [Diario Hoy 4/3/08; La Opinión 4/3/08; El Financiero 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC; TelemundoLA.com 4/3/08]
Kice confirmed that the warehouse "inspections" would continue. "ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are carrying out routine inspections at import-export companies in various communities of Los Angeles... to identify any security vulnerability," said Kice. [Diario Hoy 4/3/08] By Apr. 3, as word spread about the raids, many Los Angeles-area immigrants reportedly stayed home from work. [El Financiero 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC]
Following the February raid at Micro Solutions, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, the National Lawyers Guild and the National Immigration Law Center sought a restraining order in federal court against federal immigration officials who they said repeatedly blocked attorneys from accompanying workers during meetings and interrogations. On Mar. 12, the two sides finalized a settlement guaranteeing that the workers arrested at Micro Solutions can be accompanied by an attorney to all meetings and interrogations. ACLU staff attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said the groups hoped that the case would set a legal precedent. "The government would have a hard time explaining why the rights of these people are different from those of others" detained in similar raids, he said. [Los Angeles Times 3/14/08]
*2. Day Laborers Arrested in Northern California
On Mar. 28, local police officers in Fremont, California (in the Bay Area, southeast of San Francisco) carried out a sting operation against day laborers who were waiting for jobs outside a local Home Depot outlet. The Fremont Police Department cited about 15 workers for trespassing and took 13 of them who had no ID to the Santa Rita Jail to be identified, according to Detective Bill Veteran. There, the laborers were apparently handed over to ICE.
The raid was carried out in response to complaints from Home Depot, Veteran said, because some of the laborers allegedly harass customers and drink in public. "As a matter of courtesy, we alert ICE when we conduct" these kinds of operations, said Veteran. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco said it will look into whether the operation violated the Constitution and will consider legal options. [NBC11.com 4/3/08]
According to information received by Larisa Casillas, director of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC), the workers were told at the time of their arrest that they would be placed in deportation proceedings. Casillas said her organization has received other reports indicating that people detained for traffic violations in Fremont are also being placed in deportation. Bay Area advocates are seeking to meet with Fremont police to discuss the issue. [Email message from Casillas received as forward on 4/2/08]
*3. Nightclub Security Guards Arrested in Dallas
Late on Mar. 29, a Saturday, agents from a task force led by ICE raided 26 mostly Latino night clubs, restaurants, pool halls and other businesses in Dallas, Texas, arresting 49 immigrants who were working as security guards. All of those arrested were employed by two local security companies. Jamille Bradfield, spokesperson for the Dallas County district attorney's office, said the names of the security companies were not being released yet because "we don't want to compromise the investigation." Authorities recovered four pistols during the operation. Five of the workers are being held on $250,000 bail each at the Dallas County Jail; they face felony charges of document tampering in order to get licensed as a security officer and to carry a firearm, Bradfield said.
Four of the 49 workers arrested were from El Salvador; the others were Mexican, authorities said. One of the Salvadorans has legal status in the US, immigration officials acknowledged; it is not clear whether he is facing any charges. Of the 45 Mexicans arrested, 29 accepted the government's offer of "voluntary return" and were swiftly returned to Mexico, officials confirmed on Mar. 31. None of the 29 would have faced criminal prosecution, according to ICE Dallas spokesperson Carl Rusnok. "Voluntary return is offered to noncriminal aliens or low-level criminal aliens"--such as for violations that usually result in a ticket, explained Rusnok. The US attorney's office is evaluating what charges to pursue against the other arrested workers; in the meantime they are being held at the Bedford Jail, which ICE contracts to use as a short-term detention facility.
The raids were carried out with the participation of the Dallas County district attorney's office, the US Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Dallas Police Department; the Texas Department of Public Safety; the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; and the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas. [Dallas Morning News 3/31/08, 4/1/08]
Norma Núñez, owner of the Palacio nightclub, said agents blocked everyone from leaving while the club was being raided, but did not question or arrest her customers. [El Hispano News 4/1/08]
*4. Idaho Pallet Company Raided
On Apr. 2, ICE agents arrested at least 13 Mexican immigrants working at a pallet manufacturing company in Homedale, Idaho. Maria Andrade, an immigration attorney and volunteer coordinator of attorneys helping the detainees, said that other arrests may have occurred as a result of the raid and that as many as 20 people may be in custody. The workers were all employed by Specialty Inc. Wood Products. They were expected to be placed in removal proceedings for violating immigration law. Two of the workers were released for "humanitarian reasons" and will make an appearance at a later date before an immigration judge, according to ICE spokesperson Lorie Dankers. The rest of the workers were being held at Ada County Jail. Since Idaho has no immigration detention facility, the workers will likely be sent to Arizona or Washington state, Andrade said.
Family members of the arrested workers joined community members in protesting the raids at a demonstration and press conference in downtown Boise on Apr. 3. "What we need to realize is that people come to this country as immigrants, as undocumented workers because they are poor, because...they have no other recourse," said Ed Keener of the Interfaith Alliance of Idaho. [ICE News Release 4/3/08; Idaho Statesman - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX 4/4/08; Fox 12 News (Boise) 4/4/08]
ICE initiated the investigation that led to the raid after receiving information that unauthorized workers might be employed at the wood products company. "Subsequent investigation revealed that some of the workers may have secured their employment by using false Social Security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents," ICE said in a news release. The company's owner is cooperating with ICE on this investigation, according to the news release. [ICE News Release 4/3/08]
"We've been going through an audit for about a year now," said Ed Leavitt, the CEO of Specialty Inc., on Apr. 3. "We totally didn't expect this." Leavitt said those arrested represented less than half of his workforce and that the arrests would have only a minor impact on the plant's operation. "We're back up and running and, in fact, hired 17 more people this morning," Leavitt said. [Idaho Statesman - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX 4/4/08]
*5. Activists Protest Arrests on Amtrak, Greyhound
On Apr. 2, several dozen demonstrators gathered in front of Penn Station in Manhattan to protest the collaboration of the Amtrak train company with border and immigration agents who arrest passengers traveling between US cities. With chants of transportation, not deportation!" and "immigrant rights are human rights," the protesters then marched to Port Authority to condemn the Greyhound bus company's collaboration with similar immigration sweeps.
The protest was organized by Families for Freedom, a New York-based multi-ethnic defense network by and for immigrants facing and fighting deportation. The protesters are demanding that Amtrak and Greyhound at the very least warn passengers about the raids in advance, publicly apologize and provide ticket refunds to those who have been arrested. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/3/08; Demonstration announcement from Families for Freedom, received via email 3/26/08; Immigration News Briefs editor's first-hand experience of demonstration 4/2/08]
A woman named Sonia, who spoke at the demonstration, said she was arrested by immigration officials along with her husband and two sons while returning to New York City from Chicago on Amtrak as the train passed through upstate New York. She spoke about the terror of being grilled by immigration officials and separated from her family. "This is the last thing I expected coming home. They seemed to be approaching all of the Latinos on the train and asking them for papers. One family even had work permits but immigration officials told them that this was not enough and they were detained also. I'm a customer, I paid just like everyone else, but my family and I were treated like we are less than human beings," Sonia said. After being detained at the Amtrak station, Sonia and her 17-year-old son were released while her husband and 18-year-old son were detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility for several days before being freed on bond. [Families for Freedom Press Release 4/2/08; EFE 4/2/08]
Amtrak has agreed to cooperate with border inspections on a random basis within 75 miles of the border, said Cliff Cole, a spokesperson for the company. "We're merely facilitating their request to board the train," he said of the Border Patrol agents. The train between Chicago and New York, called the Lakeshore Limited, passes within 75 miles of the border, he said. Greyhound also said it simply complies with law enforcement requests, be it local, state or federal. "We are under no obligation to inform customers of law enforcement activity at any time," said Greyhound spokesperson Dustin Clark.
Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, said the stops are just part of routine practice that has gotten more frequent as the agency has tripled its number of agents along the Canadian border over the past few years. [New York Times Cityroom Blog 4/2/08]
*6. Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence
In an Apr. 1 statement, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the federal government plans to speed up completion of 470 miles of border fence in the southwestern US by the end of 2008 by using two waivers to bypass some three dozen federal and state environmental and land-management laws. The move is permitted under an exemption granted by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005.
One waiver will be used to complete a 22-mile combined river levee-fence project in Hidalgo County, Texas. The second waiver covers an additional 470 miles of fencing--through 2008 and future years--in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the administration's use of the waivers exceeds what Congress intended when it approved the measure. "Today's waiver represents an extreme abuse of authority," Thompson said in a statement. "Waiver authority should only be used as a last resort, not simply because the Department has failed to get the job done through the normal process."
The waiver allows the agency to skip carrying out detailed reviews of how the fence will affect wildlife, water quality and vegetation in the ecologically sensitive affected border areas. Two environmental advocacy organizations, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, filed a petition in March asking the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the waiver provision. [Los Angeles Times 4/2/08; Washington Post 4/2/08; Houston Chronicle 4/1/08]
-----------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see
publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
***************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 6 - April 6, 2008
1. LA Area Warehouses Raided
2. Day Laborers Arrested in Northern California
3. Nightclub Security Guards Arrested in Dallas
4. Idaho Pallet Company Raided
5. Activists Protest Arrests on Amtrak, Greyhound
6. Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence
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 posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com. Starting with 2008, INB issues on the blog include clickable links to all available cited sources. Please use the blog to access sources and back issues and to search by key word.
*1. LA Area Warehouses Raided
On Apr. 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 44 workers at the warehouses of three distribution companies--Samsung, Frontier and Imperial CSS--in an industrial park in Torrance, California, just south of Los Angeles. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said all but two of the 44 people arrested are Mexican. Kice said 17 of those arrested were released for humanitarian reasons. [Diario Hoy (LA/Chicago) 4/2/08, 4/3/08; La Opinión (Los Angeles) 4/3/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08] The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles reported that its personnel were able to speak with 34 of the arrested Mexicans and offer them orientation about their legal situation. [El Financiero (Mexico) 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC] William Jarquin, the consul of El Salvador in Los Angeles, said he was informed that two of those arrested were Salvadoran, and that one of the two had been released. [Diario Hoy 4/2/08]
At least 11 of the Mexican workers who were arrested on Apr. 1 were deported that same night, said Angélica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). She added that it "seemed strange" that they were "deported so quickly, because that doesn't happen unless they have final orders of deportation, and none of these people even had the chance to talk to a lawyer."
Salvadoran immigrant Nemesio Hernández said he was arrested on Apr. 1 despite having valid Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Hernández explained his situation to the ICE agents but they threw him violently to the floor, handcuffed him and jailed him for seven hours, said his sister, Isabel Hernández. He was then released without so much as an apology. [La Opinión 4/3/08]
Miguel Angel Reyes, a Mexican immigrant who had worked for four years at Imperial CFS, described how managers there collaborated with ICE to carry out the Apr. 1 raid: "The managers said we were going to have a meeting. They had us sit down in the lunchroom and then Immigration began to ask for California identification. They put us on the floor one by one. After about two hours they started to take everyone in the van." Reyes said many of the workers did not try to escape because "the managers said everything was fine, that it was a routine check, that nothing was going to happen. When I turned around, all the immigration agents were right there in front of me." [Diario Hoy 4/3/08]
Salas said that according to workers at the raided companies, ICE agents only checked the documents of the workers who appeared to be of Latin American origin. [La Opinión 4/3/08] CHIRLA organized a press conference and demonstration on the afternoon of Apr. 1 outside the federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where some of the arrested workers were apparently taken. The protest was attended by dozens of people, including family members of the workers arrested that morning and workers who had been arrested in a Feb. 7 raid at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys. [CHIRLA Email Alert 4/2/08; Diario Hoy 4/2/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08] One woman who attended the protest, María Cruz, said her husband had been arrested on Apr. 1 at the Amay's Bakery and Noodle Co. factory in central Los Angeles. He had been a legal resident in the US for 25 years, but in 2001 authorities dug up a 20-year old felony case they said made him deportable. Cruz said her husband suffers from epilepsy; the family is worried that his condition will be exacerbated by the stress of detention. [Diario Hoy 4/2/08; Free Speech Radio News 4/2/08]
ICE spokesperson Lori Haley claimed the operation in Torrance was simply a routine inspection of customs bonded warehouses. "We do this type of routine audit to make sure everything is safe and sound," said Haley. "In the course of the inspection, we found people who were in the country illegally and we arrested them." [Diario Hoy 4/2/08]
The raids in the area south of Los Angeles continued on Apr. 2 with operations at the warehouses of Nippon Express Inc. on Francisco Street in Torrance and The Trading Center in Long Beach, and at a factory in Wilmington where some 25 ICE agents detained at least 10 workers, most of them women. [Diario Hoy 4/3/08; La Opinión 4/3/08; El Financiero 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC; TelemundoLA.com 4/3/08]
Kice confirmed that the warehouse "inspections" would continue. "ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are carrying out routine inspections at import-export companies in various communities of Los Angeles... to identify any security vulnerability," said Kice. [Diario Hoy 4/3/08] By Apr. 3, as word spread about the raids, many Los Angeles-area immigrants reportedly stayed home from work. [El Financiero 4/3/08 with information from Notimex/MVC]
Following the February raid at Micro Solutions, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, the National Lawyers Guild and the National Immigration Law Center sought a restraining order in federal court against federal immigration officials who they said repeatedly blocked attorneys from accompanying workers during meetings and interrogations. On Mar. 12, the two sides finalized a settlement guaranteeing that the workers arrested at Micro Solutions can be accompanied by an attorney to all meetings and interrogations. ACLU staff attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said the groups hoped that the case would set a legal precedent. "The government would have a hard time explaining why the rights of these people are different from those of others" detained in similar raids, he said. [Los Angeles Times 3/14/08]
*2. Day Laborers Arrested in Northern California
On Mar. 28, local police officers in Fremont, California (in the Bay Area, southeast of San Francisco) carried out a sting operation against day laborers who were waiting for jobs outside a local Home Depot outlet. The Fremont Police Department cited about 15 workers for trespassing and took 13 of them who had no ID to the Santa Rita Jail to be identified, according to Detective Bill Veteran. There, the laborers were apparently handed over to ICE.
The raid was carried out in response to complaints from Home Depot, Veteran said, because some of the laborers allegedly harass customers and drink in public. "As a matter of courtesy, we alert ICE when we conduct" these kinds of operations, said Veteran. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco said it will look into whether the operation violated the Constitution and will consider legal options. [NBC11.com 4/3/08]
According to information received by Larisa Casillas, director of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition (BAIRC), the workers were told at the time of their arrest that they would be placed in deportation proceedings. Casillas said her organization has received other reports indicating that people detained for traffic violations in Fremont are also being placed in deportation. Bay Area advocates are seeking to meet with Fremont police to discuss the issue. [Email message from Casillas received as forward on 4/2/08]
*3. Nightclub Security Guards Arrested in Dallas
Late on Mar. 29, a Saturday, agents from a task force led by ICE raided 26 mostly Latino night clubs, restaurants, pool halls and other businesses in Dallas, Texas, arresting 49 immigrants who were working as security guards. All of those arrested were employed by two local security companies. Jamille Bradfield, spokesperson for the Dallas County district attorney's office, said the names of the security companies were not being released yet because "we don't want to compromise the investigation." Authorities recovered four pistols during the operation. Five of the workers are being held on $250,000 bail each at the Dallas County Jail; they face felony charges of document tampering in order to get licensed as a security officer and to carry a firearm, Bradfield said.
Four of the 49 workers arrested were from El Salvador; the others were Mexican, authorities said. One of the Salvadorans has legal status in the US, immigration officials acknowledged; it is not clear whether he is facing any charges. Of the 45 Mexicans arrested, 29 accepted the government's offer of "voluntary return" and were swiftly returned to Mexico, officials confirmed on Mar. 31. None of the 29 would have faced criminal prosecution, according to ICE Dallas spokesperson Carl Rusnok. "Voluntary return is offered to noncriminal aliens or low-level criminal aliens"--such as for violations that usually result in a ticket, explained Rusnok. The US attorney's office is evaluating what charges to pursue against the other arrested workers; in the meantime they are being held at the Bedford Jail, which ICE contracts to use as a short-term detention facility.
The raids were carried out with the participation of the Dallas County district attorney's office, the US Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Dallas Police Department; the Texas Department of Public Safety; the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; and the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas. [Dallas Morning News 3/31/08, 4/1/08]
Norma Núñez, owner of the Palacio nightclub, said agents blocked everyone from leaving while the club was being raided, but did not question or arrest her customers. [El Hispano News 4/1/08]
*4. Idaho Pallet Company Raided
On Apr. 2, ICE agents arrested at least 13 Mexican immigrants working at a pallet manufacturing company in Homedale, Idaho. Maria Andrade, an immigration attorney and volunteer coordinator of attorneys helping the detainees, said that other arrests may have occurred as a result of the raid and that as many as 20 people may be in custody. The workers were all employed by Specialty Inc. Wood Products. They were expected to be placed in removal proceedings for violating immigration law. Two of the workers were released for "humanitarian reasons" and will make an appearance at a later date before an immigration judge, according to ICE spokesperson Lorie Dankers. The rest of the workers were being held at Ada County Jail. Since Idaho has no immigration detention facility, the workers will likely be sent to Arizona or Washington state, Andrade said.
Family members of the arrested workers joined community members in protesting the raids at a demonstration and press conference in downtown Boise on Apr. 3. "What we need to realize is that people come to this country as immigrants, as undocumented workers because they are poor, because...they have no other recourse," said Ed Keener of the Interfaith Alliance of Idaho. [ICE News Release 4/3/08; Idaho Statesman - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX 4/4/08; Fox 12 News (Boise) 4/4/08]
ICE initiated the investigation that led to the raid after receiving information that unauthorized workers might be employed at the wood products company. "Subsequent investigation revealed that some of the workers may have secured their employment by using false Social Security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents," ICE said in a news release. The company's owner is cooperating with ICE on this investigation, according to the news release. [ICE News Release 4/3/08]
"We've been going through an audit for about a year now," said Ed Leavitt, the CEO of Specialty Inc., on Apr. 3. "We totally didn't expect this." Leavitt said those arrested represented less than half of his workforce and that the arrests would have only a minor impact on the plant's operation. "We're back up and running and, in fact, hired 17 more people this morning," Leavitt said. [Idaho Statesman - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX 4/4/08]
*5. Activists Protest Arrests on Amtrak, Greyhound
On Apr. 2, several dozen demonstrators gathered in front of Penn Station in Manhattan to protest the collaboration of the Amtrak train company with border and immigration agents who arrest passengers traveling between US cities. With chants of transportation, not deportation!" and "immigrant rights are human rights," the protesters then marched to Port Authority to condemn the Greyhound bus company's collaboration with similar immigration sweeps.
The protest was organized by Families for Freedom, a New York-based multi-ethnic defense network by and for immigrants facing and fighting deportation. The protesters are demanding that Amtrak and Greyhound at the very least warn passengers about the raids in advance, publicly apologize and provide ticket refunds to those who have been arrested. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/3/08; Demonstration announcement from Families for Freedom, received via email 3/26/08; Immigration News Briefs editor's first-hand experience of demonstration 4/2/08]
A woman named Sonia, who spoke at the demonstration, said she was arrested by immigration officials along with her husband and two sons while returning to New York City from Chicago on Amtrak as the train passed through upstate New York. She spoke about the terror of being grilled by immigration officials and separated from her family. "This is the last thing I expected coming home. They seemed to be approaching all of the Latinos on the train and asking them for papers. One family even had work permits but immigration officials told them that this was not enough and they were detained also. I'm a customer, I paid just like everyone else, but my family and I were treated like we are less than human beings," Sonia said. After being detained at the Amtrak station, Sonia and her 17-year-old son were released while her husband and 18-year-old son were detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility for several days before being freed on bond. [Families for Freedom Press Release 4/2/08; EFE 4/2/08]
Amtrak has agreed to cooperate with border inspections on a random basis within 75 miles of the border, said Cliff Cole, a spokesperson for the company. "We're merely facilitating their request to board the train," he said of the Border Patrol agents. The train between Chicago and New York, called the Lakeshore Limited, passes within 75 miles of the border, he said. Greyhound also said it simply complies with law enforcement requests, be it local, state or federal. "We are under no obligation to inform customers of law enforcement activity at any time," said Greyhound spokesperson Dustin Clark.
Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, said the stops are just part of routine practice that has gotten more frequent as the agency has tripled its number of agents along the Canadian border over the past few years. [New York Times Cityroom Blog 4/2/08]
*6. Laws to Be Waived for Border Fence
In an Apr. 1 statement, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the federal government plans to speed up completion of 470 miles of border fence in the southwestern US by the end of 2008 by using two waivers to bypass some three dozen federal and state environmental and land-management laws. The move is permitted under an exemption granted by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005.
One waiver will be used to complete a 22-mile combined river levee-fence project in Hidalgo County, Texas. The second waiver covers an additional 470 miles of fencing--through 2008 and future years--in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the administration's use of the waivers exceeds what Congress intended when it approved the measure. "Today's waiver represents an extreme abuse of authority," Thompson said in a statement. "Waiver authority should only be used as a last resort, not simply because the Department has failed to get the job done through the normal process."
The waiver allows the agency to skip carrying out detailed reviews of how the fence will affect wildlife, water quality and vegetation in the ecologically sensitive affected border areas. Two environmental advocacy organizations, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, filed a petition in March asking the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the waiver provision. [Los Angeles Times 4/2/08; Washington Post 4/2/08; Houston Chronicle 4/1/08]
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END
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ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see
publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
***************************************************************
Saturday, March 29, 2008
INB 3/29/08: H-2 Workers Sue, March; Detainee Deaths Protested
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 5 - March 29, 2008
INB has not been published for the past six weeks (since Feb. 10)--we apologize for the unusually long lapse! We hope to resume a fairly regular weekly publication schedule with this issue.
1. H-2 Workers File Suit, March to DC
2. Construction Workers Arrested in Virginia, Tennessee
3. Restaurant Raided in Charlotte, NC
4. PA: 64 Arrested in Warehouse Raid
5. NJ Detainees Protest Medical Neglect
6. Judge Blasts ICE over Detainee Death
7. Sister Files Suit Over Detainee Death
8. Al-Arian Still Jailed, on Hunger Strike
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 posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com. Starting with 2008, INB issues on the blog include clickable links to all available cited sources. Please use the blog to access sources and back issues and to search by key word.
*1. H-2 WORKERS FILE SUIT, MARCH TO DC
On Mar. 7, a group of Indian welders, pipefitters, and marine fabrication workers employed under the federal H-2B visa program filed a federal lawsuit against Signal International, alleging that they were lured to work at the company's shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi and Orange, Texas, with false promises of permanent US residency. Once in the US, the workers say they were forced into involuntary servitude and overcrowded labor camps. The class action lawsuit, David v. Signal Int'l LLC, was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in New Orleans, by several organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
According to the suit, a network of recruiters and labor brokers engineered a scheme to defraud the workers. The suit seeks injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and punitive damages for all Indian H-2B guestworkers who were recruited by Signal International since 2003 and who traveled or were transported to the US under the auspices of H-2B visas assigned to Signal. The class is believed to number more than 500 individuals.
The plaintiffs claimed they were trafficked into the US in late 2006 and early 2007 through the H-2B temporary guestworker program to work for Signal after many workers left the region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. After the workers arrived, they discovered they would not receive green cards as promised but only 10-month H-2B guestworker visas. Led by class representative Kurian David, the plaintiffs say they incurred substantial debt, liquidated their life savings, and sold their family homes in India to pay mandatory recruitment, immigration processing, and travel fees totaling as much as $20,000 per worker. The main recruiting agents in India and the United Arab Emirates held the workers' passports and visas and threatened, coerced, and defrauded them, the complaint states. The plaintiffs say they were forced to live in guarded, overcrowded, and isolated labor camps while the company deducted $1,050 per month from their paychecks for room and board. According to the plaintiffs, Signal "generally perpetrated a campaign of psychological abuse, coercion, and fraud designed to render plaintiffs and other class members afraid, intimidated, and unable to leave Signal's employ."
Two plaintiffs charged that Signal attempted to forcibly and unlawfully deport them in retaliation for speaking out against discriminatory conditions in the company's labor camp in Pascagoula. Several workers were illegally detained by company security guards during a pre-dawn raid of their quarters after they began organizing other workers to complain about abuses they faced.
The suit says Signal violated the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and the Fair Labor Standards Act. [BNA Daily Labor Report #50, 3/14/08]
The litigation came out of a broader organizing campaign spearheaded by the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a project of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. On Mar. 6, a day before filing the lawsuit, nearly 100 of the H-2B workers reported themselves to the Justice Department as victims of and witnesses to human trafficking, and demanded federal prosecution of Signal. They then marched to the main gates of the Signal International shipyard in Pascagoula carrying signs with the word "dignity." In a symbolic action, the workers down threw their hard hats toward Signal's main gate. [BNA Daily Labor Report #50, 3/14/08; WKRG.com (Mobile, AL) 3/6/08; New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Press Release 3/6/08]
On Mar. 18, over 100 of the workers launched a nine-day journey by foot and bus from New Orleans to Washington, DC, to demand a meeting with Indian ambassador Ronen Sen and call for an end to abuses of the H2B guestworker program. They described their protest as a satyagraha, a word used by Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi to describe a nonviolent battle against injustice.
The workers met with a growing network of supporters and allies as they traveled through key sites of the US civil rights struggle of the 1960s. On Mar. 20, the workers rallied at the capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, where worker and organizer Sabulal Vijayan challenged Signal "to hire poor and African-American workers from Mississippi to take our place." Vijayan presented a list of 10 certified Indian trainers from the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity who are willing to train Mississippi workers if Signal will hire them. "We don't just want Signal to hire workers on Signal's terms," clarified Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. "We want Signal to hire workers from Mississippi with a union contract, with fair wages, with health benefits, with immigrant rights, with a chance to move forward and make life better for all of Mississippi."
On Mar. 21, the workers visited the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama, then marched through and out of the city. As they left the Memorial Center, organizers questioned undercover immigration agents at the scene who reluctantly admitted engaging in ongoing surveillance of the group. Montgomery police also tried to stop the marchers on their way through the city, claiming they needed a permit, but eventually let them continue. The workers spent Mar. 23-25 in Atlanta, staying in a church and meeting with supporters and media, then made a stop in Greensboro, North Carolina before arriving in Washington on Mar. 27.
In Washington, nearly 100 of the workers held a three-hour meeting with Ambassador Sen in the central hall of the Embassy of India. The workers plan to remain in Washington for a week and meet with members of Congress. A rally is scheduled for 11:30am on Mar. 31 in front of the White House with support from the labor solidarity organization Jobs with Justice. The workers' journey is chronicled in a text and photo blog at http://nolaworkerscenter.wordpress.com. [New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Press Release 3/18/08; AP 3/20/08; BBC News 3/27/08; blog postings from nolaworkerscenter.wordpress.com]
Signal International issued a statement on Mar. 27 saying it would hire no new temporary workers under the H2B program until the program is "reformed to better protect foreign workers and US companies that were misled by recruiters." Signal accused recruitment firm Global Resources of deceiving the Indian workers and said it has ended its contract with the company. Global Resources claimed that Signal was "totally and completely in charge of the relationship with the Indian workers," including their visa and living arrangements. [BBC News 3/27/08]
*2. CONSTRUCTION WORKERS ARRESTED IN VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE
Early on Mar. 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 34 immigrants working for CMC Concrete Construction in Manassas, Virginia. The workers from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador were stopped by ICE as they were being transported to work; they are being charged administratively and are in ICE custody undergoing deportation proceedings, said ICE spokesperson Ernestine Fobbs. According to Fobbs, ICE executed two search warrants in connection with the operation, but the warrants remain under seal. [Washington Post 3/25/08]
On Mar. 25, ICE agents arrested 34 immigrant construction workers employed by various contractors and subcontractors building the new National Guard Air Base in Memphis, Tennessee. ICE made the arrests at the Memphis International Airport while conducting a gate check at the worksite location. The agency said it initiated the "ongoing criminal worksite investigation" after receiving information from the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations that some of the workers at the site were unauthorized. All those arrested said they were from Mexico; according to ICE, they were being processed at the agency's Detention and Removal Office facility in Memphis and will face deportation proceedings. [ICE News Release 3/25/08]
*3. RESTAURANT RAIDED IN CHARLOTTE, NC
On Mar. 20, ICE agents arrested nine workers at an Olive Garden restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina. The workers from Indonesia, Mexico and Guatemala were arrested on unspecified immigration charges and will face deportation proceedings, ICE said. Adriana Sanchez said her mother, Amalia de la Cruz, was among those arrested. De la Cruz was from Mexico and had worked at the restaurant for eight years, according to Sanchez. "We want to talk to her and tell her not to sign anything," Sanchez said as she went to try to see her mother at the Mecklenburg County jail. [News & Observer 3/22/08 from AP]
*4. PA: 64 ARRESTED IN WAREHOUSE RAID
On Mar. 18, ICE agents arrested 64 workers at the warehouse of F.C. Young and Co. in the Bath Industrial Park in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Of the total workers arrested, 48 were women: 41 from Guatemala, five from Mexico and two from Honduras. Two of the 16 men arrested were from Mexico; the rest were Guatemalan. According to ICE spokesperson Mike Gilhooly, 20 of the workers were released the same day of the raid for humanitarian reasons including childcare concerns. The other 44 remain detained. [AP 3/19/08; Bucks County Courier Times 3/19/08]
*5. NJ DETAINEES PROTEST MEDICAL NEGLECT
In a Mar. 2 petition addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 93 immigration detainees at Middlesex County jail in New Jersey complained about inadequate medical treatment for two fellow detainees, including a man named Arturo Alvarez who died earlier that same day. According to authorities the Cuban detainee died on Mar. 2 at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick after suffering a heart attack at the jail on Feb. 29. In the letter, titled "Re: Crime Against Humanity," the detainees said Alvarez asked for help and was given Tylenol and his own medication, "but no doctor was available to see him." The letter states that Alvarez "passed away in this jail" and was not sent to the hospital. The petition also charges that a detainee named Cemar Koc complained of pain to a first shift duty officer, got no help, and after complaining to a second-shift officer lost consciousness. [Home News Tribune 3/15/08; Copy of Petition 3/2/08 made available by New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee]
ICE spokesperson Michael Gilhooly denied the allegation of medical neglect. Gilhooly said the dead man's real name was Arturo Suarez-Almenares, and he was 72 years old. "When it became apparent that the individual was ill, he received proper medical care," Gilhooly said. "We take the health and welfare of our people very seriously." As with the deaths of all detainees, the case has been referred to the bureau's internal affairs office, said Mark Vogler, assistant field office director for the ICE detention and removal office in Newark.
Officials with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release details of Suarez-Almenares said he arrived from Cuba in 1980, the year of the Mariel boatlift when 125,000 Cubans came to the US. He later reportedly spent five separate stints in state prison on drug distribution charges. He was sent to prison last in April 2007, released to immigration officials in October and taken to Middlesex County jail, Gilhooly said.
Cuban nationals generally cannot be repatriated because the Cuban government does not accept their return. Instead they are kept in a permanent probation-like program that requires them to maintain contact with immigration authorities. Gilhooly said Suarez-Almenares was about to be released when he fell ill.
Les Paschall, CEO of CFG Health Systems, a limited liability corporation that runs medical and mental-health services at the Middlesex County jail, declined comment on the death of Suarez-Almenares, citing lawyer's advice and security rules. [Home News Tribune 3/15/08]
*6. JUDGE BLASTS ICE OVER DETAINEE DEATH
In a decision dated Mar. 11, US District Judge Dean Pregerson in Los Angeles ruled that the family of Salvadoran immigrant Francisco Castaneda can continue to pursue a lawsuit against individual government officials for violating Castaneda's constitutional rights and can ask a jury to award punitive damages. Pregerson determined that the immigration agency's decision to withhold critical medical treatment from Castaneda while detaining him was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. The government had argued that its employees were immune from the lawsuit, and that federal law allowed only a suit against the government, with a nonjury trial and a $250,000 limit on damages. A spokesperson for the US attorney's office said the Justice Department might appeal Pregerson's ruling.
Castaneda first informed ICE medical staff at the San Diego Correctional Facility on Mar. 27, 2006, that "a lesion on his penis was becoming painful and growing," Pregerson wrote. The next day, a physician assistant at the facility examined Castaneda and issued a treatment plan calling for a consultation with a urologist "ASAP" and a request for a biopsy, according to government records cited by the judge.
The government was aware that Castaneda had a family history of cancer--his mother had died of pancreatic cancer at age 39. Yet for the following 11 months, the government refused to authorize a biopsy; officials instead prescribed antihistamines, ibuprofen and extra boxer shorts to deal with discharge from the lesion. On June 7, 2006, after oncologist Dr. John Wilkinson wrote a report saying Castaneda urgently needed a biopsy because he might have penile cancer, Dr. Esther Hui, M.D., of the Division of Immigration Health Services said her agency considered a biopsy "an elective outpatient procedure" and would not admit Castaneda to a hospital. Dr. Hui never made any arrangements for an outpatient biopsy.
Hui is one of the defendants named in the case, along with the federal government and several other federal officials, including another doctor, Timothy Shack, M.D.. Judge Pregerson said there was compelling evidence that government doctors "purposefully mischaracterized Castaneda's medical conditions as elective in order to refuse him care" and save money.
"I tried to get medical help every day," Castaneda said in his Oct. 4, 2007 testimony at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law looking into medical care at immigration detention centers.
In early December 2006, Castaneda was transferred to the San Pedro immigration detention center and came into contact with attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who sent a letter on Dec. 5 to multiple ICE officials urging treatment for Castaneda. After the ACLU sent several more letters, Castaneda was finally seen by a urologist on Jan. 25, 2007, and a biopsy was scheduled for early February. The immigration agency then abruptly released Castaneda a few days before the procedure. On Feb. 8, Castaneda went to the emergency room of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where doctors determined that the cancer had spread to his lymph system. They diagnosed him with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma and amputated his penis less than a week later. Chemotherapy failed to stop the spread of the cancer, and Castaneda died at age 36 on Feb. 16, 2008, at his home in Los Angeles.
Castaneda was 10 years old when he came to the US with his mother while El Salvador was mired in a brutal US-sponsored counter-insurgency war. He was arrested in 2005 on a drug possession charge and spent eight months in state custody; he was then detained in federal jails in San Diego and San Pedro while fighting deportation proceedings and seeking political asylum. [Los Angeles Times 3/13/08; San Francisco Chronicle 3/14/08; ABC News 3/19/08; Text of Pregerson's Ruling 3/11/08]
Judge Pregerson blasted government health officials' "attempt to sidestep responsibility for what appears to be... one of the most, if not the most, egregious" violations of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment that "the court has ever encountered." At this stage of the proceedings, "the only question is whether" the plaintiffs' allegations show that government officials "were deliberately indifferent to his condition. The court finds that they do," Pregerson said. The government's own records, Pregerson noted, "bespeak of conduct that transcends negligence by miles." [Los Angeles Times 3/13/08]
A separate lawsuit filed last year by the ACLU on behalf of other detainees at the San Diego detention center where Castaneda was held claimed that medical treatment was routinely delayed or denied in order to reduce the cost of care. The immigrants in that case said they were denied medications for months and that chronic illnesses such as diabetes were inadequately monitored. In one example, a detainee said he was denied treatment for a cut to his foot until it developed gangrene and doctors recommended amputation. [ABC News 3/19/08]
*7. SISTER FILES SUIT OVER DETAINEE DEATH
Maryland resident June Everett has filed a lawsuit charging that her sister, Sandra M. Kenley, died because of inadequate medical care while in immigration detention. The lawsuit names the Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover County and the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, as well as jail officials at both facilities, and seeks more than $2 million in damages.
Kenley had been a permanent legal resident since 1978 but was stopped because of two prior drug convictions when she tried to re-enter the US in Miami on Sept. 2, 2005, after a visit to her native Barbados. Kenley was allowed to proceed but was ordered to report to immigration officials in the Washington, DC area. When she reported on Nov. 2 she was placed in detention. Kenley was detained at the Hanover jail until Nov. 29, then transferred to the regional jail in Portsmouth, where she died on Dec. 18, 2005. An autopsy determined the cause of her death was acute coronary insufficiency due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease, said Donna Price, administrator for the medical examiner's office.
In the lawsuit, Everett states that her sister was on medication for high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and was scheduled for surgery because of a fibroid tumor, which was causing heavy bleeding. Everett testified last Oct. 4 at the House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on medical care at immigration jails. Kenley "complained constantly about not getting her medicine," Everett said in her testimony. "When the prison officers finally gave her pills after many weeks, they were the wrong ones." [Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads, VA) 1/28/08]
*8. AL-ARIAN STILL JAILED, ON HUNGER STRIKE
On Mar. 3, jailed Palestinian professor Sami Al-Arian was informed that he would be called to testify before a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating allegations that Muslim charities aided terrorism organizations. Al-Arian responded by starting a hunger strike the same day, refusing all food and water. On Mar. 20, Al-Arian appeared before the grand jury and declined to testify. Later on Mar. 20 Al-Arian began drinking water, but he continues to fast at the Northern Neck Regional jail in Warsaw, Virginia. (On Mar. 12 he was transferred to a medical prison in Butner, North Carolina, but on Mar. 18 he was returned to the Warsaw jail.) Over the course of this latest hunger strike Al-Arian, who is diabetic, has lost 30 pounds; he has not been offered an IV or treatment for any of his symptoms, including chest pains, severe dehydration and headaches.
This is Al-Arian's third hunger strike since he was arrested on Feb. 20, 2003, on charges of conspiracy to aid the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Following his arrest, Al-Arian went on a liquid-only hunger strike that lasted 140 days. He was hospitalized and lost 45 pounds. On Jan. 22, 2007, after being held in civil contempt for not testifying before a grand jury, Al-Arian went on a water-only hunger strike for 60 days [see INB 3/24/07]. He lost 55 pounds, was hospitalized and was confined to a wheelchair.
On Dec. 6, 2005, a jury acquitted Al-Arian of eight charges and deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal on another nine charges. When the government threatened to retry him on the remaining counts, Al-Arian pleaded guilty on Apr. 14, 2006, to a single count of conspiracy to "make or receive funds... for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." In May 2006 Judge James S. Moody Jr. of Federal District Court in Tampa sentenced Al-Arian to 57 months in prison with credit for time served [see INB 6/10/06]. The plea agreement was based on the understanding that the government would not seek his testimony in future terrorism cases, and that he would be deported as soon as his term was up.
Al-Arian is declining to testify before the grand juries because he doesn't want anyone "to be persecuted the way he was," said Jonathan Turley, his attorney. Under his original plea agreement, Al-Arian was due to be released in April 2007, but he served an additional year for refusing to testify before the grand jury in January 2007. Just as Al-Arian was due to be released on Apr. 7 of this year, the government again brought him before a grand jury, knowing he would refuse to testify. "You have a great injustice being perpetrated by the Justice Department," said Turley. "They've daisy-chained three grand jury investigations to prolong his incarceration."
Al-Arian's supporters are concerned that the grand jury subpoena is an attempt by Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg to ensnare Al-Arian in a perjury trap. According to Al-Arian's daughter, Laila Al-Arian, Kromberg "has made on-the-record anti-Muslim statements; he said he doesn't want to assist in the, quote, 'Islamization of America and of he American justice system.'"
For information on Al-Arian's case see www.freesamialarian.com, the website of the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace. [Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace Press Releases 3/3/08, 3/25/08; Washington Post 3/22/08; Statement from Jonathan Turley 3/22/08; Democracy Now (transcript) 3/21/08; Column by Attorney Peter Erlinder in JURIST 3/11/08]
-----------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see
publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
***************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 5 - March 29, 2008
INB has not been published for the past six weeks (since Feb. 10)--we apologize for the unusually long lapse! We hope to resume a fairly regular weekly publication schedule with this issue.
1. H-2 Workers File Suit, March to DC
2. Construction Workers Arrested in Virginia, Tennessee
3. Restaurant Raided in Charlotte, NC
4. PA: 64 Arrested in Warehouse Raid
5. NJ Detainees Protest Medical Neglect
6. Judge Blasts ICE over Detainee Death
7. Sister Files Suit Over Detainee Death
8. Al-Arian Still Jailed, on Hunger Strike
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 posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com. Starting with 2008, INB issues on the blog include clickable links to all available cited sources. Please use the blog to access sources and back issues and to search by key word.
*1. H-2 WORKERS FILE SUIT, MARCH TO DC
On Mar. 7, a group of Indian welders, pipefitters, and marine fabrication workers employed under the federal H-2B visa program filed a federal lawsuit against Signal International, alleging that they were lured to work at the company's shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi and Orange, Texas, with false promises of permanent US residency. Once in the US, the workers say they were forced into involuntary servitude and overcrowded labor camps. The class action lawsuit, David v. Signal Int'l LLC, was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in New Orleans, by several organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
According to the suit, a network of recruiters and labor brokers engineered a scheme to defraud the workers. The suit seeks injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and punitive damages for all Indian H-2B guestworkers who were recruited by Signal International since 2003 and who traveled or were transported to the US under the auspices of H-2B visas assigned to Signal. The class is believed to number more than 500 individuals.
The plaintiffs claimed they were trafficked into the US in late 2006 and early 2007 through the H-2B temporary guestworker program to work for Signal after many workers left the region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. After the workers arrived, they discovered they would not receive green cards as promised but only 10-month H-2B guestworker visas. Led by class representative Kurian David, the plaintiffs say they incurred substantial debt, liquidated their life savings, and sold their family homes in India to pay mandatory recruitment, immigration processing, and travel fees totaling as much as $20,000 per worker. The main recruiting agents in India and the United Arab Emirates held the workers' passports and visas and threatened, coerced, and defrauded them, the complaint states. The plaintiffs say they were forced to live in guarded, overcrowded, and isolated labor camps while the company deducted $1,050 per month from their paychecks for room and board. According to the plaintiffs, Signal "generally perpetrated a campaign of psychological abuse, coercion, and fraud designed to render plaintiffs and other class members afraid, intimidated, and unable to leave Signal's employ."
Two plaintiffs charged that Signal attempted to forcibly and unlawfully deport them in retaliation for speaking out against discriminatory conditions in the company's labor camp in Pascagoula. Several workers were illegally detained by company security guards during a pre-dawn raid of their quarters after they began organizing other workers to complain about abuses they faced.
The suit says Signal violated the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Civil Rights Act of 1871 and the Fair Labor Standards Act. [BNA Daily Labor Report #50, 3/14/08]
The litigation came out of a broader organizing campaign spearheaded by the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity, a project of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. On Mar. 6, a day before filing the lawsuit, nearly 100 of the H-2B workers reported themselves to the Justice Department as victims of and witnesses to human trafficking, and demanded federal prosecution of Signal. They then marched to the main gates of the Signal International shipyard in Pascagoula carrying signs with the word "dignity." In a symbolic action, the workers down threw their hard hats toward Signal's main gate. [BNA Daily Labor Report #50, 3/14/08; WKRG.com (Mobile, AL) 3/6/08; New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Press Release 3/6/08]
On Mar. 18, over 100 of the workers launched a nine-day journey by foot and bus from New Orleans to Washington, DC, to demand a meeting with Indian ambassador Ronen Sen and call for an end to abuses of the H2B guestworker program. They described their protest as a satyagraha, a word used by Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi to describe a nonviolent battle against injustice.
The workers met with a growing network of supporters and allies as they traveled through key sites of the US civil rights struggle of the 1960s. On Mar. 20, the workers rallied at the capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, where worker and organizer Sabulal Vijayan challenged Signal "to hire poor and African-American workers from Mississippi to take our place." Vijayan presented a list of 10 certified Indian trainers from the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity who are willing to train Mississippi workers if Signal will hire them. "We don't just want Signal to hire workers on Signal's terms," clarified Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. "We want Signal to hire workers from Mississippi with a union contract, with fair wages, with health benefits, with immigrant rights, with a chance to move forward and make life better for all of Mississippi."
On Mar. 21, the workers visited the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama, then marched through and out of the city. As they left the Memorial Center, organizers questioned undercover immigration agents at the scene who reluctantly admitted engaging in ongoing surveillance of the group. Montgomery police also tried to stop the marchers on their way through the city, claiming they needed a permit, but eventually let them continue. The workers spent Mar. 23-25 in Atlanta, staying in a church and meeting with supporters and media, then made a stop in Greensboro, North Carolina before arriving in Washington on Mar. 27.
In Washington, nearly 100 of the workers held a three-hour meeting with Ambassador Sen in the central hall of the Embassy of India. The workers plan to remain in Washington for a week and meet with members of Congress. A rally is scheduled for 11:30am on Mar. 31 in front of the White House with support from the labor solidarity organization Jobs with Justice. The workers' journey is chronicled in a text and photo blog at http://nolaworkerscenter.wordpress.com. [New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice Press Release 3/18/08; AP 3/20/08; BBC News 3/27/08; blog postings from nolaworkerscenter.wordpress.com]
Signal International issued a statement on Mar. 27 saying it would hire no new temporary workers under the H2B program until the program is "reformed to better protect foreign workers and US companies that were misled by recruiters." Signal accused recruitment firm Global Resources of deceiving the Indian workers and said it has ended its contract with the company. Global Resources claimed that Signal was "totally and completely in charge of the relationship with the Indian workers," including their visa and living arrangements. [BBC News 3/27/08]
*2. CONSTRUCTION WORKERS ARRESTED IN VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE
Early on Mar. 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 34 immigrants working for CMC Concrete Construction in Manassas, Virginia. The workers from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador were stopped by ICE as they were being transported to work; they are being charged administratively and are in ICE custody undergoing deportation proceedings, said ICE spokesperson Ernestine Fobbs. According to Fobbs, ICE executed two search warrants in connection with the operation, but the warrants remain under seal. [Washington Post 3/25/08]
On Mar. 25, ICE agents arrested 34 immigrant construction workers employed by various contractors and subcontractors building the new National Guard Air Base in Memphis, Tennessee. ICE made the arrests at the Memphis International Airport while conducting a gate check at the worksite location. The agency said it initiated the "ongoing criminal worksite investigation" after receiving information from the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations that some of the workers at the site were unauthorized. All those arrested said they were from Mexico; according to ICE, they were being processed at the agency's Detention and Removal Office facility in Memphis and will face deportation proceedings. [ICE News Release 3/25/08]
*3. RESTAURANT RAIDED IN CHARLOTTE, NC
On Mar. 20, ICE agents arrested nine workers at an Olive Garden restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina. The workers from Indonesia, Mexico and Guatemala were arrested on unspecified immigration charges and will face deportation proceedings, ICE said. Adriana Sanchez said her mother, Amalia de la Cruz, was among those arrested. De la Cruz was from Mexico and had worked at the restaurant for eight years, according to Sanchez. "We want to talk to her and tell her not to sign anything," Sanchez said as she went to try to see her mother at the Mecklenburg County jail. [News & Observer 3/22/08 from AP]
*4. PA: 64 ARRESTED IN WAREHOUSE RAID
On Mar. 18, ICE agents arrested 64 workers at the warehouse of F.C. Young and Co. in the Bath Industrial Park in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Of the total workers arrested, 48 were women: 41 from Guatemala, five from Mexico and two from Honduras. Two of the 16 men arrested were from Mexico; the rest were Guatemalan. According to ICE spokesperson Mike Gilhooly, 20 of the workers were released the same day of the raid for humanitarian reasons including childcare concerns. The other 44 remain detained. [AP 3/19/08; Bucks County Courier Times 3/19/08]
*5. NJ DETAINEES PROTEST MEDICAL NEGLECT
In a Mar. 2 petition addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 93 immigration detainees at Middlesex County jail in New Jersey complained about inadequate medical treatment for two fellow detainees, including a man named Arturo Alvarez who died earlier that same day. According to authorities the Cuban detainee died on Mar. 2 at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick after suffering a heart attack at the jail on Feb. 29. In the letter, titled "Re: Crime Against Humanity," the detainees said Alvarez asked for help and was given Tylenol and his own medication, "but no doctor was available to see him." The letter states that Alvarez "passed away in this jail" and was not sent to the hospital. The petition also charges that a detainee named Cemar Koc complained of pain to a first shift duty officer, got no help, and after complaining to a second-shift officer lost consciousness. [Home News Tribune 3/15/08; Copy of Petition 3/2/08 made available by New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee]
ICE spokesperson Michael Gilhooly denied the allegation of medical neglect. Gilhooly said the dead man's real name was Arturo Suarez-Almenares, and he was 72 years old. "When it became apparent that the individual was ill, he received proper medical care," Gilhooly said. "We take the health and welfare of our people very seriously." As with the deaths of all detainees, the case has been referred to the bureau's internal affairs office, said Mark Vogler, assistant field office director for the ICE detention and removal office in Newark.
Officials with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release details of Suarez-Almenares said he arrived from Cuba in 1980, the year of the Mariel boatlift when 125,000 Cubans came to the US. He later reportedly spent five separate stints in state prison on drug distribution charges. He was sent to prison last in April 2007, released to immigration officials in October and taken to Middlesex County jail, Gilhooly said.
Cuban nationals generally cannot be repatriated because the Cuban government does not accept their return. Instead they are kept in a permanent probation-like program that requires them to maintain contact with immigration authorities. Gilhooly said Suarez-Almenares was about to be released when he fell ill.
Les Paschall, CEO of CFG Health Systems, a limited liability corporation that runs medical and mental-health services at the Middlesex County jail, declined comment on the death of Suarez-Almenares, citing lawyer's advice and security rules. [Home News Tribune 3/15/08]
*6. JUDGE BLASTS ICE OVER DETAINEE DEATH
In a decision dated Mar. 11, US District Judge Dean Pregerson in Los Angeles ruled that the family of Salvadoran immigrant Francisco Castaneda can continue to pursue a lawsuit against individual government officials for violating Castaneda's constitutional rights and can ask a jury to award punitive damages. Pregerson determined that the immigration agency's decision to withhold critical medical treatment from Castaneda while detaining him was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. The government had argued that its employees were immune from the lawsuit, and that federal law allowed only a suit against the government, with a nonjury trial and a $250,000 limit on damages. A spokesperson for the US attorney's office said the Justice Department might appeal Pregerson's ruling.
Castaneda first informed ICE medical staff at the San Diego Correctional Facility on Mar. 27, 2006, that "a lesion on his penis was becoming painful and growing," Pregerson wrote. The next day, a physician assistant at the facility examined Castaneda and issued a treatment plan calling for a consultation with a urologist "ASAP" and a request for a biopsy, according to government records cited by the judge.
The government was aware that Castaneda had a family history of cancer--his mother had died of pancreatic cancer at age 39. Yet for the following 11 months, the government refused to authorize a biopsy; officials instead prescribed antihistamines, ibuprofen and extra boxer shorts to deal with discharge from the lesion. On June 7, 2006, after oncologist Dr. John Wilkinson wrote a report saying Castaneda urgently needed a biopsy because he might have penile cancer, Dr. Esther Hui, M.D., of the Division of Immigration Health Services said her agency considered a biopsy "an elective outpatient procedure" and would not admit Castaneda to a hospital. Dr. Hui never made any arrangements for an outpatient biopsy.
Hui is one of the defendants named in the case, along with the federal government and several other federal officials, including another doctor, Timothy Shack, M.D.. Judge Pregerson said there was compelling evidence that government doctors "purposefully mischaracterized Castaneda's medical conditions as elective in order to refuse him care" and save money.
"I tried to get medical help every day," Castaneda said in his Oct. 4, 2007 testimony at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law looking into medical care at immigration detention centers.
In early December 2006, Castaneda was transferred to the San Pedro immigration detention center and came into contact with attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who sent a letter on Dec. 5 to multiple ICE officials urging treatment for Castaneda. After the ACLU sent several more letters, Castaneda was finally seen by a urologist on Jan. 25, 2007, and a biopsy was scheduled for early February. The immigration agency then abruptly released Castaneda a few days before the procedure. On Feb. 8, Castaneda went to the emergency room of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where doctors determined that the cancer had spread to his lymph system. They diagnosed him with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma and amputated his penis less than a week later. Chemotherapy failed to stop the spread of the cancer, and Castaneda died at age 36 on Feb. 16, 2008, at his home in Los Angeles.
Castaneda was 10 years old when he came to the US with his mother while El Salvador was mired in a brutal US-sponsored counter-insurgency war. He was arrested in 2005 on a drug possession charge and spent eight months in state custody; he was then detained in federal jails in San Diego and San Pedro while fighting deportation proceedings and seeking political asylum. [Los Angeles Times 3/13/08; San Francisco Chronicle 3/14/08; ABC News 3/19/08; Text of Pregerson's Ruling 3/11/08]
Judge Pregerson blasted government health officials' "attempt to sidestep responsibility for what appears to be... one of the most, if not the most, egregious" violations of the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment that "the court has ever encountered." At this stage of the proceedings, "the only question is whether" the plaintiffs' allegations show that government officials "were deliberately indifferent to his condition. The court finds that they do," Pregerson said. The government's own records, Pregerson noted, "bespeak of conduct that transcends negligence by miles." [Los Angeles Times 3/13/08]
A separate lawsuit filed last year by the ACLU on behalf of other detainees at the San Diego detention center where Castaneda was held claimed that medical treatment was routinely delayed or denied in order to reduce the cost of care. The immigrants in that case said they were denied medications for months and that chronic illnesses such as diabetes were inadequately monitored. In one example, a detainee said he was denied treatment for a cut to his foot until it developed gangrene and doctors recommended amputation. [ABC News 3/19/08]
*7. SISTER FILES SUIT OVER DETAINEE DEATH
Maryland resident June Everett has filed a lawsuit charging that her sister, Sandra M. Kenley, died because of inadequate medical care while in immigration detention. The lawsuit names the Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover County and the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, as well as jail officials at both facilities, and seeks more than $2 million in damages.
Kenley had been a permanent legal resident since 1978 but was stopped because of two prior drug convictions when she tried to re-enter the US in Miami on Sept. 2, 2005, after a visit to her native Barbados. Kenley was allowed to proceed but was ordered to report to immigration officials in the Washington, DC area. When she reported on Nov. 2 she was placed in detention. Kenley was detained at the Hanover jail until Nov. 29, then transferred to the regional jail in Portsmouth, where she died on Dec. 18, 2005. An autopsy determined the cause of her death was acute coronary insufficiency due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease, said Donna Price, administrator for the medical examiner's office.
In the lawsuit, Everett states that her sister was on medication for high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and was scheduled for surgery because of a fibroid tumor, which was causing heavy bleeding. Everett testified last Oct. 4 at the House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on medical care at immigration jails. Kenley "complained constantly about not getting her medicine," Everett said in her testimony. "When the prison officers finally gave her pills after many weeks, they were the wrong ones." [Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads, VA) 1/28/08]
*8. AL-ARIAN STILL JAILED, ON HUNGER STRIKE
On Mar. 3, jailed Palestinian professor Sami Al-Arian was informed that he would be called to testify before a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating allegations that Muslim charities aided terrorism organizations. Al-Arian responded by starting a hunger strike the same day, refusing all food and water. On Mar. 20, Al-Arian appeared before the grand jury and declined to testify. Later on Mar. 20 Al-Arian began drinking water, but he continues to fast at the Northern Neck Regional jail in Warsaw, Virginia. (On Mar. 12 he was transferred to a medical prison in Butner, North Carolina, but on Mar. 18 he was returned to the Warsaw jail.) Over the course of this latest hunger strike Al-Arian, who is diabetic, has lost 30 pounds; he has not been offered an IV or treatment for any of his symptoms, including chest pains, severe dehydration and headaches.
This is Al-Arian's third hunger strike since he was arrested on Feb. 20, 2003, on charges of conspiracy to aid the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Following his arrest, Al-Arian went on a liquid-only hunger strike that lasted 140 days. He was hospitalized and lost 45 pounds. On Jan. 22, 2007, after being held in civil contempt for not testifying before a grand jury, Al-Arian went on a water-only hunger strike for 60 days [see INB 3/24/07]. He lost 55 pounds, was hospitalized and was confined to a wheelchair.
On Dec. 6, 2005, a jury acquitted Al-Arian of eight charges and deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal on another nine charges. When the government threatened to retry him on the remaining counts, Al-Arian pleaded guilty on Apr. 14, 2006, to a single count of conspiracy to "make or receive funds... for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." In May 2006 Judge James S. Moody Jr. of Federal District Court in Tampa sentenced Al-Arian to 57 months in prison with credit for time served [see INB 6/10/06]. The plea agreement was based on the understanding that the government would not seek his testimony in future terrorism cases, and that he would be deported as soon as his term was up.
Al-Arian is declining to testify before the grand juries because he doesn't want anyone "to be persecuted the way he was," said Jonathan Turley, his attorney. Under his original plea agreement, Al-Arian was due to be released in April 2007, but he served an additional year for refusing to testify before the grand jury in January 2007. Just as Al-Arian was due to be released on Apr. 7 of this year, the government again brought him before a grand jury, knowing he would refuse to testify. "You have a great injustice being perpetrated by the Justice Department," said Turley. "They've daisy-chained three grand jury investigations to prolong his incarceration."
Al-Arian's supporters are concerned that the grand jury subpoena is an attempt by Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg to ensnare Al-Arian in a perjury trap. According to Al-Arian's daughter, Laila Al-Arian, Kromberg "has made on-the-record anti-Muslim statements; he said he doesn't want to assist in the, quote, 'Islamization of America and of he American justice system.'"
For information on Al-Arian's case see www.freesamialarian.com, the website of the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace. [Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace Press Releases 3/3/08, 3/25/08; Washington Post 3/22/08; Statement from Jonathan Turley 3/22/08; Democracy Now (transcript) 3/21/08; Column by Attorney Peter Erlinder in JURIST 3/11/08]
-----------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see
publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
***************************************************************
Sunday, February 10, 2008
INB 2/10/08: Danbury Protest, Chicago Sanctuary, Raids in CA, Utah
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 4 - February 10, 2008
1. Danbury, CT: Thousands Protest Enforcement
2. Activist Takes Sanctuary in Chicago
3. California: Toner Cartridge Plant Raided, 130 Arrested
4. Utah: 57 Arrested at Metal Factory
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. DANBURY, CT: THOUSANDS PROTEST ENFORCEMENT
An estimated 3,500 people attended a rally on Feb. 6 in Danbury, Connecticut, to protest a partnership between Danbury police and US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While the demonstrators voiced their opposition outside City Hall, inside the Common Council voted 19-2 to invite ICE to train and deputize Danbury police as immigration agents. Mayor Mark Boughton, who backs the plan, said it will start with the training of two detectives to carry out investigations of immigrants suspected of human trafficking, drug smuggling or document fraud. [News-Times (Danbury) 2/7/08; Hartford Courant 2/7/08]
Protesters carried signs and chanted "Stop 287," a reference to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows ICE to train and deputize state and local enforcement agents to identify and detain people for violating immigration law. [AP 2/6/08] Section 287(g) was introduced as part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). [ICE Fact Sheet: "Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act" 8/16/06]
City officials decided in advance to limit attendance at the council meeting to 120 people, not including council members, news reporters and city employees. More than 30 police officers were deployed outside the building, but police reported no arrests. [News-Times 2/7/08; Hartford Courant 2/7/08] Some city businesses closed their doors for the day to protest the enforcement plan. [AP 2/6/08]
Most of the demonstrators were from Danbury, but the crowd also included people who came by bus from Hartford and New Haven. "This is what being an American is all about, fighting for your rights," said Fernanda Franco, of Bethel, a legal Brazilian immigrant who sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the rally. "I waited 20 years to get my papers," Franco said. "Some of these people have waited even longer." [News-Times 2/7/08]
Danbury has a greater proportion of foreign-born residents than any other community in Connecticut, according to US census estimates. Ted Duarte, a union carpenter who works in Danbury and traveled to the rally from Wallingford to support fellow union members, motioned to the chanting. "This says it all," he said. "For a city council that supposed to represent the city of Danbury, they should take a look out here--this is Danbury." [New York Times 2/7/08]
*2. ACTIVIST TAKES SANCTUARY IN CHICAGO
At a press conference on Jan. 28 at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, activist Flor Crisóstomo announced she would not comply with her deportation set for that date, and would instead go into sanctuary at the church. "I'm not going. I've asked my pastor and my church for sanctuary and they have granted it." ICE said in a statement that Crisóstomo had been granted "voluntary departure" by an immigration judge, requiring her to leave the US no later than Jan. 28. Crisóstomo said she is not "defying the laws of this country and I'm not hiding. I am taking the position of civil disobedience to press this government to act, to fix the broken laws and end this inhumane system of cheap undocumented labor and exploitation." Church pastor Walter Coleman noted that "the forces that bring people here are still there. The Free Trade Treaty has destroyed agriculture in Mexico and other countries and until it is renegotiated people will keep coming." [Diario Hoy 1/29/08]
Crisóstomo, an immigrant from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, was one of 26 Chicago employees of the IFCO Systems pallet company arrested in an immigration raid on Apr. 19, 2006. She is a single mother who has been working without papers in the US since 2000 and sending money back weekly to Mexico to support her three children, her sister and her mother. Crisóstomo said she plans to continue supporting her family by making crafts and selling them at the church. She explained that with her act of resistance she seeks to draw attention to the injustice of US immigration laws. "I know I have nothing to gain [from taking sanctuary], I don't have US citizen children and it's certain that they're going to deport me," said Crisóstomo. [Univision Online y Agencias 1/29/08; Statement by Flor Crisóstomo 1/28/08; Press Release from Adalberto United Methodist Church & Familia Latina Unida/Sin Fronteras 1/28/08]
Crisóstomo is heading a campaign called "America open your eyes," which seeks to educate people about how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has forced Mexicans to migrate to the US. "I don't have to be an academic to know what NAFTA is and how it has divided Mexico and millions of families. I'm here because of that. We have to show the US people that it's not we immigrants who are guilty of all the problems, and how the international treaties are hurting our countries of origin," said Crisóstomo. [Univision Online y Agencias 1/29/08]
The Adalberto United Methodist Church is the same church where Crisóstomo's friend and fellow activist Elvira Arellano took sanctuary from Aug. 15, 2006 to Aug. 15, 2007 [see INB 8/26/07]. Crisóstomo and Arellano carried out a hunger strike from May 10 to June 1, 2006, demanding a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/14/06, 5/28/06, 6/4/06].
*3. CALIFORNIA: TONER CARTRIDGE PLANT RAIDED, 130 ARRESTED
On the afternoon of Feb. 7, more than 100 ICE agents raided the headquarters of Micro Solutions Enterprises (MSE), a manufacturer of computer toner and inkjet cartridges in Van Nuys, California. ICE executed a federal search warrant at the site and arrested 130 MSE employees on administrative immigration violations. ICE also arrested eight current and former MSE employees on federal criminal charges for providing fraudulent information to gain employment. The search warrant remains under seal because the investigation is ongoing. [ICE News Release 2/8/08; AP 2/7/08]
All 130 workers arrested on administrative violations were from Latin America: 87 from Mexico, 24 from El Salvador, eight from Guatemala, four from Peru, four from Honduras and three from Colombia. ICE interviewed those arrested to determine if they had any medical, caregiver, or other humanitarian issues; 36 women and 10 men were released on humanitarian grounds to await their hearings before an immigration judge. Another 65 men and 19 women were detained. Most were due to be transferred to an ICE contract detention facility operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in Lancaster, California.
In its news release about the raid, ICE said it had set up a 24-hour toll-free hotline for family members of the arrested workers and had handed out flyers about the hotline to MSE workers and family members who came to the plant inquiring about relatives. "In addition, ICE contacted representatives of several prominent Hispanic community groups in the Los Angeles area to ensure they were aware of the enforcement action and had information about the toll-free number," said ICE in the news release. [ICE News Release 2/8/08]
Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said lawyers who rushed to the scene of the raid were not allowed to talk to detainees. The ACLU is offering free legal representation to those arrested. "We're very concerned that people who were detained be given the opportunity to meet with a lawyer who can advise them of their rights," said Arulanantham. [AP 2/7/08]
*4. UTAH: 57 ARRESTED AT METAL FACTORY
On the morning of Feb. 7, ICE agents arrested 57 immigrant workers in a raid on Universal Industrial Sales Inc. in Lindon, Utah. The raid was carried out by some 100 ICE agents with the cooperation of state and local police. All the arrested workers were men from Latin America: 51 were from Mexico, two from Argentina, two from Uruguay, one from El Salvador and one from Honduras. During ICE's "processing" of the arrested workers, which lasted until early the next morning, US Department of Labor Wage & Hour Division investigators arrived to ensure those arrested were paid for work they had already performed for the company before their arrest. ICE also said it interviewed workers to determine if they had any "humanitarian issues," and that representatives from the Utah Health and Human Rights Project and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services were present during the processing. In the end, only one man was released pending a hearing before an immigration judge. The other workers remain in ICE custody at the Utah County and Weber County jails. The company had a total of more than 100 employees.
ICE officials forwarded about 30 cases to the Utah County Attorney's Office for possible criminal prosecution for offenses such as aggravated identity theft, forgery and document fraud. The Utah County Attorney's Office is expected to decide within a week which cases to accept for prosecution. Some cases involving individuals who reentered the US after being previously deported will be presented to the US Attorney's office for potential prosecution on felony charges.
Also on Feb. 7, Utah US Attorney Brett Tolman announced the unsealing of two indictments in Salt Lake City charging Universal Industrial Sales and its human resource director, Alejandro Urrutia-Garcia, with harboring unauthorized workers and encouraging or inducing them to stay in the US. Tolman said the investigation that led to the raid and indictments used confidential informants and an undercover agent, and is ongoing. Universal Industrial Sales is charged with 10 counts of "harboring illegal aliens" in an indictment which alleges the company concealed, harbored or shielded the workers from detection for commercial advantage between January 2003 and December 2006. Urrutia-Garcia, a naturalized US citizen who was arrested during the Feb. 7 raid, is charged with two counts of encouraging or inducing unauthorized immigrants to remain in the US. Urrutia-Garcia pleaded not guilty in federal court on the afternoon of Feb. 7. He was released from custody. A four-day trial is set to begin April 14. [ICE News Release 2/8/08; Salt Lake Tribune 2/9/08; Deseret Morning News 2/8/08]
The raid sparked panic in the local Latino community. About 150 people gathered on the night of Feb. 7 at St. Francis Catholic Church in Orem, Utah, for a mass and meeting. Jose Luis Uribe, who has worked at Universal for two years, said he was detained but was let go when he proved his legal status. "You feel so bad for all your co-workers who were arrested," he said at the meeting. "They asked me for help but I couldn't do anything." Uribe said federal officials separated workers into two groups: employees who had papers and those who did not. Those without papers were tagged at the wrist with red or yellow bands. "They put a red band on the people from Mexico and a yellow band on those from South and Central America," Uribe said. "They [ICE agents] entered running. We thought there was a fire or something." [SLT 2/8/08]
The raid left many families with young children suddenly without an income. During the meeting at the church, representatives from the Department of Human Services, the Division of Child and Family Services and Workforce Services met with families to evaluate if they qualified for public assistance. [Deseret Morning News 2/8/08]
Universal Industrial Sales produces highway guard rails, bridge railings and structures that hold overhead metal signs for highways throughout the US as well as parts of western Canada and Mexico. It is a major supplier to construction companies and also does business directly with the Utah Department of Transportation. [SLT 2/8/08]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website:
http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 4 - February 10, 2008
1. Danbury, CT: Thousands Protest Enforcement
2. Activist Takes Sanctuary in Chicago
3. California: Toner Cartridge Plant Raided, 130 Arrested
4. Utah: 57 Arrested at Metal Factory
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. DANBURY, CT: THOUSANDS PROTEST ENFORCEMENT
An estimated 3,500 people attended a rally on Feb. 6 in Danbury, Connecticut, to protest a partnership between Danbury police and US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While the demonstrators voiced their opposition outside City Hall, inside the Common Council voted 19-2 to invite ICE to train and deputize Danbury police as immigration agents. Mayor Mark Boughton, who backs the plan, said it will start with the training of two detectives to carry out investigations of immigrants suspected of human trafficking, drug smuggling or document fraud. [News-Times (Danbury) 2/7/08; Hartford Courant 2/7/08]
Protesters carried signs and chanted "Stop 287," a reference to Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows ICE to train and deputize state and local enforcement agents to identify and detain people for violating immigration law. [AP 2/6/08] Section 287(g) was introduced as part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). [ICE Fact Sheet: "Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act" 8/16/06]
City officials decided in advance to limit attendance at the council meeting to 120 people, not including council members, news reporters and city employees. More than 30 police officers were deployed outside the building, but police reported no arrests. [News-Times 2/7/08; Hartford Courant 2/7/08] Some city businesses closed their doors for the day to protest the enforcement plan. [AP 2/6/08]
Most of the demonstrators were from Danbury, but the crowd also included people who came by bus from Hartford and New Haven. "This is what being an American is all about, fighting for your rights," said Fernanda Franco, of Bethel, a legal Brazilian immigrant who sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the rally. "I waited 20 years to get my papers," Franco said. "Some of these people have waited even longer." [News-Times 2/7/08]
Danbury has a greater proportion of foreign-born residents than any other community in Connecticut, according to US census estimates. Ted Duarte, a union carpenter who works in Danbury and traveled to the rally from Wallingford to support fellow union members, motioned to the chanting. "This says it all," he said. "For a city council that supposed to represent the city of Danbury, they should take a look out here--this is Danbury." [New York Times 2/7/08]
*2. ACTIVIST TAKES SANCTUARY IN CHICAGO
At a press conference on Jan. 28 at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, activist Flor Crisóstomo announced she would not comply with her deportation set for that date, and would instead go into sanctuary at the church. "I'm not going. I've asked my pastor and my church for sanctuary and they have granted it." ICE said in a statement that Crisóstomo had been granted "voluntary departure" by an immigration judge, requiring her to leave the US no later than Jan. 28. Crisóstomo said she is not "defying the laws of this country and I'm not hiding. I am taking the position of civil disobedience to press this government to act, to fix the broken laws and end this inhumane system of cheap undocumented labor and exploitation." Church pastor Walter Coleman noted that "the forces that bring people here are still there. The Free Trade Treaty has destroyed agriculture in Mexico and other countries and until it is renegotiated people will keep coming." [Diario Hoy 1/29/08]
Crisóstomo, an immigrant from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, was one of 26 Chicago employees of the IFCO Systems pallet company arrested in an immigration raid on Apr. 19, 2006. She is a single mother who has been working without papers in the US since 2000 and sending money back weekly to Mexico to support her three children, her sister and her mother. Crisóstomo said she plans to continue supporting her family by making crafts and selling them at the church. She explained that with her act of resistance she seeks to draw attention to the injustice of US immigration laws. "I know I have nothing to gain [from taking sanctuary], I don't have US citizen children and it's certain that they're going to deport me," said Crisóstomo. [Univision Online y Agencias 1/29/08; Statement by Flor Crisóstomo 1/28/08; Press Release from Adalberto United Methodist Church & Familia Latina Unida/Sin Fronteras 1/28/08]
Crisóstomo is heading a campaign called "America open your eyes," which seeks to educate people about how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has forced Mexicans to migrate to the US. "I don't have to be an academic to know what NAFTA is and how it has divided Mexico and millions of families. I'm here because of that. We have to show the US people that it's not we immigrants who are guilty of all the problems, and how the international treaties are hurting our countries of origin," said Crisóstomo. [Univision Online y Agencias 1/29/08]
The Adalberto United Methodist Church is the same church where Crisóstomo's friend and fellow activist Elvira Arellano took sanctuary from Aug. 15, 2006 to Aug. 15, 2007 [see INB 8/26/07]. Crisóstomo and Arellano carried out a hunger strike from May 10 to June 1, 2006, demanding a moratorium on deportations [see INB 5/14/06, 5/28/06, 6/4/06].
*3. CALIFORNIA: TONER CARTRIDGE PLANT RAIDED, 130 ARRESTED
On the afternoon of Feb. 7, more than 100 ICE agents raided the headquarters of Micro Solutions Enterprises (MSE), a manufacturer of computer toner and inkjet cartridges in Van Nuys, California. ICE executed a federal search warrant at the site and arrested 130 MSE employees on administrative immigration violations. ICE also arrested eight current and former MSE employees on federal criminal charges for providing fraudulent information to gain employment. The search warrant remains under seal because the investigation is ongoing. [ICE News Release 2/8/08; AP 2/7/08]
All 130 workers arrested on administrative violations were from Latin America: 87 from Mexico, 24 from El Salvador, eight from Guatemala, four from Peru, four from Honduras and three from Colombia. ICE interviewed those arrested to determine if they had any medical, caregiver, or other humanitarian issues; 36 women and 10 men were released on humanitarian grounds to await their hearings before an immigration judge. Another 65 men and 19 women were detained. Most were due to be transferred to an ICE contract detention facility operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in Lancaster, California.
In its news release about the raid, ICE said it had set up a 24-hour toll-free hotline for family members of the arrested workers and had handed out flyers about the hotline to MSE workers and family members who came to the plant inquiring about relatives. "In addition, ICE contacted representatives of several prominent Hispanic community groups in the Los Angeles area to ensure they were aware of the enforcement action and had information about the toll-free number," said ICE in the news release. [ICE News Release 2/8/08]
Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said lawyers who rushed to the scene of the raid were not allowed to talk to detainees. The ACLU is offering free legal representation to those arrested. "We're very concerned that people who were detained be given the opportunity to meet with a lawyer who can advise them of their rights," said Arulanantham. [AP 2/7/08]
*4. UTAH: 57 ARRESTED AT METAL FACTORY
On the morning of Feb. 7, ICE agents arrested 57 immigrant workers in a raid on Universal Industrial Sales Inc. in Lindon, Utah. The raid was carried out by some 100 ICE agents with the cooperation of state and local police. All the arrested workers were men from Latin America: 51 were from Mexico, two from Argentina, two from Uruguay, one from El Salvador and one from Honduras. During ICE's "processing" of the arrested workers, which lasted until early the next morning, US Department of Labor Wage & Hour Division investigators arrived to ensure those arrested were paid for work they had already performed for the company before their arrest. ICE also said it interviewed workers to determine if they had any "humanitarian issues," and that representatives from the Utah Health and Human Rights Project and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services were present during the processing. In the end, only one man was released pending a hearing before an immigration judge. The other workers remain in ICE custody at the Utah County and Weber County jails. The company had a total of more than 100 employees.
ICE officials forwarded about 30 cases to the Utah County Attorney's Office for possible criminal prosecution for offenses such as aggravated identity theft, forgery and document fraud. The Utah County Attorney's Office is expected to decide within a week which cases to accept for prosecution. Some cases involving individuals who reentered the US after being previously deported will be presented to the US Attorney's office for potential prosecution on felony charges.
Also on Feb. 7, Utah US Attorney Brett Tolman announced the unsealing of two indictments in Salt Lake City charging Universal Industrial Sales and its human resource director, Alejandro Urrutia-Garcia, with harboring unauthorized workers and encouraging or inducing them to stay in the US. Tolman said the investigation that led to the raid and indictments used confidential informants and an undercover agent, and is ongoing. Universal Industrial Sales is charged with 10 counts of "harboring illegal aliens" in an indictment which alleges the company concealed, harbored or shielded the workers from detection for commercial advantage between January 2003 and December 2006. Urrutia-Garcia, a naturalized US citizen who was arrested during the Feb. 7 raid, is charged with two counts of encouraging or inducing unauthorized immigrants to remain in the US. Urrutia-Garcia pleaded not guilty in federal court on the afternoon of Feb. 7. He was released from custody. A four-day trial is set to begin April 14. [ICE News Release 2/8/08; Salt Lake Tribune 2/9/08; Deseret Morning News 2/8/08]
The raid sparked panic in the local Latino community. About 150 people gathered on the night of Feb. 7 at St. Francis Catholic Church in Orem, Utah, for a mass and meeting. Jose Luis Uribe, who has worked at Universal for two years, said he was detained but was let go when he proved his legal status. "You feel so bad for all your co-workers who were arrested," he said at the meeting. "They asked me for help but I couldn't do anything." Uribe said federal officials separated workers into two groups: employees who had papers and those who did not. Those without papers were tagged at the wrist with red or yellow bands. "They put a red band on the people from Mexico and a yellow band on those from South and Central America," Uribe said. "They [ICE agents] entered running. We thought there was a fire or something." [SLT 2/8/08]
The raid left many families with young children suddenly without an income. During the meeting at the church, representatives from the Department of Human Services, the Division of Child and Family Services and Workforce Services met with families to evaluate if they qualified for public assistance. [Deseret Morning News 2/8/08]
Universal Industrial Sales produces highway guard rails, bridge railings and structures that hold overhead metal signs for highways throughout the US as well as parts of western Canada and Mexico. It is a major supplier to construction companies and also does business directly with the Utah Department of Transportation. [SLT 2/8/08]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website:
http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
Monday, February 4, 2008
INB 2/4/08: Nigerians, Palestinians on Deport Flight
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 3 - February 4, 2008
(INB did not publish for the past two weeks; apologies for the lapse)
1. Nigerians, Palestinians on Deport Flight
2. US Signs Deport Pact with Vietnam
3. Feds Sue Texas Border Towns
4. "Fugitive" Raids in Wisconsin
Immigration News Briefs is a 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 for info. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. NIGERIANS, PALESTINIANS ON DEPORT FLIGHT
On Jan. 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 107 people on a flight from Niagara Falls that made stops in Lagos, Nigeria; Cairo, Egypt; and Amman, Jordan. The deportees included 94 Nigerians, 11 Palestinians, one Moroccan and one Egyptian. Seven of the Palestinians and 39 of the Nigerians on the flight had no criminal records in the US. The flight was contracted by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Operations Support and Coordination Unit. The deportees had been transferred from various facilities across the US to the Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, in preparation for the flight.
The Canadian government also included 10 of its own deportees on the flight, all of them Nigerians, including seven people with criminal records. The flight was staffed with 20 ICE DRO officers and six Canadian officers. Two Nigerian consular officers from the embassy in Washington and one Nigerian consular officer from the embassy in Canada accompanied the flight. [ICE News Release 1/16/08]
*2. US SIGNS DEPORT PACT WITH VIETNAM
On Jan. 22, the US and Vietnamese governments signed a memorandum of understanding that will make it easier for the US to deport Vietnamese immigrants who entered the US after diplomatic relations between the US and Vietnam were restored on July 12, 1995. ICE director Julie Myers was in Hanoi to sign the pact, which culminated 10 years of negotiations between the US and Vietnam. Until now, Vietnam had generally refused to issue travel documents for those ordered deported from the US.
The pact is expected to affect about 1,500 Vietnamese immigrants who arrived after July 12, 1995 and have received final deportation orders. Another 6,200 Vietnamese nationals who arrived before 1995 have also been ordered deported but cannot be returned to Vietnam under the new pact; ICE claims they will instead face possible deportation to a third country. Repatriations are scheduled to begin when the agreement takes effect 60 days after signing. The pact will be valid for five years, and will be extended automatically for terms of three years after that unless written notice not to extend is given by one government to the other at least six months prior to expiration. [Los Angeles Times 1/24/08; AP 1/22/08; New York Times 1/23/08; ICE News Release 1/22/08]
Critics of the pact wonder whether it won't be rolled back to include Vietnamese who entered the US in the 70s and 80s. "There is concern," said Joren Lyons, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, which has represented dozens of Vietnamese facing deportation orders. "Vietnam has said for decades no, these people can't be returned to Vietnam, and now they're saying yes. So is this a foot in the door? Will they start accepting people who came earlier as well?" [AP 1/22/08]
ICE spokesperson Kelly Nantel said that only about 200 of the Vietnamese immigrants slated for removal to Vietnam are currently detained, since the Supreme Court's June 2001 Zadvydas v. Davis ruling requires authorities to release detainees after six months if their countries don't accept their return. Under the terms of the pact, the US government agrees to pay for the deportations of Vietnamese, and to provide 15 days' notice to the Vietnamese government before carrying out a deportation. [New York Times 1/23/08]
*3. FEDS SUE TEXAS BORDER TOWNS
On Jan. 14, US Attorney Johnny Sutton filed a lawsuit on behalf of the US Department of Justice against the city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to seek access to land for a planned border fence. It was the first of 102 lawsuits expected to be filed in an escalating battle with local landowners and municipalities as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeks to build 370 miles of new border fencing by the end of the year [see INB 12/9/07].
Eagle Pass mayor Chad Foster serves as chairperson of the Texas Border Coalition, which has been fighting the border fence construction plans. The coalition says DHS has failed to respond to concerns about the impact the fence will have on the environment, residents' property access and rights, and the binational way of life along the border, and has ignored local officials' suggestions for alternatives. [AP 1/15/08]
Within hours after the suit was filed, and without a hearing, US District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum of the Texas Western District Court, Del Rio division, ordered the city of Eagle Pass to "surrender" 233 acres of city-owned land to the federal government for 180 days so it can begin to build the border fence. The judge's order said the federal government is entitled to possession or control of the property as requested. [AP 1/16/08; San Antonio Express-News 1/16/08]
City Attorney Heriberto Morales said he believed Eagle Pass was the target of the first lawsuit because of Foster's activism against the fence. "I really think it was to send a statement all along the border, to the other cities and individuals: Let's go after [Foster] first and everyone else will fall into line." Brownsville mayor Pat
Ahumada agreed: "They picked the one that had the least defenses against the border fence so they can win in court easily and set a precedent and hold a big stick over the rest of us and make us fall in line," he said.
The city commission of Brownsville voted Jan. 8 to grant access for development of the border fence, said Ahumada, even though he himself voted against allowing access. "It troubles me deeply because [the fence] destroys our ecological corridor, it destroys our historical corridor, it destroys our way of how we perceive ourselves as a binational community," Ahumada said. Brownsville is reviewing its legal options, he added. The governing board of Brownsville's city-owned water and electric utility voted against granting access, according to Ahumada. The University of Texas-Brownsville also has not granted access, said school spokesperson Lety Fernandez. [San Antonio Express-News 1/16/08]
In an order dated Jan. 25 and released Jan. 28, US District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville ordered 10 Cameron County property owners to comply with the US government's request for access to their land for 180 days to work on the border fence. Hanen denied the federal government's request that he rule immediately without participation from the landowners, a legal maneuver allowed in eminent domain cases and accepted by Judge Ludlum in the Eagle Pass case. Instead, Hanen ordered the government to inform all property owners of the Jan. 25 hearing. Hanen questioned the government's efforts at contacting landowners and heard from some property owners and their attorneys at the hearing. "This court will make itself available if needed for the resolution of any disputes, but it expects all parties to act cooperatively and with due concern for the rights and needs of the other parties in the implementation of this order," Hanen wrote. Hanen also ordered government contractors to work with landowners to make the intrusion as minimal as possible, and denied the government's request to access properties adjacent to those included in the order.
Access to the properties will end July 23, according to the order. Each property owner will receive $100 for the temporary easement, but will be able to petition for more if their property is damaged. Two additional defendants, including the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, were not included in Hanen's order because the government was close to reaching settlements with them. [AP 1/29/08]
*4. "FUGITIVE" RAIDS IN WISCONSIN
In a three-day sweep Jan. 25-27 in the area of Green Bay, Wisconsin, ICE agents arrested 20 immigrants, 18 of whom ICE said had failed to comply with final orders of deportation. Those arrested were citizens of El Salvador, Honduras, Jordan, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua and Yugoslavia. Twelve agents from the Milwaukee ICE Fugitive Operations Team split into four teams of three agents each to round up the immigrants in Brown, Door, Kenosha, Outagamie, Sheboygan and Winnebago counties. The Brown County Sheriff's Department was notified of the plans and according to ICE, assisted "in planning and executing the operation." The Brown County Jail garage was used as a staging area, but those arrested were taken to the Dodge County Correctional Institution. [Oshkosh Northwestern 1/30/08 from Gannett; ICE News Release 1/30/08]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
*************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 3 - February 4, 2008
(INB did not publish for the past two weeks; apologies for the lapse)
1. Nigerians, Palestinians on Deport Flight
2. US Signs Deport Pact with Vietnam
3. Feds Sue Texas Border Towns
4. "Fugitive" Raids in Wisconsin
Immigration News Briefs is a 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 for info. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. NIGERIANS, PALESTINIANS ON DEPORT FLIGHT
On Jan. 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 107 people on a flight from Niagara Falls that made stops in Lagos, Nigeria; Cairo, Egypt; and Amman, Jordan. The deportees included 94 Nigerians, 11 Palestinians, one Moroccan and one Egyptian. Seven of the Palestinians and 39 of the Nigerians on the flight had no criminal records in the US. The flight was contracted by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Operations Support and Coordination Unit. The deportees had been transferred from various facilities across the US to the Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, in preparation for the flight.
The Canadian government also included 10 of its own deportees on the flight, all of them Nigerians, including seven people with criminal records. The flight was staffed with 20 ICE DRO officers and six Canadian officers. Two Nigerian consular officers from the embassy in Washington and one Nigerian consular officer from the embassy in Canada accompanied the flight. [ICE News Release 1/16/08]
*2. US SIGNS DEPORT PACT WITH VIETNAM
On Jan. 22, the US and Vietnamese governments signed a memorandum of understanding that will make it easier for the US to deport Vietnamese immigrants who entered the US after diplomatic relations between the US and Vietnam were restored on July 12, 1995. ICE director Julie Myers was in Hanoi to sign the pact, which culminated 10 years of negotiations between the US and Vietnam. Until now, Vietnam had generally refused to issue travel documents for those ordered deported from the US.
The pact is expected to affect about 1,500 Vietnamese immigrants who arrived after July 12, 1995 and have received final deportation orders. Another 6,200 Vietnamese nationals who arrived before 1995 have also been ordered deported but cannot be returned to Vietnam under the new pact; ICE claims they will instead face possible deportation to a third country. Repatriations are scheduled to begin when the agreement takes effect 60 days after signing. The pact will be valid for five years, and will be extended automatically for terms of three years after that unless written notice not to extend is given by one government to the other at least six months prior to expiration. [Los Angeles Times 1/24/08; AP 1/22/08; New York Times 1/23/08; ICE News Release 1/22/08]
Critics of the pact wonder whether it won't be rolled back to include Vietnamese who entered the US in the 70s and 80s. "There is concern," said Joren Lyons, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, which has represented dozens of Vietnamese facing deportation orders. "Vietnam has said for decades no, these people can't be returned to Vietnam, and now they're saying yes. So is this a foot in the door? Will they start accepting people who came earlier as well?" [AP 1/22/08]
ICE spokesperson Kelly Nantel said that only about 200 of the Vietnamese immigrants slated for removal to Vietnam are currently detained, since the Supreme Court's June 2001 Zadvydas v. Davis ruling requires authorities to release detainees after six months if their countries don't accept their return. Under the terms of the pact, the US government agrees to pay for the deportations of Vietnamese, and to provide 15 days' notice to the Vietnamese government before carrying out a deportation. [New York Times 1/23/08]
*3. FEDS SUE TEXAS BORDER TOWNS
On Jan. 14, US Attorney Johnny Sutton filed a lawsuit on behalf of the US Department of Justice against the city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to seek access to land for a planned border fence. It was the first of 102 lawsuits expected to be filed in an escalating battle with local landowners and municipalities as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeks to build 370 miles of new border fencing by the end of the year [see INB 12/9/07].
Eagle Pass mayor Chad Foster serves as chairperson of the Texas Border Coalition, which has been fighting the border fence construction plans. The coalition says DHS has failed to respond to concerns about the impact the fence will have on the environment, residents' property access and rights, and the binational way of life along the border, and has ignored local officials' suggestions for alternatives. [AP 1/15/08]
Within hours after the suit was filed, and without a hearing, US District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum of the Texas Western District Court, Del Rio division, ordered the city of Eagle Pass to "surrender" 233 acres of city-owned land to the federal government for 180 days so it can begin to build the border fence. The judge's order said the federal government is entitled to possession or control of the property as requested. [AP 1/16/08; San Antonio Express-News 1/16/08]
City Attorney Heriberto Morales said he believed Eagle Pass was the target of the first lawsuit because of Foster's activism against the fence. "I really think it was to send a statement all along the border, to the other cities and individuals: Let's go after [Foster] first and everyone else will fall into line." Brownsville mayor Pat
Ahumada agreed: "They picked the one that had the least defenses against the border fence so they can win in court easily and set a precedent and hold a big stick over the rest of us and make us fall in line," he said.
The city commission of Brownsville voted Jan. 8 to grant access for development of the border fence, said Ahumada, even though he himself voted against allowing access. "It troubles me deeply because [the fence] destroys our ecological corridor, it destroys our historical corridor, it destroys our way of how we perceive ourselves as a binational community," Ahumada said. Brownsville is reviewing its legal options, he added. The governing board of Brownsville's city-owned water and electric utility voted against granting access, according to Ahumada. The University of Texas-Brownsville also has not granted access, said school spokesperson Lety Fernandez. [San Antonio Express-News 1/16/08]
In an order dated Jan. 25 and released Jan. 28, US District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville ordered 10 Cameron County property owners to comply with the US government's request for access to their land for 180 days to work on the border fence. Hanen denied the federal government's request that he rule immediately without participation from the landowners, a legal maneuver allowed in eminent domain cases and accepted by Judge Ludlum in the Eagle Pass case. Instead, Hanen ordered the government to inform all property owners of the Jan. 25 hearing. Hanen questioned the government's efforts at contacting landowners and heard from some property owners and their attorneys at the hearing. "This court will make itself available if needed for the resolution of any disputes, but it expects all parties to act cooperatively and with due concern for the rights and needs of the other parties in the implementation of this order," Hanen wrote. Hanen also ordered government contractors to work with landowners to make the intrusion as minimal as possible, and denied the government's request to access properties adjacent to those included in the order.
Access to the properties will end July 23, according to the order. Each property owner will receive $100 for the temporary easement, but will be able to petition for more if their property is damaged. Two additional defendants, including the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, were not included in Hanen's order because the government was close to reaching settlements with them. [AP 1/29/08]
*4. "FUGITIVE" RAIDS IN WISCONSIN
In a three-day sweep Jan. 25-27 in the area of Green Bay, Wisconsin, ICE agents arrested 20 immigrants, 18 of whom ICE said had failed to comply with final orders of deportation. Those arrested were citizens of El Salvador, Honduras, Jordan, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua and Yugoslavia. Twelve agents from the Milwaukee ICE Fugitive Operations Team split into four teams of three agents each to round up the immigrants in Brown, Door, Kenosha, Outagamie, Sheboygan and Winnebago counties. The Brown County Sheriff's Department was notified of the plans and according to ICE, assisted "in planning and executing the operation." The Brown County Jail garage was used as a staging area, but those arrested were taken to the Dodge County Correctional Institution. [Oshkosh Northwestern 1/30/08 from Gannett; ICE News Release 1/30/08]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
*************************************************************
Saturday, January 12, 2008
INB 1/12/08: ICE Says It Won't Sedate Deportees; Raids in TN
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 2 - January 12, 2008
1. ICE Says It Won't Sedate Deportees
2. Tennessee: Raids, Firings at Electrolux
Immigration News Briefs is a 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 for info. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ICE SAYS IT WON'T SEDATE DEPORTEES
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an internal memo on Jan. 9 setting a new policy, effective immediately, on the sedation of detainees. The agency "may only involuntarily sedate an alien to facilitate removal where the Government has obtained a court order..." reads the memo from ICE detention and removal director John Torres. "There are no exceptions to this policy. Emergency or exigent circumstances are not grounds for departures from this policy." To get a sedation order from court, officials must show deportees have a history of physical resistance to being removed or are a danger to themselves.
ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said in a written statement on Jan. 11 that the directive clarifies procedures implemented last year. "Medical sedation will only be considered as a last resort," she said. [Los Angeles Times 1/12/08, AP 1/12/08] In a policy change last June, ICE allowed forced sedation without a court order only in emergencies. That came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California made public in May that ICE had drugged at least two foreign nationals against their will during failed deportation attempts.
The ACLU of Southern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson sued the government last June 19 to stop the practice of sedation and demand compensation for two plaintiffs who were drugged. Indonesian immigrant Raymond Soeoth was appealing his political asylum case when he was injected with the antipsychotic drug Haldol in December 2004 at the Terminal Island detention facility in San Pedro, California. Senegalese immigrant Amadou Lamine Diouf, who was also appealing his case, was injected with an unidentified psychotropic drug in February 2006 while on a commercial plane at Los Angeles International Airport. [LAT 1/12/08; ACLU News Releases 5/8/07, 6/19/07, 1/7/08] Diouf said escorting ICE agents injected him after he asked to speak with the plane's pilot to tell him that he had a judge's order temporarily staying his deportation. [AP 1/12/08]
Both Diouf and Soeoth were released in February 2007 as the result of a lawsuit filed in November 2006 by the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, challenging their prolonged detention and that of two other detainees at Terminal Island. Shortly after that lawsuit was filed, the district court ordered the government to provide the men with bond hearings. By February 2007, all four were released. The government appealed the district court's decision in three of the four cases, including those of Soeoth and Diouf. Arguments were made on Jan. 7 to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. [ACLU News Release 1/7/08]
ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers acknowledged in September 2007 during Senate testimony that 56 deportees were administered psychotropic drugs between Oct. 1, 2006, and April 30, 2007. Medications commonly used are lorazepam, haloperidol, olanzapine and benztropine. Of the 56 detainees who ICE says were drugged, 33 had no history of psychological problems; they were sedated because of alleged "combative behavior, with the imminent risk of danger to others and/or self," according to Myers. "I am aware of, and deeply concerned about reports that past practices may not have conformed to ICE detention standards," Myers said. [LAT 1/12/08] Before the policy change last June, ICE rules still only allowed detainees to be sedated in emergencies if a medical professional determined that "they present a danger to themselves or to others." [ACLU News Release 5/8/07]
"We're very pleased that the government has finally agreed to stop forcibly drugging people without court orders," ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said on Jan. 11. The ACLU plans to continue its lawsuit seeking compensation for Soeoth and Diouf. In addition, Arulanantham said he wants the government to release more information about how long the sedation policy existed and how many people were involuntarily medicated. [LAT 1/12/08]
*2. TENNESSEE: RAIDS, FIRINGS AT ELECTROLUX
Between Dec. 12 and 20, ICE arrested 31 people in the area of Springfield, Tennessee. The roundup came after Nashville television station NewsChannel 5 aired a Dec. 5 story charging Electrolux Home Products with hiring undocumented immigrants at its factory in Springfield, which employs about 3,500 people and produces electric and gas stoves.
Within a few days after the television report, the company began reviewing the paperwork of existing employees at the plant. As many as 800 workers lost or walked away from Electrolux jobs, said Tommy Vallejos, executive director of HOPE, a Tennessee immigrant advocacy group. "There are people who are so afraid, they have not collected their final paycheck," Vallejos said. According to a NewsChannel5 source, Electrolux dismissed 120 employees on Dec. 13 and another 52 on Dec. 14. An Electrolux spokesperson said the company has begun to use the Department of Homeland Security's E-verify system (formerly known as Basic Pilot) to check the authenticity of documents provided by new hires.
On Dec. 12, ICE arrested two people accused of selling identification to immigrants who used it to get jobs at Electrolux. The two have been charged by a grand jury of the US District Court. Also on Dec. 12, ICE arrested 14 suspected undocumented immigrants, New Orleans-based ICE spokesperson Temple Black confirmed. On Dec. 19, ICE arrested four immigrant workers at the Electrolux facility; by the end of the day on Dec. 20, ICE had arrested 11 more immigrants at homes and apartments in and around Springfield. The raids spread fear through the area, with some people estimating that as many as 1,000 residents have since fled the city or gone into hiding. [The Gannett and Robertson County Times (Springfield, TN) 1/9/08, Robertson County Times 12/19/07; NewsChannel5.com 12/15/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 2 - January 12, 2008
1. ICE Says It Won't Sedate Deportees
2. Tennessee: Raids, Firings at Electrolux
Immigration News Briefs is a 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 for info. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ICE SAYS IT WON'T SEDATE DEPORTEES
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an internal memo on Jan. 9 setting a new policy, effective immediately, on the sedation of detainees. The agency "may only involuntarily sedate an alien to facilitate removal where the Government has obtained a court order..." reads the memo from ICE detention and removal director John Torres. "There are no exceptions to this policy. Emergency or exigent circumstances are not grounds for departures from this policy." To get a sedation order from court, officials must show deportees have a history of physical resistance to being removed or are a danger to themselves.
ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said in a written statement on Jan. 11 that the directive clarifies procedures implemented last year. "Medical sedation will only be considered as a last resort," she said. [Los Angeles Times 1/12/08, AP 1/12/08] In a policy change last June, ICE allowed forced sedation without a court order only in emergencies. That came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California made public in May that ICE had drugged at least two foreign nationals against their will during failed deportation attempts.
The ACLU of Southern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson sued the government last June 19 to stop the practice of sedation and demand compensation for two plaintiffs who were drugged. Indonesian immigrant Raymond Soeoth was appealing his political asylum case when he was injected with the antipsychotic drug Haldol in December 2004 at the Terminal Island detention facility in San Pedro, California. Senegalese immigrant Amadou Lamine Diouf, who was also appealing his case, was injected with an unidentified psychotropic drug in February 2006 while on a commercial plane at Los Angeles International Airport. [LAT 1/12/08; ACLU News Releases 5/8/07, 6/19/07, 1/7/08] Diouf said escorting ICE agents injected him after he asked to speak with the plane's pilot to tell him that he had a judge's order temporarily staying his deportation. [AP 1/12/08]
Both Diouf and Soeoth were released in February 2007 as the result of a lawsuit filed in November 2006 by the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, challenging their prolonged detention and that of two other detainees at Terminal Island. Shortly after that lawsuit was filed, the district court ordered the government to provide the men with bond hearings. By February 2007, all four were released. The government appealed the district court's decision in three of the four cases, including those of Soeoth and Diouf. Arguments were made on Jan. 7 to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. [ACLU News Release 1/7/08]
ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers acknowledged in September 2007 during Senate testimony that 56 deportees were administered psychotropic drugs between Oct. 1, 2006, and April 30, 2007. Medications commonly used are lorazepam, haloperidol, olanzapine and benztropine. Of the 56 detainees who ICE says were drugged, 33 had no history of psychological problems; they were sedated because of alleged "combative behavior, with the imminent risk of danger to others and/or self," according to Myers. "I am aware of, and deeply concerned about reports that past practices may not have conformed to ICE detention standards," Myers said. [LAT 1/12/08] Before the policy change last June, ICE rules still only allowed detainees to be sedated in emergencies if a medical professional determined that "they present a danger to themselves or to others." [ACLU News Release 5/8/07]
"We're very pleased that the government has finally agreed to stop forcibly drugging people without court orders," ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said on Jan. 11. The ACLU plans to continue its lawsuit seeking compensation for Soeoth and Diouf. In addition, Arulanantham said he wants the government to release more information about how long the sedation policy existed and how many people were involuntarily medicated. [LAT 1/12/08]
*2. TENNESSEE: RAIDS, FIRINGS AT ELECTROLUX
Between Dec. 12 and 20, ICE arrested 31 people in the area of Springfield, Tennessee. The roundup came after Nashville television station NewsChannel 5 aired a Dec. 5 story charging Electrolux Home Products with hiring undocumented immigrants at its factory in Springfield, which employs about 3,500 people and produces electric and gas stoves.
Within a few days after the television report, the company began reviewing the paperwork of existing employees at the plant. As many as 800 workers lost or walked away from Electrolux jobs, said Tommy Vallejos, executive director of HOPE, a Tennessee immigrant advocacy group. "There are people who are so afraid, they have not collected their final paycheck," Vallejos said. According to a NewsChannel5 source, Electrolux dismissed 120 employees on Dec. 13 and another 52 on Dec. 14. An Electrolux spokesperson said the company has begun to use the Department of Homeland Security's E-verify system (formerly known as Basic Pilot) to check the authenticity of documents provided by new hires.
On Dec. 12, ICE arrested two people accused of selling identification to immigrants who used it to get jobs at Electrolux. The two have been charged by a grand jury of the US District Court. Also on Dec. 12, ICE arrested 14 suspected undocumented immigrants, New Orleans-based ICE spokesperson Temple Black confirmed. On Dec. 19, ICE arrested four immigrant workers at the Electrolux facility; by the end of the day on Dec. 20, ICE had arrested 11 more immigrants at homes and apartments in and around Springfield. The raids spread fear through the area, with some people estimating that as many as 1,000 residents have since fled the city or gone into hiding. [The Gannett and Robertson County Times (Springfield, TN) 1/9/08, Robertson County Times 12/19/07; NewsChannel5.com 12/15/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
Sunday, January 6, 2008
INB 1/6/08: Ex-Detainee Wins Settlement
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 1 - January 6, 2008
1. Ex-Detainee Wins Settlement
2. Oregon Imposes New License Rule
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 for info. 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. EX-DETAINEE WINS SETTLEMENT
In a Dec. 17 press release, Colorado's Park County announced it would pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought in February 2005 by Moises Carranza-Reyes, who was held in federal immigration custody at the county's Fairplay jail for seven days in 2003. According to the suit, Carranza-Reyes, now 31, was held in a filthy, freezing jail pod designed for 18 people, but holding 60. He was issued a "foul-smelling," dirty uniform and forced to sleep on the floor on a mattress soiled with vomit and feces between two inmates who were so sick that he had to feed them, his lawyers said. Carranza-Reyes soon came down with a strep infection and began complaining of aches and chills. Four days later, medical staff finally took him to the Denver Health Medical Center; by then he had developed pneumonia and his legs were black with gangrene. The infection led to a heart attack and coma; doctors reportedly gave Carranza-Reyes a 2% chance of survival. He ultimately recovered, but his gangrenous left leg had to be amputated and part of a lung removed.
The defendants included Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener and Undersheriff Monte Gore, who ran the jail at the time, along with jail nurse Vicki Paulsen. Park County rejected Carranza-Reyes' accusations of "inhumane conditions" and medical neglect at the jail. "Neither Park County nor any of its officials or employees admit any liability and have denied Carranza Reyes' charges," said the press release. The settlement prohibits all parties from discussing the agreement, although the documents filed in the case are part of the public record. Park County Attorney Lee Phillips said the entire amount of the settlement would be paid by the county's insurance company, the Denver-based nonprofit County Technical Services Inc., or CTSI, owned by its Colorado member counties. [Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume (Bailey) 12/17/07; Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 12/19/07] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to have a detainee-housing agreement with Park County and the jail is inspected by the agency annually to ensure it complies with ICE's "strict detention standard," said ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok. Carranza-Reyes' attorneys say Park County improved jail conditions shortly after their client's detention.
Carranza-Reyes, a former Mexico City police sergeant, was arrested March 1, 2003, in Rifle, Colorado with his brother Abraham and several other immigrants in a truck headed for Chicago. Carranza-Reyes and his brother were hoping to work there and reunite with their father, a US citizen. Carranza-Reyes now lives in Colorado, and according to his attorneys is "financially desperate, is unemployed, and in desperate need of medical care." Federal authorities paid most of Carranza-Reyes' $1 million medical bill, but he "continues to suffer unbearable pain" from nerve damage in both legs and requires physical therapy and possibly more surgeries, according to court papers. ICE has allowed Carranza-Reyes to remain in the US while he recuperated, although his attorneys said in court filings he is now "in danger of deportation."
Carranza-Reyes' legal team, including the Washington-based advocacy group Public Justice, say he was victimized by Park County's aggressive attempt to profit by leasing jail bed space to state and federal authorities. "Park County Jail attempted to boost its net revenues by cutting basic human essentials, such as medical care, heat, clean laundry, and clean housing," co-counsel Bill Trine of Boulder said in 2005. "As a result of prison profiteering, we're seeing human rights abuses that we'd never expect to see in this country." [RMN 12/19/07]
*2. OREGON IMPOSES NEW LICENSE RULE
On Dec. 31, Latino groups in Oregon turned in over 5,000 petition signatures to the state's Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division in Salem, asking for a one-year delay in implementation of new rules that will require driver's license applicants to show proof of legal residence starting on Feb. 4. The change was mandated by Governor Ted Kulongoski in a Nov. 16 executive order, and the Oregon Transportation Commission drew up proposed emergency rules in December, revising and tightening the standards for obtaining, renewing or replacing a state driver's license, permit or identification card. The transportation commission is expected to vote on final rules Jan. 18. "We are finding out through our outreach efforts that it's not enough time to inform tens of thousands of people about the executive order," said Ramon Ramirez, president of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), Oregon's farmworkers' union and the state's largest Latino organization. [AP 1/1/08, 1/4/08; Statesman Journal (Salem) 12/17/07]
Patty Wentz, Kulongoski's spokeswoman, told the Statesman Journal newspaper on Jan. 3 that the executive order "absolutely" will not be delayed. "What the governor is basically saying to immigrants is, 'I don't care about you, and I don't care about your rights,'" Ramirez said. Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) spokesperson David House said the rules could also affect large numbers of US-born Oregonians because many names and dates of birth on the DMV's records differ from the data held by the Social Security Administration.
Kulongoski has proposed an alternative plan that would create two types of licenses–one valid for identification and available only to those who can prove "legal presence," and a secondary "driving only" card for those who cannot prove legal residence. But that plan has little legislative support. Utah is the only state with such a system. [AP 1/1/08, 1/4/08] In New York state, Governor Elliott Spitzer proposed a similar license plan in late October--though with three tiers instead of two [see INB 11/4/07]--but he dropped that plan last Nov. 14 under intense political pressure from his own Democratic Party. [Washington Times 11/15/07]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
Vol. 11, No. 1 - January 6, 2008
1. Ex-Detainee Wins Settlement
2. Oregon Imposes New License Rule
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 for info. 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. EX-DETAINEE WINS SETTLEMENT
In a Dec. 17 press release, Colorado's Park County announced it would pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought in February 2005 by Moises Carranza-Reyes, who was held in federal immigration custody at the county's Fairplay jail for seven days in 2003. According to the suit, Carranza-Reyes, now 31, was held in a filthy, freezing jail pod designed for 18 people, but holding 60. He was issued a "foul-smelling," dirty uniform and forced to sleep on the floor on a mattress soiled with vomit and feces between two inmates who were so sick that he had to feed them, his lawyers said. Carranza-Reyes soon came down with a strep infection and began complaining of aches and chills. Four days later, medical staff finally took him to the Denver Health Medical Center; by then he had developed pneumonia and his legs were black with gangrene. The infection led to a heart attack and coma; doctors reportedly gave Carranza-Reyes a 2% chance of survival. He ultimately recovered, but his gangrenous left leg had to be amputated and part of a lung removed.
The defendants included Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener and Undersheriff Monte Gore, who ran the jail at the time, along with jail nurse Vicki Paulsen. Park County rejected Carranza-Reyes' accusations of "inhumane conditions" and medical neglect at the jail. "Neither Park County nor any of its officials or employees admit any liability and have denied Carranza Reyes' charges," said the press release. The settlement prohibits all parties from discussing the agreement, although the documents filed in the case are part of the public record. Park County Attorney Lee Phillips said the entire amount of the settlement would be paid by the county's insurance company, the Denver-based nonprofit County Technical Services Inc., or CTSI, owned by its Colorado member counties. [Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume (Bailey) 12/17/07; Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 12/19/07] Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to have a detainee-housing agreement with Park County and the jail is inspected by the agency annually to ensure it complies with ICE's "strict detention standard," said ICE spokesperson Carl Rusnok. Carranza-Reyes' attorneys say Park County improved jail conditions shortly after their client's detention.
Carranza-Reyes, a former Mexico City police sergeant, was arrested March 1, 2003, in Rifle, Colorado with his brother Abraham and several other immigrants in a truck headed for Chicago. Carranza-Reyes and his brother were hoping to work there and reunite with their father, a US citizen. Carranza-Reyes now lives in Colorado, and according to his attorneys is "financially desperate, is unemployed, and in desperate need of medical care." Federal authorities paid most of Carranza-Reyes' $1 million medical bill, but he "continues to suffer unbearable pain" from nerve damage in both legs and requires physical therapy and possibly more surgeries, according to court papers. ICE has allowed Carranza-Reyes to remain in the US while he recuperated, although his attorneys said in court filings he is now "in danger of deportation."
Carranza-Reyes' legal team, including the Washington-based advocacy group Public Justice, say he was victimized by Park County's aggressive attempt to profit by leasing jail bed space to state and federal authorities. "Park County Jail attempted to boost its net revenues by cutting basic human essentials, such as medical care, heat, clean laundry, and clean housing," co-counsel Bill Trine of Boulder said in 2005. "As a result of prison profiteering, we're seeing human rights abuses that we'd never expect to see in this country." [RMN 12/19/07]
*2. OREGON IMPOSES NEW LICENSE RULE
On Dec. 31, Latino groups in Oregon turned in over 5,000 petition signatures to the state's Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division in Salem, asking for a one-year delay in implementation of new rules that will require driver's license applicants to show proof of legal residence starting on Feb. 4. The change was mandated by Governor Ted Kulongoski in a Nov. 16 executive order, and the Oregon Transportation Commission drew up proposed emergency rules in December, revising and tightening the standards for obtaining, renewing or replacing a state driver's license, permit or identification card. The transportation commission is expected to vote on final rules Jan. 18. "We are finding out through our outreach efforts that it's not enough time to inform tens of thousands of people about the executive order," said Ramon Ramirez, president of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), Oregon's farmworkers' union and the state's largest Latino organization. [AP 1/1/08, 1/4/08; Statesman Journal (Salem) 12/17/07]
Patty Wentz, Kulongoski's spokeswoman, told the Statesman Journal newspaper on Jan. 3 that the executive order "absolutely" will not be delayed. "What the governor is basically saying to immigrants is, 'I don't care about you, and I don't care about your rights,'" Ramirez said. Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) spokesperson David House said the rules could also affect large numbers of US-born Oregonians because many names and dates of birth on the DMV's records differ from the data held by the Social Security Administration.
Kulongoski has proposed an alternative plan that would create two types of licenses–one valid for identification and available only to those who can prove "legal presence," and a secondary "driving only" card for those who cannot prove legal residence. But that plan has little legislative support. Utah is the only state with such a system. [AP 1/1/08, 1/4/08] In New York state, Governor Elliott Spitzer proposed a similar license plan in late October--though with three tiers instead of two [see INB 11/4/07]--but he dropped that plan last Nov. 14 under intense political pressure from his own Democratic Party. [Washington Times 11/15/07]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
**************************************************************************
ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
**************************************************************************
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