Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 28 - November 26, 2007
(Note: Immigration News Briefs did not publish for the past three weeks; the last issue came out on Nov. 4.)
1. Florida ICE Agent Rapes Detainee
2. Airport Raid in Chicago
3. Oakland Carpentry Company Raided
4. Ex-Detainee Wins Damages from Prison Firm
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.
*1. FLORIDA ICE AGENT RAPES DETAINEE
On Nov. 16, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Wilfredo Vazquez was arrested by federal agents in Tampa, Florida, and charged with three counts of knowingly causing a detainee under his supervision to engage in a sexual act. According to the accusation, Vazquez was driving a Jamaican woman, identified in an ICE press release only with the initials "M.C.," from ICE's Krome Service and Processing Center in Miami-Dade to the Broward Transition Center in Pompano Beach on the afternoon of Sept. 21 when he took a detour to his home in Tamarac and raped her there.
Vazquez had worked for ICE for less than a year. ICE issued a statement late on Nov. 16 saying that the agency fired Vazquez "shortly after the allegation was lodged against him." Federal authorities are now poring over computer records and other documents that track Vazquez's involvement in previous detainee transfers to see if other women were attacked but feared coming forward. Vazquez was also on rotation with an unidentified military reserve unit.
M.C., who had lived in the US for 12 years, was being transferred to Broward after being sentenced to time served in connection with a false claim to US citizenship. Immigration officials planned to place her in deportation proceedings.
In accusing Vazquez, M.C. said she did not outwardly resist the attack because she was afraid; she "emphasized that [he] was wearing his firearm at all times, and she did not know what he was capable of doing to her," according to the complaint. M.C. was released from immigration detention on Nov. 1, said Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, which is representing her. "I was scared for my life," said M.C. in a telephone interview before being released. "He had a gun. He's a big man, and I was in his custody." Little said the former detainee cried with relief when told Friday night about the arrest.
In a statement given to her attorneys, M.C. said she was at Krome's intake room when Vazquez noticed her among a crowd of male detainees. Vazquez told her: "I'll rescue you, so you don't have to wait for them to process all the men." In his van, Vazquez removed M.C.'s handcuffs, told her, "You can sit in the front if you are going to be a good girl," and helped her make phone calls to her daughter and a friend. After calling his wife to ensure she was not home, Vazquez took M.C. to his house and forced her to have sex with him before finally taking her to the Broward Transition
Center.
At the Broward facility, another Jamaican female detainee asked M.C. why she was crying. M.C. told her what had happened, and the next day the other detainee reported the conversation to facility officials, who took M.C. to the Broward Sheriff's Office and a treatment center.
Vazquez denied several times to investigators that the incident happened or that he stopped other than to get gas, according to an affidavit by Homeland Security agent David Nieland. But records from Florida's Turnpike SunPass electronic toll system showed Vazquez's official vehicle left the highway at a Commercial Boulevard ramp near his home, Nieland's affidavit said. Also, M.C. gave investigators accurate and detailed descriptions of the route they took and the interior and exterior of Vazquez's home.
The Broward Sheriff's Office first opened the investigation in late September after M.C. made her accusation against Vazquez. The ICE Office of Professional Responsibility and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General got involved, and the US attorney's office in Miami developed the case. [Miami Herald 11/17/07; ICE News Release 11/19/07]
*2. AIRPORT RAID IN CHICAGO
On Nov. 7, ICE agents arrested 24 workers at several warehouses close to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in a raid culminating an eight-month investigation into Ideal Staffing Solutions, a temporary employment agency. Agents also executed a search warrant at the Ideal Staffing offices in Bensenville, Illinois, and arrested managers Norinye Benitez and Mary Gurin there on criminal charges. Benitez and Gurin were each charged with one count of harboring "illegal aliens" for financial gain and one count of misuse of Social Security numbers for allegedly assisting the workers in obtaining unauthorized access to secure areas of the airport, according to an ICE statement.
The workers who were arrested are facing felony charges in Cook County for possession of fraudulent identification in the form of airport security badges. Most are unauthorized immigrants from Mexico; they are being held at Cook County Jail but are expected to be deported, officials said.
Federal authorities say more than 100 temporary workers employed by Ideal Staffing were in possession of fraudulently obtained airport security badges, which allowed the workers to gain access to secure areas of the airport while loading pallets, freight and meals for companies doing business at O'Hare. In one instance, Benitez allegedly pushed a box filled with 20 green color-coded security badges toward a worker cooperating with federal agents and instructed him to "pick one with a picture that most closely resembled his own likeness," according to a federal affidavit filed Nov. 7. The worker, who had never been fingerprinted by federal aviation officials, used the deactivated badge he chose to gain access to a United Airlines cargo facility, officials alleged. Federal officials couldn't say how the company got access to deactivated Chicago city Aviation Department security badges or why those badges would still allow someone to enter a restricted area. [Chicago Tribune 11/7/07, 11/8/07]
On Nov. 8, the city Aviation Department issued a statement saying it is cooperating with federal officials. The department said the city uses a badging process approved by the federal Department of Homeland Security.
ICE announced on Nov. 8 that it had arrested 10 more workers in connection with the same investigation into Ideal Staffing Solutions. Some of the workers were apparently arrested at their homes. [CT 11/9/07] ICE was assisted in the investigation by the Social Security Administration-Office of the Inspector General; Department of Labor- Office of the Inspector General; US Attorney's Office; Cook County State's Attorney's Office; Cook County Sheriff's Police Department; City of Chicago-Office of the Inspector General; US Customs and Border Protection; and the Transportation Security Administration. [ICE News Release 11/7/07]
*3. OAKLAND CARPENTRY COMPANY RAIDED
On Nov. 6, ICE agents arrested Mexican national Jose de Jesus "Pepe" Guzman-Baez at his Oakland, California carpentry business, Pepe's Cabinets, following a search executed at the premises. Guzman was arraigned on Nov. 7 in US District Court on criminal charges for unlawfully employing and harboring unauthorized immigrants. ICE agents also detained and processed seven workers encountered during the raid on administrative immigration violations. According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, Guzman and all of his employees were using Social Security numbers that appeared to be fraudulent or did not match Social Security Administration records. The raid culminated a 16-month investigation into the hiring practices at Pepe's Cabinets, sparked by information provided to ICE's toll-free tip line. [ICE News Release 11/7/07]
*4. EX-DETAINEE WINS DAMAGES FROM PRISON FIRM
On Nov. 13, in its second day of deliberations, a federal jury in Newark, New Jersey awarded former asylum seeker Hawa Abdi Jama of Somalia $100,000 in damages after finding the private company that ran an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, negligent in its hiring and training. The jury rejected a claim that Jama's international human rights were violated during her 11-month detention at Elizabeth in 1994-95.
Jama, now a US citizen living in Ohio, was one of nine immigrants who had sued Correctional Services Corp. (CSC)--known as Esmor when it ran the Elizabeth center--over abuses at the facility. During a six-week trial in Newark, the company reached settlements with the other eight defendants. In 2005, a separate group of 1,600 former detainees at the Elizabeth facility got a $2.5 million settlement from CSC, with most getting less than $1,000 each after legal fees [see INB 9/17/05].
The federal government closed the Elizabeth detention center and canceled the contract with Esmor after hundreds of detainees rioted over poor conditions at the facility in June 1995. The detention center reopened in January 1997 under contract with the Corrections Corp. of America, based in Nashville, Tennessee, which continues to operate it.
Jama's suit, filed in June 1997 as Jama v. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), was based on the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which is generally applied in cases involving atrocities committed outside the US. In November 2004, US District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise dismissed charges against the federal immigration agency and its officials, saying the government could not be sued. He also dismissed some charges against the company's guards, finding that individual actions did not rise to the level of international human rights abuses. But he allowed the suit to move forward with charges against the company and its officials, ruling that the defendants had the right to use the statute to seek monetary damages for violations on US soil. It was the first time the 1789 law has been used against a private company.
During the trial, Jama said she and others held at the Elizabeth facility were beaten, fed rotten food, denied basic supplies such as toothbrushes and sanitary napkins, and forced to use toilets and sinks overflowing with feces and vomit. "I felt like I wasn't human," she said.
Penny Venetis, co-director of the constitutional litigation clinic at Rutgers School of Law-Newark, who represented Jama and her co-plaintiffs, contended that the company cut corners for profits. Venetis urged the jury to award punitive damages to her client to "send a message" to the company and prevent it from abusing others. The defense argued the allegations were exaggerated and that Jama was traumatized by her experience in Somalia, not by abuses at the detention center. "She came here as a damaged person and we have empathy for her, but that does not mean we are responsible under our judicial system,"said CSC attorney Larry Reich.
Although the jury rejected Jama's claim that her international human rights had been violated, it found the company and four of its officers were negligent in hiring, training, supervising and retaining guards. The jury awarded her $100,000 in compensatory damages. Jama, who is Muslim, also alleged she was prevented from practicing her religion. The jury found Esmor and one of its officers liable under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and awarded Jama an additional $1 in damages on that claim.
Venetis said she was disappointed the jury rejected the human rights claim, but added that "the $100,000 is not peanuts." She also said the eight other defendants would not agree to a gag order on their settlements, so details eventually will be disclosed. "I think it's critical for the public to know that when corporations violate human rights they will be called to task, and we have called them to task," said Venetis. [Star-Ledger (Newark) 11/14/07; AP 11/14/07]
CSC was purchased in July 2005 by the Geo Group Inc., a multinational prison and security company based in Boca Raton, Florida, which operated under the name Wackenhut Corrections Corporation until late 2003. [Geo Group website accessed 11/26/07, see http://www.thegeogroupinc.com/milestones.asp] Geo reported 2006 profits of $30 million, or $1.68 per share, compared with $7 million, or 47 cents per share, a year earlier. It had revenue of $860.9 million in 2006, compared with $612.9 million in 2005. [AP 11/14/07]
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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
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Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
INB 11/4/07: Charges Dropped Against LA 8; Raids in CT, NY, GA, VT
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 27 - November 4, 2007
1. Final Charges Dropped Against LA 8
2. Connecticut: New Raid as State's Role Questioned
3. Dozens Snared in Queens Raid
4. Chicago Workers Arrested in Raid
5. Georgia: 30 Workers Arrested Near Fort Benning
6. NY Governor Accepts Federal Licenses
7. Vermont Hotels Raided
8. Migrant Deaths Marked
9. California: Immigrants Affected by Fires
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.
*1. FINAL CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST LA 8
On Oct. 30, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed all charges against Palestinian immigrants Khader Musa Hamide and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, the last two members of the "Los Angeles Eight" (LA 8) who were still fighting deportation, and approved a settlement submitted by the men's lawyers and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The BIA announced the settlement on Oct. 31.
Hamide and Shehadeh were legal permanent residents when they were arrested on Jan. 26, 1987 and placed into deportation proceedings along with six other activists because of their alleged support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Specifically, the government targeted the eight activists' efforts to distribute Al Hadaf, the PFLP magazine, a publication available in public libraries and college campuses. On Jan. 30, 2007, Los Angeles immigration judge Bruce J. Einhorn terminated the deportation proceedings against Hamide and Shehadeh, calling the government's conduct in the case "an embarrassment to the rule of law." [see INB 2/4/07; see also Einhorn's ruling posted at http://www.adc.org/PDF/LA8.pdf]
The government had appealed Einhorn's ruling, but under the terms of the settlement it dropped its appeal and agreed not to charge either Hamide or Shehadeh as "removable, deportable, excludable or inadmissible, or bring any other type of proceedings to expel" either of them or take away their lawful permanent resident status "based on any affiliations, associations, information or conduct in any way connected with any organizations that were identified or described in any testimony" or any other legal document in the case or based on any statement they made.
In exchange, Hamide and Shehadeh agreed to have several court orders--including Einhorn's January 2007 order--vacated as moot; and to give up their right to sue any government officials or agencies--including the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement--for any action taken in the course of the case. The settlement also states that Hamide and Shehadeh must wait at least three years before they can apply for citizenship, and could be subjected to deportation or to having their permanent resident status revoked if they violate immigration laws in the future.
In a statement, the DHS said, "After thorough analysis and investigation, the United States government has no information indicating that Khader Musa Hamide and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh currently pose a threat to national security." [Los Angeles Times 10/31/07]
"The government reasonably believed at the time these men were charged they were a threat because of their membership in a terrorist organization," said Virginia Kice, spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California. "Based on current analysis, we have no information that they are a threat." [New York Times 11/1/07]
"It's a huge victory and certainly a relief for our clients who have lived with this cloud over them for 20 years," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, representing the Center for Constitutional Rights, which fought the case along with the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union. [AP 10/31/07]
"This is a monumental victory...for all immigrants who want to be able to express their political views and support the lawful activities of organizations in their home countries fighting for social or political change," said San Francisco attorney Marc Van Der Hout of the National Lawyers Guild, who has worked on the case since its inception. The government's attempt to deport Hamide and Shehadeh "all these years marks another shameful period in our government's history of targeting certain groups of immigrants for their political beliefs and activities."
"My family and I feel a tremendous amount of relief," said Hamide, who lives in Chino Hills, California, and works as a wholesaler of coffee and tea. "After 20 years, the nightmare is finally over. I feel vindicated at long last. This is a victory not only for the LA 8 but for the First Amendment of the Constitution and for the rights of all immigrants."
Shehadeh, who now lives in Oregon, said that although he was "extremely happy" to put the battle behind him, he had mixed emotions. "The government robbed us, and our families, of the best and most productive years of our lives. But we will continue...acting on our beliefs, loving our country and defending the Constitution," he said. [LAT 10/31/07]
As for the other members of the LA 8, Hamide's Kenyan-born wife, Julie Mungai, has permanent resident status, as do Naim Sharif and Amjad Obeid. Obeid's brother Ayman remains in the US on a work permit; his application for permanent residency is apparently still pending. Basher Amer returned to the West Bank. Aiad Barakat is a US citizen, sworn in on Dec. 20 of last year, six months after a federal judge ordered the government to allow him to naturalize [see INB 7/8/06, 2/4/07].
*2. CONNECTICUT: NEW RAID AS STATE'S ROLE QUESTIONED
ICE spokesperson Paula Grenier said on Nov. 2 that nine people were detained that morning in Hartford, Connecticut. The raids apparently began around 7am in the Parkville section of Hartford, where ICE agents went to homes and businesses on Park, South Whitney and Carpenter streets. Grenier said an ICE fugitive operation team arrested one person on an outstanding deportation order. The others were apparently swept up in the raid, suspected of being in the country without permission. Grenier declined to say how many warrants agents were trying to serve. "It was a routine operation by a fugitive operation team," she said.
Jason McGahan, a member of Stop the Raids, a Trinity College-based group, said the latest raid in Hartford "drives home that we have to mobilize in response to these attacks if we are going to protect the immigrant community. Otherwise they are sure to continue." Raids by ICE fugitive operation teams in New Haven in June led to public demonstrations, as well as aggressive legal challenges by a team of law professors and students from the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at the Yale Law School. [Hartford Courant 11/3/07]
On Oct. 31, at a Connecticut state Freedom of Information (FOI) Commission hearing in Hartford, Commissioner Vincent Russo took testimony on whether state police should be ordered to make public all the records they have in their possession on a June 6 ICE raid in New Haven in which 29 people were arrested on immigration violations. Lawyers representing two advocacy groups are seeking the state police records to determine whether ICE acted unconstitutionally by entering homes without consent or civil warrants or by racially profiling those arrested.
At the hearing, several partially redacted emails were released to the lawyers, including an Apr. 30 email from an ICE employee to state police detective Carmine Verno about an ICE operation planned for May 2 in New Haven. "I know you guys usually work nights, but if you're interested we'd love to have you! We have 18 addresses--so it should be a fun time!! Let me know if you guys can play!!" said the ICE official. "Sounds great!" Verno wrote back, saying he would run it by his bosses. The date was later pushed back to June 6; in the end, four state police officers participated. None of the emails referred to any suspected criminal activity by those targeted.
"It sounds like a bunch of cowboys decided to get a posse together, and the feds wanted to give the state police the opportunity to take part in the roundup," said Justin Cox, a student intern at Jerome N. Frank Legal Services. The law clinic is representing 21 of the 29 people arrested in the June 6 raid. [New Haven Register 10/31/07, 11/1/07]
*3. DOZENS SNARED IN QUEENS RAID
On Oct. 14, federal and local agents carried out a massive raid on Roosevelt Avenue, the main commercial strip of the heavily immigrant neighborhood of Jackson Heights in northern Queens, New York City. While the operation was supposedly targeting individuals accused of involvement in a fraudulent document ring, Spanish-language news reports cited witnesses saying that dozens of immigrants--possibly as many as 100--who had nothing to do with the fake IDs were also swept up in the raid. Witness Rodrigo Arce told the Spanish-language television news channel Telemundo that agents used plastic netting to trap people who were standing there talking or passing by. "They were asking people to show documents," he said. (Telemundo 47 10/16/07) Rosario Ruiz, an employee of a Colombian bakery, said she witnessed "more than 100 arrests." Ruiz confirmed that people who just happened to be walking on the crowded avenue that Sunday afternoon were among those arrested. According to Ruiz, "Of those arrested, and there were a lot, 80% were Mexicans who were passing by here." [El Diario La Prensa 10/16/07]
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the raid was part of an operation targeting suspects involved in the production and sale of fraudulent identity documents. Brown said an inter-agency taskforce was formed in October 2005 after the DA's Counter-Terrorism Unit received information from the Queens Gang Squad of the New York Police Department (NYPD) that fake government documents were being manufactured and sold on Roosevelt Avenue. Brown said the investigation led to the indictment of 41 people on various charges including enterprise corruption, forgery, conspiracy and criminal possession of forgery devices. Of the 41 people indicted, 20 were in custody, said Brown; the remainder were being sought. According to Brown, more than 40 suspects were arrested over the weekend, including the alleged ringleader; he did not say whether the other 20-plus arrestees--those not named in the indictment--were charged with anything. [WABC Eyewitness News (Queens) 10/16/07; Queens Tribune 10/20/07; Queens County District Attorney Press Release 10/16/07]
"Today's indictments are the result of a two-year investigation that included months of court-authorized eavesdropping and video surveillance and thousands of intercepted telephone calls," Brown said in a press release. "During the investigation hundreds of arrests were made of those purchasing fraudulent documents and numerous search warrants were executed resulting in the closure of a number of fraudulent identification mills and the seizure of thousands of completed, semi-completed and blank forged government identification documents." [QCDA Press Release 10/16/07]
Brown said most of the suspects are undocumented residents from Mexico. NYPD Deputy Inspector Robert Boyce claimed that at least 12 of the 41 suspects indicted are members of the M-18, Surenos 13 or Vatos Locos gangs. [Queens Tribune 10/20/07] The investigation involved city and state police, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration and the state branch of the Secret Service. [Times Ledger (Queens) 10/18/07] Brown also "expressed his appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force and the US Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their assistance during the investigation," according to the press release.
Seventeen of the defendants named in the indictment were arraigned on Oct. 15 before Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter on charges of enterprise corruption, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, criminal possession of forgery devices and conspiracy. Two other defendants were arrested in Los Angeles, and a third was arrested in New Jersey. [QCDA Press Release 10/16/07]
*4. CHICAGO WORKERS ARRESTED IN RAID
On Oct. 31, ICE special agents arrested 23 immigrant workers at the Rock Run Business Park in Joliet, Illinois, just southwest of Chicago, as part of what ICE referred to as "an ongoing criminal worksite enforcement investigation." The 16 men and seven women were employed by ANNA II Inc., a staffing company which provides laborers to various warehouses in the Chicago area. They had been transported to the worksite in Joliet from the heavily Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen on Chicago's south side in three vans. The driver of a fourth van was taken into custody in Des Plaines, northwest of Chicago. ICE agents executed a criminal search warrant the same morning at ANNA II's main offices in Bensenville, Illinois. ICE initiated the investigation into ANNA II in April 2006.
One of those arrested was from the Dominican Republic; the others were from Mexico. All are currently being processed at ICE's Broadview facility and will face deportation proceedings for violating US immigration laws.
During fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, ICE arrested 863 individuals on criminal charges in worksite investigations, and administratively apprehended another 4,077 unauthorized workers on immigration violations. These arrests have increased significantly when compared to the 160 criminal arrests and 685 administrative arrests ICE made in fiscal year 2004. [ICE News Release 10/31/07]
*5. GEORGIA: 30 WORKERS ARRESTED NEAR FORT BENNING
On Oct. 30, ICE agents entered the worksite of the new National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Patriot Park, next to the army base at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, and checked the IDs of all workers. ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha said 27 Mexicans and three Guatemalans were arrested on immigration violations. All 30 were transported to the ICE detention center in Stewart County, said Rocha, and will be processed for deportation.
Cyndy Cerbin, a spokesperson for the National Infantry Foundation, a private group building the museum, referred all questions to contractor Batson-Cook Co. Eddie Sanders, on-site project manager for Batson-Cook, said his company is cooperating with ICE, and that the arrested workers were employed by a number of subcontractors on the site. "Batson-Cook follows all the federal and state laws on hiring of personnel," Sanders said. "We expect our subcontractors to follow those laws, as well."
The $85 million museum dedicated to infantry history will replace the current museum, which is in the middle of Fort Benning and is run by the army. Last Jan. 17, ICE arrested 24 unauthorized contract workers at the Fort Benning base as they arrived there to work on a barracks project [see INB 2/10/07]. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/1/07]
The latest raid comes just a few weeks before thousands of protesters descend on Fort Benning Nov. 16-18 to demand the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. The institution was formerly known as the School of the Americas; the annual November protests are organized by School of the Americas Watch, a grassroots organization based in Washington.
*6. NY GOVERNOR ACCEPTS FEDERAL LICENSES
On Oct. 27, New York governor Eliot Spitzer joined Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in announcing that New York state will alter a plan Spitzer announced on Sept. 21 which would have allowed immigrants to get driver's licenses without having to provide a social security number or proof of legal residency [see INB 9/30/07]. Instead, New York will create a three-tiered license system: an enhanced license for residents of northern and western areas of the state which can be used instead of a passport to cross the border into Canada; a license which meets the new federal standards of the Real ID Act and will only be available to citizens or legal permanent residents; and a license available to anyone who does not want to pay the extra fee for a federally approved license or who cannot provide the necessary documents--including out-of-status immigrants. This third type of license will be marked with the phrase "not for US government purposes" and will not be valid for boarding airplanes. To get this category of license, applicants will have to present a valid passport from any country and proof that they reside in New York state. [Newsday 10/28/07; Washington Post 10/28/07 from AP]
"I don't endorse giving licenses to people who are not here legally," said Chertoff, "but federal law does allow states to make that choice." [WP 10/28/07 from AP] Spitzer said long, collegial conversations with Chertoff over several weeks led to the policy change. Spitzer said he has known Chertoff for more than 10 years, since he went to Harvard Law School with Chertoff's wife. [Newsday 10/29/07 from AP]
New York is the fourth state to agree to the secure licenses as established by the Real ID Act, after Arizona, Vermont and Washington-- all border states. New and tighter rules are soon to go into effect for border crossings. [WP 10/28/07 from AP] Real ID is expected to be phased in by 2013. After that, federal agencies that now allow standard state-issued licenses for identification will require the Real ID or other federally accepted identification, like a passport, for boarding a plane. [New York Times 10/28/07]
Immigrant advocates blasted the compromise deal. Spitzer's move "is a lose-lose political decision that betrays his most ardent supporters and emboldens the anti-immigrant opposition," said Chung-Wa Hong of the New York Immigration Coalition. "Public safety for all is not possible when we carve out a million people to be outside of the public safety rules or stigmatize them as second-class residents marked by a Scarlet Letter." (Newsday 10/28/07) "He's now embracing and letting his good name be used to promote something that has been widely known in the immigrant community as one of the most anti-immigrant pieces of legislation to come out of Congress," Hong added, referring to the Real ID Act. [NYT 10/28/07]
*7. VERMONT HOTELS RAIDED
On Oct. 23, more than 20 agents from ICE and the FBI raided the Quality Inn & Suites and the Hampton Inn in Brattleboro, Vermont, arresting 13 out-of-status workers. Ten of the workers were being detained pending removal hearings; three were released with orders to appear for immigration hearings at a later date. Federal agents were assisted in the raids by Brattleboro police and Windham County Sheriff deputies; Brattleboro police arrested a Brazilian national at one of the hotels for possession of amphetamines.
In addition to arresting the workers, federal agents arrested Canadian citizen Gurdeep Nagra, president of the Nanak Hotel Group, which owns the two hotels. Nagra was taken to US District Court in Burlington where he pleaded not guilty to charges of employing and harboring unauthorized immigrants and lying to authorities. According to an ICE news release, many workers at the hotels were "employed by a shell company created by Nagra to avoid detection by immigration officials." ICE says Nagra was arrested on immigration charges in 1992 when he was using the name Gurdeep Singh. He then apparently changed his name legally and applied for admission to the US under the new name. [Brattleboro Reformer 10/24/07; ICE News Release 10/23/07]
*8. MIGRANT DEATHS MARKED
In El Paso, Texas, about 30 activists marked Day of the Dead on Nov. 1 by hanging 450 white wooden crosses on the border fence along the American Canal, where at least 15 people drowned this year trying to enter the US. Some crosses held the names of dead migrants, while others were blank to represent those who have not been identified. The event was organized by the Border Network for Human Rights, an El Paso-based grassroots group that keeps track of migrant deaths. According to the Border Network, 371 migrants died this year on the US-Mexico border, including 25 in El Paso and New Mexico. Border Patrol officials in El Paso recorded 27 deaths in this sector.
Later in the evening on Nov. 1, community members gathered at the Chamizal National Memorial for a candlelight vigil in the memory of migrants who died. "This is the day that we mourn our dead and demand a change in the policies that caused those deaths," said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network. Garcia pointed out that migrant deaths increased after 1993, when new border policies forced migrants away from urban areas into more remote and riskier crossing areas. The crosses were scheduled to stay up until Nov. 3. [El Paso Times 11/1/07]
The Human Rights Coalition, an Arizona immigrant rights group, documented 237 deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border between Oct. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007. The figures exceed the previous fiscal year, when 205 bodies were recovered. The totals represent the number of deaths reported by coroners in Pima, Yuma and Cochise counties over the federal fiscal year. At least 51 of the migrants who died in Arizona were women. The Human Rights Coalition compiled the data with the help of Arizona authorities, multiple foreign consulates and the Binational Migration Institute. The Border Patrol reported 186 migrant deaths in Arizona through August of this year. [www.allheadlinenews.com 10/22/07]
*9. CALIFORNIA: IMMIGRANTS AFFECTED BY FIRES
Immigrant rights groups and the ACLU say authorities have created a climate of intimidation at evacuation centers set up to help people displaced by wildfires in southern California. As wildfires forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, more than 100 Border Patrol agents were deployed to help evacuate homes, operate checkpoints, guard against looters and assist at evacuation shelters. At an assistance center set up at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, a Border Patrol communications vehicle provided key logistics support and uniformed Border Patrol agents were visibly present. "Having people at evacuation sites in Border Patrol uniforms is asinine," said Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, an immigrant rights group. The ACLU and other rights groups say immigrants were subjected to racial profiling at Qualcomm and were abused by some volunteers who questioned their legal status. They have also said the city did not go out to migrant camps to tell people to evacuate. [Los Angeles Times 10/28/07]
On Oct. 24, San Diego police arrested an evacuated Mexican family as they tried to leave Qualcomm Stadium. The police handed seven family members--four adults with three children ages two, eight and 13--over to Border Patrol agents, who deported them that same evening. Footage of their arrest was replayed numerous times on local television stations.
According to the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which interviewed the family in Tijuana following their deportation, a volunteer at the evacuation center had called police, claiming that the family was taking more than their share of material aid. At least five police officers responded, aggressively questioned the family, and demanded to know their immigration status. Despite the San Diego Police Department's official policy of not collaborating with the federal immigration agency, officers called the Border Patrol after determining that the family was undocumented. All of the family's belongings--including things they had brought with them, such as the children's backpacks containing personal items--were taken back into Qualcomm Stadium and have not been returned to the family.
The seven members of the family were taken to a Border Patrol facility, where they were processed. From the time of their arrest around 8:30am until their deportation after 7pm, they were not provided with food. The Border Patrol failed to inform the family of their right to consular consultation and phone calls. Two Border Patrol agents insulted the family, calling them thieves and other derogatory names. Consular officials interviewed the family only after they had already signed for voluntary departure. The San Diego AFSC office is coordinating with the local ACLU office in investigating possible civil rights violations. [Update from Pedro Rios, AFSC, 10/26/07]
On Oct. 25 four migrants, two men and two women, were found apparently burned to death in the wildfires in a ravine off state Route 94 in southern San Diego County. Their bodies remain unidentified; authorities suspect they may have crossed into the US shortly before being trapped by the flames. Another 11 suspected undocumented immigrants are among 18 people who have suffered burns from the wildfires and are hospitalized at UCSD Medical Center's burn unit. [San Diego Union Tribune 10/31/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
**************************************************************************
Vol. 10, No. 27 - November 4, 2007
1. Final Charges Dropped Against LA 8
2. Connecticut: New Raid as State's Role Questioned
3. Dozens Snared in Queens Raid
4. Chicago Workers Arrested in Raid
5. Georgia: 30 Workers Arrested Near Fort Benning
6. NY Governor Accepts Federal Licenses
7. Vermont Hotels Raided
8. Migrant Deaths Marked
9. California: Immigrants Affected by Fires
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.
*1. FINAL CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST LA 8
On Oct. 30, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed all charges against Palestinian immigrants Khader Musa Hamide and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh, the last two members of the "Los Angeles Eight" (LA 8) who were still fighting deportation, and approved a settlement submitted by the men's lawyers and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The BIA announced the settlement on Oct. 31.
Hamide and Shehadeh were legal permanent residents when they were arrested on Jan. 26, 1987 and placed into deportation proceedings along with six other activists because of their alleged support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Specifically, the government targeted the eight activists' efforts to distribute Al Hadaf, the PFLP magazine, a publication available in public libraries and college campuses. On Jan. 30, 2007, Los Angeles immigration judge Bruce J. Einhorn terminated the deportation proceedings against Hamide and Shehadeh, calling the government's conduct in the case "an embarrassment to the rule of law." [see INB 2/4/07; see also Einhorn's ruling posted at http://www.adc.org/PDF/LA8.pdf]
The government had appealed Einhorn's ruling, but under the terms of the settlement it dropped its appeal and agreed not to charge either Hamide or Shehadeh as "removable, deportable, excludable or inadmissible, or bring any other type of proceedings to expel" either of them or take away their lawful permanent resident status "based on any affiliations, associations, information or conduct in any way connected with any organizations that were identified or described in any testimony" or any other legal document in the case or based on any statement they made.
In exchange, Hamide and Shehadeh agreed to have several court orders--including Einhorn's January 2007 order--vacated as moot; and to give up their right to sue any government officials or agencies--including the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement--for any action taken in the course of the case. The settlement also states that Hamide and Shehadeh must wait at least three years before they can apply for citizenship, and could be subjected to deportation or to having their permanent resident status revoked if they violate immigration laws in the future.
In a statement, the DHS said, "After thorough analysis and investigation, the United States government has no information indicating that Khader Musa Hamide and Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh currently pose a threat to national security." [Los Angeles Times 10/31/07]
"The government reasonably believed at the time these men were charged they were a threat because of their membership in a terrorist organization," said Virginia Kice, spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California. "Based on current analysis, we have no information that they are a threat." [New York Times 11/1/07]
"It's a huge victory and certainly a relief for our clients who have lived with this cloud over them for 20 years," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, representing the Center for Constitutional Rights, which fought the case along with the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union. [AP 10/31/07]
"This is a monumental victory...for all immigrants who want to be able to express their political views and support the lawful activities of organizations in their home countries fighting for social or political change," said San Francisco attorney Marc Van Der Hout of the National Lawyers Guild, who has worked on the case since its inception. The government's attempt to deport Hamide and Shehadeh "all these years marks another shameful period in our government's history of targeting certain groups of immigrants for their political beliefs and activities."
"My family and I feel a tremendous amount of relief," said Hamide, who lives in Chino Hills, California, and works as a wholesaler of coffee and tea. "After 20 years, the nightmare is finally over. I feel vindicated at long last. This is a victory not only for the LA 8 but for the First Amendment of the Constitution and for the rights of all immigrants."
Shehadeh, who now lives in Oregon, said that although he was "extremely happy" to put the battle behind him, he had mixed emotions. "The government robbed us, and our families, of the best and most productive years of our lives. But we will continue...acting on our beliefs, loving our country and defending the Constitution," he said. [LAT 10/31/07]
As for the other members of the LA 8, Hamide's Kenyan-born wife, Julie Mungai, has permanent resident status, as do Naim Sharif and Amjad Obeid. Obeid's brother Ayman remains in the US on a work permit; his application for permanent residency is apparently still pending. Basher Amer returned to the West Bank. Aiad Barakat is a US citizen, sworn in on Dec. 20 of last year, six months after a federal judge ordered the government to allow him to naturalize [see INB 7/8/06, 2/4/07].
*2. CONNECTICUT: NEW RAID AS STATE'S ROLE QUESTIONED
ICE spokesperson Paula Grenier said on Nov. 2 that nine people were detained that morning in Hartford, Connecticut. The raids apparently began around 7am in the Parkville section of Hartford, where ICE agents went to homes and businesses on Park, South Whitney and Carpenter streets. Grenier said an ICE fugitive operation team arrested one person on an outstanding deportation order. The others were apparently swept up in the raid, suspected of being in the country without permission. Grenier declined to say how many warrants agents were trying to serve. "It was a routine operation by a fugitive operation team," she said.
Jason McGahan, a member of Stop the Raids, a Trinity College-based group, said the latest raid in Hartford "drives home that we have to mobilize in response to these attacks if we are going to protect the immigrant community. Otherwise they are sure to continue." Raids by ICE fugitive operation teams in New Haven in June led to public demonstrations, as well as aggressive legal challenges by a team of law professors and students from the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at the Yale Law School. [Hartford Courant 11/3/07]
On Oct. 31, at a Connecticut state Freedom of Information (FOI) Commission hearing in Hartford, Commissioner Vincent Russo took testimony on whether state police should be ordered to make public all the records they have in their possession on a June 6 ICE raid in New Haven in which 29 people were arrested on immigration violations. Lawyers representing two advocacy groups are seeking the state police records to determine whether ICE acted unconstitutionally by entering homes without consent or civil warrants or by racially profiling those arrested.
At the hearing, several partially redacted emails were released to the lawyers, including an Apr. 30 email from an ICE employee to state police detective Carmine Verno about an ICE operation planned for May 2 in New Haven. "I know you guys usually work nights, but if you're interested we'd love to have you! We have 18 addresses--so it should be a fun time!! Let me know if you guys can play!!" said the ICE official. "Sounds great!" Verno wrote back, saying he would run it by his bosses. The date was later pushed back to June 6; in the end, four state police officers participated. None of the emails referred to any suspected criminal activity by those targeted.
"It sounds like a bunch of cowboys decided to get a posse together, and the feds wanted to give the state police the opportunity to take part in the roundup," said Justin Cox, a student intern at Jerome N. Frank Legal Services. The law clinic is representing 21 of the 29 people arrested in the June 6 raid. [New Haven Register 10/31/07, 11/1/07]
*3. DOZENS SNARED IN QUEENS RAID
On Oct. 14, federal and local agents carried out a massive raid on Roosevelt Avenue, the main commercial strip of the heavily immigrant neighborhood of Jackson Heights in northern Queens, New York City. While the operation was supposedly targeting individuals accused of involvement in a fraudulent document ring, Spanish-language news reports cited witnesses saying that dozens of immigrants--possibly as many as 100--who had nothing to do with the fake IDs were also swept up in the raid. Witness Rodrigo Arce told the Spanish-language television news channel Telemundo that agents used plastic netting to trap people who were standing there talking or passing by. "They were asking people to show documents," he said. (Telemundo 47 10/16/07) Rosario Ruiz, an employee of a Colombian bakery, said she witnessed "more than 100 arrests." Ruiz confirmed that people who just happened to be walking on the crowded avenue that Sunday afternoon were among those arrested. According to Ruiz, "Of those arrested, and there were a lot, 80% were Mexicans who were passing by here." [El Diario La Prensa 10/16/07]
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the raid was part of an operation targeting suspects involved in the production and sale of fraudulent identity documents. Brown said an inter-agency taskforce was formed in October 2005 after the DA's Counter-Terrorism Unit received information from the Queens Gang Squad of the New York Police Department (NYPD) that fake government documents were being manufactured and sold on Roosevelt Avenue. Brown said the investigation led to the indictment of 41 people on various charges including enterprise corruption, forgery, conspiracy and criminal possession of forgery devices. Of the 41 people indicted, 20 were in custody, said Brown; the remainder were being sought. According to Brown, more than 40 suspects were arrested over the weekend, including the alleged ringleader; he did not say whether the other 20-plus arrestees--those not named in the indictment--were charged with anything. [WABC Eyewitness News (Queens) 10/16/07; Queens Tribune 10/20/07; Queens County District Attorney Press Release 10/16/07]
"Today's indictments are the result of a two-year investigation that included months of court-authorized eavesdropping and video surveillance and thousands of intercepted telephone calls," Brown said in a press release. "During the investigation hundreds of arrests were made of those purchasing fraudulent documents and numerous search warrants were executed resulting in the closure of a number of fraudulent identification mills and the seizure of thousands of completed, semi-completed and blank forged government identification documents." [QCDA Press Release 10/16/07]
Brown said most of the suspects are undocumented residents from Mexico. NYPD Deputy Inspector Robert Boyce claimed that at least 12 of the 41 suspects indicted are members of the M-18, Surenos 13 or Vatos Locos gangs. [Queens Tribune 10/20/07] The investigation involved city and state police, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration and the state branch of the Secret Service. [Times Ledger (Queens) 10/18/07] Brown also "expressed his appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force and the US Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their assistance during the investigation," according to the press release.
Seventeen of the defendants named in the indictment were arraigned on Oct. 15 before Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter on charges of enterprise corruption, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, criminal possession of forgery devices and conspiracy. Two other defendants were arrested in Los Angeles, and a third was arrested in New Jersey. [QCDA Press Release 10/16/07]
*4. CHICAGO WORKERS ARRESTED IN RAID
On Oct. 31, ICE special agents arrested 23 immigrant workers at the Rock Run Business Park in Joliet, Illinois, just southwest of Chicago, as part of what ICE referred to as "an ongoing criminal worksite enforcement investigation." The 16 men and seven women were employed by ANNA II Inc., a staffing company which provides laborers to various warehouses in the Chicago area. They had been transported to the worksite in Joliet from the heavily Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen on Chicago's south side in three vans. The driver of a fourth van was taken into custody in Des Plaines, northwest of Chicago. ICE agents executed a criminal search warrant the same morning at ANNA II's main offices in Bensenville, Illinois. ICE initiated the investigation into ANNA II in April 2006.
One of those arrested was from the Dominican Republic; the others were from Mexico. All are currently being processed at ICE's Broadview facility and will face deportation proceedings for violating US immigration laws.
During fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, ICE arrested 863 individuals on criminal charges in worksite investigations, and administratively apprehended another 4,077 unauthorized workers on immigration violations. These arrests have increased significantly when compared to the 160 criminal arrests and 685 administrative arrests ICE made in fiscal year 2004. [ICE News Release 10/31/07]
*5. GEORGIA: 30 WORKERS ARRESTED NEAR FORT BENNING
On Oct. 30, ICE agents entered the worksite of the new National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Patriot Park, next to the army base at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, and checked the IDs of all workers. ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha said 27 Mexicans and three Guatemalans were arrested on immigration violations. All 30 were transported to the ICE detention center in Stewart County, said Rocha, and will be processed for deportation.
Cyndy Cerbin, a spokesperson for the National Infantry Foundation, a private group building the museum, referred all questions to contractor Batson-Cook Co. Eddie Sanders, on-site project manager for Batson-Cook, said his company is cooperating with ICE, and that the arrested workers were employed by a number of subcontractors on the site. "Batson-Cook follows all the federal and state laws on hiring of personnel," Sanders said. "We expect our subcontractors to follow those laws, as well."
The $85 million museum dedicated to infantry history will replace the current museum, which is in the middle of Fort Benning and is run by the army. Last Jan. 17, ICE arrested 24 unauthorized contract workers at the Fort Benning base as they arrived there to work on a barracks project [see INB 2/10/07]. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/1/07]
The latest raid comes just a few weeks before thousands of protesters descend on Fort Benning Nov. 16-18 to demand the closure of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. The institution was formerly known as the School of the Americas; the annual November protests are organized by School of the Americas Watch, a grassroots organization based in Washington.
*6. NY GOVERNOR ACCEPTS FEDERAL LICENSES
On Oct. 27, New York governor Eliot Spitzer joined Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in announcing that New York state will alter a plan Spitzer announced on Sept. 21 which would have allowed immigrants to get driver's licenses without having to provide a social security number or proof of legal residency [see INB 9/30/07]. Instead, New York will create a three-tiered license system: an enhanced license for residents of northern and western areas of the state which can be used instead of a passport to cross the border into Canada; a license which meets the new federal standards of the Real ID Act and will only be available to citizens or legal permanent residents; and a license available to anyone who does not want to pay the extra fee for a federally approved license or who cannot provide the necessary documents--including out-of-status immigrants. This third type of license will be marked with the phrase "not for US government purposes" and will not be valid for boarding airplanes. To get this category of license, applicants will have to present a valid passport from any country and proof that they reside in New York state. [Newsday 10/28/07; Washington Post 10/28/07 from AP]
"I don't endorse giving licenses to people who are not here legally," said Chertoff, "but federal law does allow states to make that choice." [WP 10/28/07 from AP] Spitzer said long, collegial conversations with Chertoff over several weeks led to the policy change. Spitzer said he has known Chertoff for more than 10 years, since he went to Harvard Law School with Chertoff's wife. [Newsday 10/29/07 from AP]
New York is the fourth state to agree to the secure licenses as established by the Real ID Act, after Arizona, Vermont and Washington-- all border states. New and tighter rules are soon to go into effect for border crossings. [WP 10/28/07 from AP] Real ID is expected to be phased in by 2013. After that, federal agencies that now allow standard state-issued licenses for identification will require the Real ID or other federally accepted identification, like a passport, for boarding a plane. [New York Times 10/28/07]
Immigrant advocates blasted the compromise deal. Spitzer's move "is a lose-lose political decision that betrays his most ardent supporters and emboldens the anti-immigrant opposition," said Chung-Wa Hong of the New York Immigration Coalition. "Public safety for all is not possible when we carve out a million people to be outside of the public safety rules or stigmatize them as second-class residents marked by a Scarlet Letter." (Newsday 10/28/07) "He's now embracing and letting his good name be used to promote something that has been widely known in the immigrant community as one of the most anti-immigrant pieces of legislation to come out of Congress," Hong added, referring to the Real ID Act. [NYT 10/28/07]
*7. VERMONT HOTELS RAIDED
On Oct. 23, more than 20 agents from ICE and the FBI raided the Quality Inn & Suites and the Hampton Inn in Brattleboro, Vermont, arresting 13 out-of-status workers. Ten of the workers were being detained pending removal hearings; three were released with orders to appear for immigration hearings at a later date. Federal agents were assisted in the raids by Brattleboro police and Windham County Sheriff deputies; Brattleboro police arrested a Brazilian national at one of the hotels for possession of amphetamines.
In addition to arresting the workers, federal agents arrested Canadian citizen Gurdeep Nagra, president of the Nanak Hotel Group, which owns the two hotels. Nagra was taken to US District Court in Burlington where he pleaded not guilty to charges of employing and harboring unauthorized immigrants and lying to authorities. According to an ICE news release, many workers at the hotels were "employed by a shell company created by Nagra to avoid detection by immigration officials." ICE says Nagra was arrested on immigration charges in 1992 when he was using the name Gurdeep Singh. He then apparently changed his name legally and applied for admission to the US under the new name. [Brattleboro Reformer 10/24/07; ICE News Release 10/23/07]
*8. MIGRANT DEATHS MARKED
In El Paso, Texas, about 30 activists marked Day of the Dead on Nov. 1 by hanging 450 white wooden crosses on the border fence along the American Canal, where at least 15 people drowned this year trying to enter the US. Some crosses held the names of dead migrants, while others were blank to represent those who have not been identified. The event was organized by the Border Network for Human Rights, an El Paso-based grassroots group that keeps track of migrant deaths. According to the Border Network, 371 migrants died this year on the US-Mexico border, including 25 in El Paso and New Mexico. Border Patrol officials in El Paso recorded 27 deaths in this sector.
Later in the evening on Nov. 1, community members gathered at the Chamizal National Memorial for a candlelight vigil in the memory of migrants who died. "This is the day that we mourn our dead and demand a change in the policies that caused those deaths," said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network. Garcia pointed out that migrant deaths increased after 1993, when new border policies forced migrants away from urban areas into more remote and riskier crossing areas. The crosses were scheduled to stay up until Nov. 3. [El Paso Times 11/1/07]
The Human Rights Coalition, an Arizona immigrant rights group, documented 237 deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border between Oct. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007. The figures exceed the previous fiscal year, when 205 bodies were recovered. The totals represent the number of deaths reported by coroners in Pima, Yuma and Cochise counties over the federal fiscal year. At least 51 of the migrants who died in Arizona were women. The Human Rights Coalition compiled the data with the help of Arizona authorities, multiple foreign consulates and the Binational Migration Institute. The Border Patrol reported 186 migrant deaths in Arizona through August of this year. [www.allheadlinenews.com 10/22/07]
*9. CALIFORNIA: IMMIGRANTS AFFECTED BY FIRES
Immigrant rights groups and the ACLU say authorities have created a climate of intimidation at evacuation centers set up to help people displaced by wildfires in southern California. As wildfires forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, more than 100 Border Patrol agents were deployed to help evacuate homes, operate checkpoints, guard against looters and assist at evacuation shelters. At an assistance center set up at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, a Border Patrol communications vehicle provided key logistics support and uniformed Border Patrol agents were visibly present. "Having people at evacuation sites in Border Patrol uniforms is asinine," said Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, an immigrant rights group. The ACLU and other rights groups say immigrants were subjected to racial profiling at Qualcomm and were abused by some volunteers who questioned their legal status. They have also said the city did not go out to migrant camps to tell people to evacuate. [Los Angeles Times 10/28/07]
On Oct. 24, San Diego police arrested an evacuated Mexican family as they tried to leave Qualcomm Stadium. The police handed seven family members--four adults with three children ages two, eight and 13--over to Border Patrol agents, who deported them that same evening. Footage of their arrest was replayed numerous times on local television stations.
According to the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which interviewed the family in Tijuana following their deportation, a volunteer at the evacuation center had called police, claiming that the family was taking more than their share of material aid. At least five police officers responded, aggressively questioned the family, and demanded to know their immigration status. Despite the San Diego Police Department's official policy of not collaborating with the federal immigration agency, officers called the Border Patrol after determining that the family was undocumented. All of the family's belongings--including things they had brought with them, such as the children's backpacks containing personal items--were taken back into Qualcomm Stadium and have not been returned to the family.
The seven members of the family were taken to a Border Patrol facility, where they were processed. From the time of their arrest around 8:30am until their deportation after 7pm, they were not provided with food. The Border Patrol failed to inform the family of their right to consular consultation and phone calls. Two Border Patrol agents insulted the family, calling them thieves and other derogatory names. Consular officials interviewed the family only after they had already signed for voluntary departure. The San Diego AFSC office is coordinating with the local ACLU office in investigating possible civil rights violations. [Update from Pedro Rios, AFSC, 10/26/07]
On Oct. 25 four migrants, two men and two women, were found apparently burned to death in the wildfires in a ravine off state Route 94 in southern San Diego County. Their bodies remain unidentified; authorities suspect they may have crossed into the US shortly before being trapped by the flames. Another 11 suspected undocumented immigrants are among 18 people who have suffered burns from the wildfires and are hospitalized at UCSD Medical Center's burn unit. [San Diego Union Tribune 10/31/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
**************************************************************************
Sunday, October 28, 2007
INB 10/28/07: Judge Halts SSA Crackdown, Raids Continue
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 26 - October 28, 2007
(Note: Immigration News Briefs did not publish for the past three weeks; the last issue was dated Sept. 30. Sorry for the lapse.)
1. Judge Halts Crackdown on Workers
2. Buffets Raided in Kentucky, Maryland
3. Over 1,300 Arrested in California
4. "Fugitive" Raids in Idaho, Kansas
5. New York Raids Challenged
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.
*1. JUDGE HALTS CRACKDOWN ON WORKERS
On Oct. 10, federal judge Charles R. Breyer of US District Court in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from launching a planned crackdown on workers whose social security numbers don't match the Social Security Administration (SSA) database [see INB 9/2/07]. At an earlier hearing on Oct. 1, a day after immigrant workers and their supporters demonstrated in front of San Francisco's federal building to protest the crackdown, Breyer had extended a temporary restraining order for 10 days. His Oct. 10 injunction blocks implementation of the plan until the court makes a final ruling in a lawsuit on its legality.
The crackdown, announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Aug. 10 with new rules originally set to take effect Sept. 14, involves mailing "no-match" letters to 140,000 US employers, warning them that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they fail to do so, employers could face stiff penalties, including fines and even criminal prosecution. The federal government has mailed out "no-match" letters since 1994, but in the past employers weren't required to take action and did not face liability.
The lawsuit against the plan was brought on Aug. 29 by the AFL-CIO and local labor organizations, who were joined on Sept. 11 by the US Chamber of Commerce and trade associations for the agriculture, restaurant and construction industries, and on Sept. 13 by UNITE HERE and the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The national American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), its Northern California chapter, the National Immigration Law Center and two private law firms are representing the plaintiffs. [Washington Post 10/11/07; Blog by Jennifer Chang of ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project 9/14/07; AFL-CIO, ACLU & NILC Press Releases 10/1/07, 10/10/07; David Bacon 9/30/07]
The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the SSA database includes so many errors that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized US citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies. "There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."
"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," wrote Breyer. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution... reflects a major change in DHS policy." Breyer also said that the government may have ignored a 1980 law, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, that requires it to weigh the cost of imposing new regulations that would significantly burden small-business owners.
Chertoff expressed disappointment with Breyer's injunction and said the administration will continue to aggressively enforce immigration laws while considering an appeal, which plaintiffs' attorneys said could take at least nine months. Judge Breyer was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
SSA database errors have also hampered DHS' efforts to promote the Basic Pilot Program (now known as E-Verify), a system it launched in 1996 which employers can use voluntarily to verify the social security numbers of new hires. A report provided to Congress showed that between June 2004 and May 2006, the program erroneously rejected 11% of foreign-born US citizens and 1.3% of authorized immigrant workers. That error rate led Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to sign state legislation in August barring Illinois companies from participating in the program until it is 99% accurate. [Washington Post 10/11/07]
*2. BUFFETS RAIDED IN KENTUCKY, MARYLAND
On Oct. 16, local police in Villa Hills, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, pulled over a van carrying immigrant workers to their jobs at the Empire Buffet in nearby Crescent Springs. After a passenger in the van allegedly admitted being an undocumented immigrant, police detained five of the van's eight passengers. The driver was cited for running a stop sign and released. Police then returned to the house where the workers lived, allegedly obtained consent to search there, and arrested another immigrant worker found sleeping. All six immigrants were handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Five men and one woman were in the custody of federal authorities on the night of Oct. 16, according to Villa Hills Police Chief Dan Goodenough. Three others were released when they provided proof of identity.
Police claimed they pulled over the van in a "routine traffic stop," but admitted they had been investigating the home for months. "We had complaints from neighbors due to the volume of people that were living in the property," said Villa Hills Police Detective Joe Schutzman. Schutzman said every room in the two-story home was used for people to sleep.
On Oct. 17, ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro said nine Empire Buffet workers were detained in the operation: five Mexican men, two Chinese women and two Chinese men. Montenegro said all nine were in the US without permission and would face removal proceedings. [Cincinnati Enquirer 10/17/07; WCPO.com 10/17/07; Cincinnati Post 10/19/07]
City officials say they are in the process of citing Chun Gond Shi, president of the company that operates the restaurant and owner of the home, and Wang Xiu Yun, who is also listed as an owner of the home, for about a dozen building code and city ordinance violations. Both Chun and Wang are naturalized US citizens. [CE 10/17/07]
Early on Sept. 27, ICE agents assisted by local law enforcement agencies raided the Mikayo Sushi and Seafood Buffet, the Panda Buffet and a private home in West Ocean City, Maryland, arresting six immigrant workers from Mexico and China. Following the raids, the restaurants were chained shut. In the nearby private community of Oyster Harbor, ICE officials also served a search warrant at a residence apparently belonging to Zhu Bo Hao, who owns the two restaurants. ICE spokesperson Ernestine Fobbs confirmed the arrests; she said the six workers were transported to the ICE regional office in Baltimore for processing and remain in custody. [Maryland Coast Dispatch 10/5/07]
It was the second federal raid in a week in Worcester County; on Sept. 20, ICE and FBI agents raided two convenience stores and a residence in Snow Hill as part of "Operation Cash-Out," an undercover sting targeting hawala (money transfer) businesses and involving at least 46 defendants in the US, Spain, Canada and Belgium facing bribery, money laundering and other charges. [Maryland Coast Dispatch 10/5/07; FBI Baltimore Office Press Release 9/20/07]
*3. OVER 1,300 ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA
In a two-week sweep that ended Oct. 2, ICE officers arrested 1,327 immigrants in five southern California counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura. A total of 530 people were arrested in their communities on immigration violations; ICE said 258 of them--less than half of the total--were "fugitives" who had failed to comply with deportation orders or who had reentered the US after being deported. ICE claimed that half of the 530 people arrested in the communities had criminal histories.
At the same five counties' jails ICE took custody of another 797 people it described as "previously unidentified deportable foreign nationals" who had been scheduled for release. Some of those arrested in the sweep were lawful permanent residents who were said to be deportable because of crimes they committed. Of the total 1,327 people arrested, about 1,100 were from Mexico, 170 were from Central America and others came from more than 25 countries including Armenia, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Peru and Vietnam. Nearly 600 of them had already been deported by Oct. 3. The US attorney's office plans to prosecute more than 45 of those arrested on felony charges of reentry after deportation. [Los Angeles Times 10/3/07; ICE News Release 10/3/07]
*4. "FUGITIVE" RAIDS IN IDAHO, KANSAS
ICE officers arrested at least 20 immigrants in Idaho's Wood River Valley region over the weekend of Sept. 15. ICE agents in unmarked sport-utility vehicles were seen conducting pre-dawn raids in Ketchum and Bellevue on Sept. 15. ICE officials declined to comment on the raid, but Blaine County Sheriff's Detective Steve Harkins said the federal agents were from a "special fugitive unit" out of Boise that was allegedly searching for immigrants with felony convictions. It was not clear whether any of the individuals arrested had convictions or were among those allegedly being sought, or if they were simply found to be without documents. Harkins said on Sept. 18 that he heard 21 people were arrested. Ketchum police spokesperson Kim Rogers said some of the detainees were Peruvian. The ACLU of Idaho is investigating to see if civil rights were violated in the raids. The sheriff's office and Ketchum police assigned officers as uniformed escorts during the raids. [Idaho Mountain Express (Ketchum) 9/19/07]
Between Oct. 20 and 24, ICE agents arrested 50 out-of-status immigrants in a sweep through the greater Kansas City area of Kansas and Missouri; 29 of the 50 had apparently failed to comply with deportation orders, while the other 21 were merely discovered during the raids and found to be out of status. Nine of those arrested had criminal convictions. ICE was assisted in the raids by local police in Kansas City, Independence, Grandview and Raytown, Missouri; and in Kansas City, Overland Park, Lenexa, Olathe, Shawnee and Topeka, Kansas. [Kansas City Star 10/25/07]
*5. NEW YORK RAIDS CHALLENGED
On Oct. 2, officials in Nassau County on New York's Long Island called for a federal investigation into an "anti-gang" sweep carried out by ICE Sept. 24-30 during which 186 immigrants were arrested in Nassau and neighboring Suffolk county [see INB 9/30/07]. Nassau officials said the vast majority of those arrested were not gang members and that local police were misled and endangered by the operation. Nassau County police commissioner Lawrence W. Mulvey noted that many US citizens and legal residents were rousted from bed and required to produce papers during the raids, and that all but 6 of the 96 administrative warrants issued by the immigration enforcement agency in the alleged search for gang members had wrong or outdated addresses. Peter J. Smith, an ICE special agent in charge of the operation, called the Nassau county officials' allegations "without merit."
"We didn't have warrants," said Smith. "We don't need warrants to make the arrests. These are illegal immigrants." Smith said that of the 186 people arrested in the two counties, 28 were identified as gang members (13 in Nassau and 15 in Suffolk) and 129 as "associates of gang members" (79 in Nassau and 50 in Suffolk). Asked how the agency defined "associates of gang members," Smith replied, "If you're hanging with gang members and you're eating with gang members, there's an affiliation there." Smith said 59 of those arrested had previous criminal convictions that might make them deportable. All 186 face deportation proceedings; apparently none face criminal charges. Suffolk County police commissioner Richard Dormer expressed complete support for the ICE raids. [New York Times 10/2/07, 10/3/07]
On Oct. 5, several families and individuals from Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester counties filed a request in US District Court in Manhattan for a temporary restraining order to prevent ICE from conducting further raids without court-issued search warrants. The plaintiffs are represented by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and a private law firm. The petition names 27 plaintiffs who are also listed in a class-action lawsuit filed Sept. 20, alleging that ICE raids in the three New York counties in February, March and September 2007 violated their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches by the government. [Newsday (Long Island)
10/6/07]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J.
Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Vol. 10, No. 26 - October 28, 2007
(Note: Immigration News Briefs did not publish for the past three weeks; the last issue was dated Sept. 30. Sorry for the lapse.)
1. Judge Halts Crackdown on Workers
2. Buffets Raided in Kentucky, Maryland
3. Over 1,300 Arrested in California
4. "Fugitive" Raids in Idaho, Kansas
5. New York Raids Challenged
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.
*1. JUDGE HALTS CRACKDOWN ON WORKERS
On Oct. 10, federal judge Charles R. Breyer of US District Court in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from launching a planned crackdown on workers whose social security numbers don't match the Social Security Administration (SSA) database [see INB 9/2/07]. At an earlier hearing on Oct. 1, a day after immigrant workers and their supporters demonstrated in front of San Francisco's federal building to protest the crackdown, Breyer had extended a temporary restraining order for 10 days. His Oct. 10 injunction blocks implementation of the plan until the court makes a final ruling in a lawsuit on its legality.
The crackdown, announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Aug. 10 with new rules originally set to take effect Sept. 14, involves mailing "no-match" letters to 140,000 US employers, warning them that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they fail to do so, employers could face stiff penalties, including fines and even criminal prosecution. The federal government has mailed out "no-match" letters since 1994, but in the past employers weren't required to take action and did not face liability.
The lawsuit against the plan was brought on Aug. 29 by the AFL-CIO and local labor organizations, who were joined on Sept. 11 by the US Chamber of Commerce and trade associations for the agriculture, restaurant and construction industries, and on Sept. 13 by UNITE HERE and the United Food and Commercial Workers union. The national American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), its Northern California chapter, the National Immigration Law Center and two private law firms are representing the plaintiffs. [Washington Post 10/11/07; Blog by Jennifer Chang of ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project 9/14/07; AFL-CIO, ACLU & NILC Press Releases 10/1/07, 10/10/07; David Bacon 9/30/07]
The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the SSA database includes so many errors that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized US citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies. "There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."
"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," wrote Breyer. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution... reflects a major change in DHS policy." Breyer also said that the government may have ignored a 1980 law, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, that requires it to weigh the cost of imposing new regulations that would significantly burden small-business owners.
Chertoff expressed disappointment with Breyer's injunction and said the administration will continue to aggressively enforce immigration laws while considering an appeal, which plaintiffs' attorneys said could take at least nine months. Judge Breyer was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
SSA database errors have also hampered DHS' efforts to promote the Basic Pilot Program (now known as E-Verify), a system it launched in 1996 which employers can use voluntarily to verify the social security numbers of new hires. A report provided to Congress showed that between June 2004 and May 2006, the program erroneously rejected 11% of foreign-born US citizens and 1.3% of authorized immigrant workers. That error rate led Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to sign state legislation in August barring Illinois companies from participating in the program until it is 99% accurate. [Washington Post 10/11/07]
*2. BUFFETS RAIDED IN KENTUCKY, MARYLAND
On Oct. 16, local police in Villa Hills, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, pulled over a van carrying immigrant workers to their jobs at the Empire Buffet in nearby Crescent Springs. After a passenger in the van allegedly admitted being an undocumented immigrant, police detained five of the van's eight passengers. The driver was cited for running a stop sign and released. Police then returned to the house where the workers lived, allegedly obtained consent to search there, and arrested another immigrant worker found sleeping. All six immigrants were handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Five men and one woman were in the custody of federal authorities on the night of Oct. 16, according to Villa Hills Police Chief Dan Goodenough. Three others were released when they provided proof of identity.
Police claimed they pulled over the van in a "routine traffic stop," but admitted they had been investigating the home for months. "We had complaints from neighbors due to the volume of people that were living in the property," said Villa Hills Police Detective Joe Schutzman. Schutzman said every room in the two-story home was used for people to sleep.
On Oct. 17, ICE spokesperson Gail Montenegro said nine Empire Buffet workers were detained in the operation: five Mexican men, two Chinese women and two Chinese men. Montenegro said all nine were in the US without permission and would face removal proceedings. [Cincinnati Enquirer 10/17/07; WCPO.com 10/17/07; Cincinnati Post 10/19/07]
City officials say they are in the process of citing Chun Gond Shi, president of the company that operates the restaurant and owner of the home, and Wang Xiu Yun, who is also listed as an owner of the home, for about a dozen building code and city ordinance violations. Both Chun and Wang are naturalized US citizens. [CE 10/17/07]
Early on Sept. 27, ICE agents assisted by local law enforcement agencies raided the Mikayo Sushi and Seafood Buffet, the Panda Buffet and a private home in West Ocean City, Maryland, arresting six immigrant workers from Mexico and China. Following the raids, the restaurants were chained shut. In the nearby private community of Oyster Harbor, ICE officials also served a search warrant at a residence apparently belonging to Zhu Bo Hao, who owns the two restaurants. ICE spokesperson Ernestine Fobbs confirmed the arrests; she said the six workers were transported to the ICE regional office in Baltimore for processing and remain in custody. [Maryland Coast Dispatch 10/5/07]
It was the second federal raid in a week in Worcester County; on Sept. 20, ICE and FBI agents raided two convenience stores and a residence in Snow Hill as part of "Operation Cash-Out," an undercover sting targeting hawala (money transfer) businesses and involving at least 46 defendants in the US, Spain, Canada and Belgium facing bribery, money laundering and other charges. [Maryland Coast Dispatch 10/5/07; FBI Baltimore Office Press Release 9/20/07]
*3. OVER 1,300 ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA
In a two-week sweep that ended Oct. 2, ICE officers arrested 1,327 immigrants in five southern California counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura. A total of 530 people were arrested in their communities on immigration violations; ICE said 258 of them--less than half of the total--were "fugitives" who had failed to comply with deportation orders or who had reentered the US after being deported. ICE claimed that half of the 530 people arrested in the communities had criminal histories.
At the same five counties' jails ICE took custody of another 797 people it described as "previously unidentified deportable foreign nationals" who had been scheduled for release. Some of those arrested in the sweep were lawful permanent residents who were said to be deportable because of crimes they committed. Of the total 1,327 people arrested, about 1,100 were from Mexico, 170 were from Central America and others came from more than 25 countries including Armenia, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jordan, Peru and Vietnam. Nearly 600 of them had already been deported by Oct. 3. The US attorney's office plans to prosecute more than 45 of those arrested on felony charges of reentry after deportation. [Los Angeles Times 10/3/07; ICE News Release 10/3/07]
*4. "FUGITIVE" RAIDS IN IDAHO, KANSAS
ICE officers arrested at least 20 immigrants in Idaho's Wood River Valley region over the weekend of Sept. 15. ICE agents in unmarked sport-utility vehicles were seen conducting pre-dawn raids in Ketchum and Bellevue on Sept. 15. ICE officials declined to comment on the raid, but Blaine County Sheriff's Detective Steve Harkins said the federal agents were from a "special fugitive unit" out of Boise that was allegedly searching for immigrants with felony convictions. It was not clear whether any of the individuals arrested had convictions or were among those allegedly being sought, or if they were simply found to be without documents. Harkins said on Sept. 18 that he heard 21 people were arrested. Ketchum police spokesperson Kim Rogers said some of the detainees were Peruvian. The ACLU of Idaho is investigating to see if civil rights were violated in the raids. The sheriff's office and Ketchum police assigned officers as uniformed escorts during the raids. [Idaho Mountain Express (Ketchum) 9/19/07]
Between Oct. 20 and 24, ICE agents arrested 50 out-of-status immigrants in a sweep through the greater Kansas City area of Kansas and Missouri; 29 of the 50 had apparently failed to comply with deportation orders, while the other 21 were merely discovered during the raids and found to be out of status. Nine of those arrested had criminal convictions. ICE was assisted in the raids by local police in Kansas City, Independence, Grandview and Raytown, Missouri; and in Kansas City, Overland Park, Lenexa, Olathe, Shawnee and Topeka, Kansas. [Kansas City Star 10/25/07]
*5. NEW YORK RAIDS CHALLENGED
On Oct. 2, officials in Nassau County on New York's Long Island called for a federal investigation into an "anti-gang" sweep carried out by ICE Sept. 24-30 during which 186 immigrants were arrested in Nassau and neighboring Suffolk county [see INB 9/30/07]. Nassau officials said the vast majority of those arrested were not gang members and that local police were misled and endangered by the operation. Nassau County police commissioner Lawrence W. Mulvey noted that many US citizens and legal residents were rousted from bed and required to produce papers during the raids, and that all but 6 of the 96 administrative warrants issued by the immigration enforcement agency in the alleged search for gang members had wrong or outdated addresses. Peter J. Smith, an ICE special agent in charge of the operation, called the Nassau county officials' allegations "without merit."
"We didn't have warrants," said Smith. "We don't need warrants to make the arrests. These are illegal immigrants." Smith said that of the 186 people arrested in the two counties, 28 were identified as gang members (13 in Nassau and 15 in Suffolk) and 129 as "associates of gang members" (79 in Nassau and 50 in Suffolk). Asked how the agency defined "associates of gang members," Smith replied, "If you're hanging with gang members and you're eating with gang members, there's an affiliation there." Smith said 59 of those arrested had previous criminal convictions that might make them deportable. All 186 face deportation proceedings; apparently none face criminal charges. Suffolk County police commissioner Richard Dormer expressed complete support for the ICE raids. [New York Times 10/2/07, 10/3/07]
On Oct. 5, several families and individuals from Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester counties filed a request in US District Court in Manhattan for a temporary restraining order to prevent ICE from conducting further raids without court-issued search warrants. The plaintiffs are represented by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and a private law firm. The petition names 27 plaintiffs who are also listed in a class-action lawsuit filed Sept. 20, alleging that ICE raids in the three New York counties in February, March and September 2007 violated their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches by the government. [Newsday (Long Island)
10/6/07]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J.
Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
Sunday, September 30, 2007
INB 9/30/07: NY Licenses; McDonald's Raids; Texas Rally; LI Raids
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 25 - September 30, 2007
1. NY Expands Driver's License Access
2. Raids at McDonald's in Nevada
3. Texas: 2,000 Rally Against Deportation
4. Long Island Raids Protested
5. Arizona Sheriff Raids Day Labor Sites
6. Farm Labor Contractor Fined
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.
*1. NY EXPANDS DRIVER'S LICENSE ACCESS
On Sept. 21, New York governor Eliot Spitzer announced new rules under which the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will issue driver's licenses without regard to federal immigration status. The new rules reverse a policy change adopted four years ago under governor George Pataki that made it virtually impossible for immigrants to obtain driver's licenses if they could not prove legal status. Under the new rules, the DMV will accept a current foreign passport as proof of identity without also requiring federal immigration documents. The policy does not require legislative approval and will be phased in starting in December. It will be tied to new antifraud measures including the authentication of foreign passports and the use of photo comparison technology to ensure that no driver has more than one license. The State Department of Insurance estimates that the new rules will save New York drivers $120 million each year by reducing premium costs associated with uninsured motorists by 34%.
Implementation of the new policy is to start at the end of 2007 with a relicensing process for some 152,000 residents who have had New York state licenses but couldn't renew them under the Pataki rules, said motor vehicles commissioner David J. Swarts. A second phase, to begin in April, will allow people to seek first-time licenses. This phase will involve more rigorous screening, Swarts said, including a four- to six-week process of authenticating foreign passports and other foreign identity documents. [New York Times 9/22/07]
*2. RAIDS AT MCDONALD'S IN NEVADA
Early on Sept. 27, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested at least 56 people in raids at 11 McDonald's restaurants in the northern Nevada towns of Reno, Sparks and Fernley. "They are people suspected of being in the country illegally," said ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha. "As far as I know, they were all McDonald's employees." In Reno ICE also raided the franchise corporate headquarters for Sierra Golden Arches, which operates the restaurants. The agents had search warrants for all the raided sites. The franchise company is owned by Luther Mack, who told News 4 that "as an employer, I do not knowingly hire or employ undocumented or unauthorized
workers." Lisa Howard, a spokesperson for McDonald's Corp., said the company had no comment on the arrests. "This is a local situation with a local operator," she said.
Rocha said the investigation into the restaurants began five months ago and was sparked by an identity theft complaint. A local law enforcement agency then gave ICE information that unauthorized workers were employed at specific McDonald's restaurants, Rocha said. ICE was working with Washoe County social services to help provide care for children whose parents were arrested in the raids, Rocha said. The workers arrested would be transferred to an unidentified local detention center to await deportation proceedings, Rocha said.
The raids drew immediate criticism from Reno mayor Bob Cashell and local immigrant rights activists, who estimated the number of people arrested to be closer to 100. The Republican mayor joined a news conference in front of the federal courthouse late on Sept. 27, called by local Latino leaders and members of the American Civil Liberties Union. "We don't approve of the Gestapo methods ICE is using," said Gilbert Cortez, a Latino leader who urged area residents to stay home from work in protest the next day, Sept. 28.
Cashell said he opposed the strike call and is against "illegal immigration," but "there has to be a better way to do this." He said he would contact Nevada's congressional delegation and ask the city council to look into the raids. "Think of some of the people who were arrested and picked up; they have children. They don't know where their mama or their daddy is. That's not right." [AP 9/28/07; KRNV.com 9/28/07]
*3. TEXAS: 2,000 RALLY AGAINST DEPORTATION
On Sept. 26, some 2,000 people rallied at City Hall in Irving, Texas, a suburb west of Dallas, to demand that Irving officials stop handing over people held at the city's jail to immigration authorities. Demonstrators waved US flags and chanted "We are America."
Irving police have turned over at least 1,600 people to ICE since June 2006 under the"Criminal Alien Program," which targets immigrants accused of crimes. Opponents of the program say the Irving police engage in racial profiling; that people stopped for minor traffic infractions are being handed over to ICE; and that the policy has made local residents fear contacting police. The week of Sept. 17, Mexican Consul Enrique Hubbard Urrea warned immigrants from his country to avoid Irving. Community leader Carlos Quintanilla said he would organize a boycott of Irving businesses if the city persisted in the policy.
A few counter-demonstrators carried signs in support of the deportation program. Two counter-demonstrators were arrested for attacking protesters at the rally; police said Jerry Don Grayson put his hands around a demonstrator's neck and Teresa Williams scratched at other protesters. They each face a misdemeanor assault charge and were out on bond on Sept. 27. [Dallas Morning News 9/27/07; AP 9/27/07]
*4. LONG ISLAND RAIDS PROTESTED
ICE agents raided homes on Sept. 24 in the Nassau County towns of Westbury, Glen Cove, Hicksville and Port Washington on New York's Long Island, with support from two sergeants and six officers of the Nassau County police. On Sept. 26, ICE raided homes in Freeport and Hempstead, assisted by four Nassau County police officers. A total of 82 immigrants were arrested in the raids.
On Sept. 27, at least 50 immigrants and immigration advocates gathered in Hempstead to protest the raids that took place in Latino communities in the towns of Hempstead, Westbury, Brentwood and Central Islip. "We cannot continue terrorizing families and breaking families apart," said Omar Henriquez, board president of the Hempstead-based Workplace Project.
Also on Sept. 27, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey complained that his department had been "misled" by ICE about the nature of the raids. ICE had asked Nassau police to be present during the execution of arrest warrants for Nassau County residents who were affiliated with gangs, Mulvey said. The Nassau County police department had repeatedly asked ICE to share a list of suspected gang members targeted with arrest warrants, Mulvey said, but the request was only granted on Sept. 27-- four days after the raids started. "We had asked for a list of the targets on the warrants because we have a very accurate and up-to-date database on gangs in Nassau County," Mulvey said. "It was promised and not delivered." According to Mulvey, the ICE agents appeared to have outdated intelligence on where some of the suspects were located.
Only three of those picked up in the raids were suspected gang members, said Mulvey. It was not clear whether the three were named in the warrants; Mulvey had earlier stated that none of those arrested were named in the warrants. Most or all of those arrested were out-of-status immigrants discovered at the raided homes--including a father who was caring for his four-month-old daughter while his wife was at work. The man was forced to leave the baby unattended when ICE arrested him on Sept. 24 in Westbury, his wife said at the Sept. 27 press conference criticizing the raids.
Mulvey said that if he thought the goal of ICE had been to arrest undocumented immigrants, the department would not have assisted. The presence of police during the raids erodes the trust developed between police and the community, which is crucial to getting victims and witnesses to cooperate in investigations, Mulvey noted. "This sets us back," he said. "We suffer the consequences of the mistrust that develops." Mulvey also said the ICE agents who took part in the operations appeared to have come from various locations across the country and didn't even wear the same uniforms.
"We withdrew from any involvement in any further operations,"Mulvey said. "There will be no future cooperation unless these issues are ironed out." [Newsday 9/28/07; AP 9/28/07]
*5. ARIZONA SHERIFF RAIDS DAY LABOR SITES
Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies arrested nine day laborers on Sept. 27 near the Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church in the town of Cave Creek, Arizona, north of Phoenix. For more than six years the church has been a safe haven for laborers looking for work. Sheriff Joe Arpaio ordered the arrests after the town passed two new ordinances on Sept. 24 targeting day laborers: one toughens the town's ban on loitering; the other prohibits cars from stopping on town streets. The new laws are set to take effect on Oct. 24. Arpaio praised the new regulations, but said: "We're not waiting for the 30 days for these ordinances to be implemented."
In the Sept. 27 arrests, agents from Arpaio's Illegal Immigration Interdiction ("Triple I") Unit stopped two vehicles as they exited the church's parking lot, one for speeding and the other for a broken taillight, Arpaio said. The drivers were given warnings; the day laborers riding in the vehicles were arrested. No citations were issued. "The drivers were legal, but the passengers were illegal," said Arpaio. "We've been doing this all over the Valley." [Arizona Republic (Phoenix) 9/28/07; KPHO (Phoenix) 9/28/07]
On Sept. 25, Arpaio announced that his deputies had arrested 34 out-of-status immigrants that day in Maricopa County's West Valley area. "We're up to over 730 that we have arrested under that state law that nobody else is enforcing," Arpaio bragged, referring to a 2005 Arizona law that makes smuggling people a felony. Arpaio claimed that he's getting a 90% conviction rate. "And my message to all these illegals--stay out of this county," he said. [KTAR News (Phoenix) 9/25/07] Maricopa County sheriff's deputies have been trained by ICE to enforce immigration laws; in addition to arresting immigrants under state laws, they have detained more than 4,200 people under federal immigration laws. [KPHO 9/28/07]
On Sept. 20, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas signed an agreement with Arpaio to cooperate in enforcing a new state law that will impose sanctions on employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented immigrants. Thomas said he chose to partner with Arpaio's office because of its "track record of enforcing our immigration laws and not caving in to political correctness." Thomas will assign up to $1 million of the $1.4 million budget that the legislature gave him to enforce the new law to pay for the Sheriff's Office investigations. [Arizona Republic 9/21/07]
*6. FARM LABOR CONTRACTOR FINED
On Sept. 27, following a two-week trial and five days of deliberations, a federal jury in US District Court in Yakima, Washington, ordered the Los Angeles-based international labor contractor Global Horizons to pay $317,000 in damages for violating federal labor laws and discriminating against workers. The amount includes $17,000 in compensatory damages to three farmworkers and $300,000 in punitive damages to hundreds of workers.
The award comes in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 by Columbia Legal Services of Yakima, seeking damages of $1.6 million on behalf of about 600 farm workers who worked for Global Horizons in 2005 and other workers the company declined to hire. The jury found the contractor violated the federal Farm Labor Contractors Act by failing to provide the jobs promised to the workers, and discriminated by failing to hire the workers or by firing them and replacing them with "guest workers" under the federal H2A program. Workers said their jobs were given to "guest workers" from Thailand.
"This is a victory for farm workers everywhere who have been harmed by the unlawful practices of Global Horizons," said Lori Isley of Columbia Legal Services. Liability for Green Acre Farms of Harrah and Valley Fruit Orchard of Wapato, local growers who used workers supplied by Global Horizons, will be determined in a later hearing by Judge Robert Whaley. [Yakima Herald 9/28/07]
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END
Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)
**************************************************************************
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
**************************************************************************
Vol. 10, No. 25 - September 30, 2007
1. NY Expands Driver's License Access
2. Raids at McDonald's in Nevada
3. Texas: 2,000 Rally Against Deportation
4. Long Island Raids Protested
5. Arizona Sheriff Raids Day Labor Sites
6. Farm Labor Contractor Fined
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.
*1. NY EXPANDS DRIVER'S LICENSE ACCESS
On Sept. 21, New York governor Eliot Spitzer announced new rules under which the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will issue driver's licenses without regard to federal immigration status. The new rules reverse a policy change adopted four years ago under governor George Pataki that made it virtually impossible for immigrants to obtain driver's licenses if they could not prove legal status. Under the new rules, the DMV will accept a current foreign passport as proof of identity without also requiring federal immigration documents. The policy does not require legislative approval and will be phased in starting in December. It will be tied to new antifraud measures including the authentication of foreign passports and the use of photo comparison technology to ensure that no driver has more than one license. The State Department of Insurance estimates that the new rules will save New York drivers $120 million each year by reducing premium costs associated with uninsured motorists by 34%.
Implementation of the new policy is to start at the end of 2007 with a relicensing process for some 152,000 residents who have had New York state licenses but couldn't renew them under the Pataki rules, said motor vehicles commissioner David J. Swarts. A second phase, to begin in April, will allow people to seek first-time licenses. This phase will involve more rigorous screening, Swarts said, including a four- to six-week process of authenticating foreign passports and other foreign identity documents. [New York Times 9/22/07]
*2. RAIDS AT MCDONALD'S IN NEVADA
Early on Sept. 27, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested at least 56 people in raids at 11 McDonald's restaurants in the northern Nevada towns of Reno, Sparks and Fernley. "They are people suspected of being in the country illegally," said ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha. "As far as I know, they were all McDonald's employees." In Reno ICE also raided the franchise corporate headquarters for Sierra Golden Arches, which operates the restaurants. The agents had search warrants for all the raided sites. The franchise company is owned by Luther Mack, who told News 4 that "as an employer, I do not knowingly hire or employ undocumented or unauthorized
workers." Lisa Howard, a spokesperson for McDonald's Corp., said the company had no comment on the arrests. "This is a local situation with a local operator," she said.
Rocha said the investigation into the restaurants began five months ago and was sparked by an identity theft complaint. A local law enforcement agency then gave ICE information that unauthorized workers were employed at specific McDonald's restaurants, Rocha said. ICE was working with Washoe County social services to help provide care for children whose parents were arrested in the raids, Rocha said. The workers arrested would be transferred to an unidentified local detention center to await deportation proceedings, Rocha said.
The raids drew immediate criticism from Reno mayor Bob Cashell and local immigrant rights activists, who estimated the number of people arrested to be closer to 100. The Republican mayor joined a news conference in front of the federal courthouse late on Sept. 27, called by local Latino leaders and members of the American Civil Liberties Union. "We don't approve of the Gestapo methods ICE is using," said Gilbert Cortez, a Latino leader who urged area residents to stay home from work in protest the next day, Sept. 28.
Cashell said he opposed the strike call and is against "illegal immigration," but "there has to be a better way to do this." He said he would contact Nevada's congressional delegation and ask the city council to look into the raids. "Think of some of the people who were arrested and picked up; they have children. They don't know where their mama or their daddy is. That's not right." [AP 9/28/07; KRNV.com 9/28/07]
*3. TEXAS: 2,000 RALLY AGAINST DEPORTATION
On Sept. 26, some 2,000 people rallied at City Hall in Irving, Texas, a suburb west of Dallas, to demand that Irving officials stop handing over people held at the city's jail to immigration authorities. Demonstrators waved US flags and chanted "We are America."
Irving police have turned over at least 1,600 people to ICE since June 2006 under the"Criminal Alien Program," which targets immigrants accused of crimes. Opponents of the program say the Irving police engage in racial profiling; that people stopped for minor traffic infractions are being handed over to ICE; and that the policy has made local residents fear contacting police. The week of Sept. 17, Mexican Consul Enrique Hubbard Urrea warned immigrants from his country to avoid Irving. Community leader Carlos Quintanilla said he would organize a boycott of Irving businesses if the city persisted in the policy.
A few counter-demonstrators carried signs in support of the deportation program. Two counter-demonstrators were arrested for attacking protesters at the rally; police said Jerry Don Grayson put his hands around a demonstrator's neck and Teresa Williams scratched at other protesters. They each face a misdemeanor assault charge and were out on bond on Sept. 27. [Dallas Morning News 9/27/07; AP 9/27/07]
*4. LONG ISLAND RAIDS PROTESTED
ICE agents raided homes on Sept. 24 in the Nassau County towns of Westbury, Glen Cove, Hicksville and Port Washington on New York's Long Island, with support from two sergeants and six officers of the Nassau County police. On Sept. 26, ICE raided homes in Freeport and Hempstead, assisted by four Nassau County police officers. A total of 82 immigrants were arrested in the raids.
On Sept. 27, at least 50 immigrants and immigration advocates gathered in Hempstead to protest the raids that took place in Latino communities in the towns of Hempstead, Westbury, Brentwood and Central Islip. "We cannot continue terrorizing families and breaking families apart," said Omar Henriquez, board president of the Hempstead-based Workplace Project.
Also on Sept. 27, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey complained that his department had been "misled" by ICE about the nature of the raids. ICE had asked Nassau police to be present during the execution of arrest warrants for Nassau County residents who were affiliated with gangs, Mulvey said. The Nassau County police department had repeatedly asked ICE to share a list of suspected gang members targeted with arrest warrants, Mulvey said, but the request was only granted on Sept. 27-- four days after the raids started. "We had asked for a list of the targets on the warrants because we have a very accurate and up-to-date database on gangs in Nassau County," Mulvey said. "It was promised and not delivered." According to Mulvey, the ICE agents appeared to have outdated intelligence on where some of the suspects were located.
Only three of those picked up in the raids were suspected gang members, said Mulvey. It was not clear whether the three were named in the warrants; Mulvey had earlier stated that none of those arrested were named in the warrants. Most or all of those arrested were out-of-status immigrants discovered at the raided homes--including a father who was caring for his four-month-old daughter while his wife was at work. The man was forced to leave the baby unattended when ICE arrested him on Sept. 24 in Westbury, his wife said at the Sept. 27 press conference criticizing the raids.
Mulvey said that if he thought the goal of ICE had been to arrest undocumented immigrants, the department would not have assisted. The presence of police during the raids erodes the trust developed between police and the community, which is crucial to getting victims and witnesses to cooperate in investigations, Mulvey noted. "This sets us back," he said. "We suffer the consequences of the mistrust that develops." Mulvey also said the ICE agents who took part in the operations appeared to have come from various locations across the country and didn't even wear the same uniforms.
"We withdrew from any involvement in any further operations,"Mulvey said. "There will be no future cooperation unless these issues are ironed out." [Newsday 9/28/07; AP 9/28/07]
*5. ARIZONA SHERIFF RAIDS DAY LABOR SITES
Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies arrested nine day laborers on Sept. 27 near the Good Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church in the town of Cave Creek, Arizona, north of Phoenix. For more than six years the church has been a safe haven for laborers looking for work. Sheriff Joe Arpaio ordered the arrests after the town passed two new ordinances on Sept. 24 targeting day laborers: one toughens the town's ban on loitering; the other prohibits cars from stopping on town streets. The new laws are set to take effect on Oct. 24. Arpaio praised the new regulations, but said: "We're not waiting for the 30 days for these ordinances to be implemented."
In the Sept. 27 arrests, agents from Arpaio's Illegal Immigration Interdiction ("Triple I") Unit stopped two vehicles as they exited the church's parking lot, one for speeding and the other for a broken taillight, Arpaio said. The drivers were given warnings; the day laborers riding in the vehicles were arrested. No citations were issued. "The drivers were legal, but the passengers were illegal," said Arpaio. "We've been doing this all over the Valley." [Arizona Republic (Phoenix) 9/28/07; KPHO (Phoenix) 9/28/07]
On Sept. 25, Arpaio announced that his deputies had arrested 34 out-of-status immigrants that day in Maricopa County's West Valley area. "We're up to over 730 that we have arrested under that state law that nobody else is enforcing," Arpaio bragged, referring to a 2005 Arizona law that makes smuggling people a felony. Arpaio claimed that he's getting a 90% conviction rate. "And my message to all these illegals--stay out of this county," he said. [KTAR News (Phoenix) 9/25/07] Maricopa County sheriff's deputies have been trained by ICE to enforce immigration laws; in addition to arresting immigrants under state laws, they have detained more than 4,200 people under federal immigration laws. [KPHO 9/28/07]
On Sept. 20, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas signed an agreement with Arpaio to cooperate in enforcing a new state law that will impose sanctions on employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented immigrants. Thomas said he chose to partner with Arpaio's office because of its "track record of enforcing our immigration laws and not caving in to political correctness." Thomas will assign up to $1 million of the $1.4 million budget that the legislature gave him to enforce the new law to pay for the Sheriff's Office investigations. [Arizona Republic 9/21/07]
*6. FARM LABOR CONTRACTOR FINED
On Sept. 27, following a two-week trial and five days of deliberations, a federal jury in US District Court in Yakima, Washington, ordered the Los Angeles-based international labor contractor Global Horizons to pay $317,000 in damages for violating federal labor laws and discriminating against workers. The amount includes $17,000 in compensatory damages to three farmworkers and $300,000 in punitive damages to hundreds of workers.
The award comes in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 by Columbia Legal Services of Yakima, seeking damages of $1.6 million on behalf of about 600 farm workers who worked for Global Horizons in 2005 and other workers the company declined to hire. The jury found the contractor violated the federal Farm Labor Contractors Act by failing to provide the jobs promised to the workers, and discriminated by failing to hire the workers or by firing them and replacing them with "guest workers" under the federal H2A program. Workers said their jobs were given to "guest workers" from Thailand.
"This is a victory for farm workers everywhere who have been harmed by the unlawful practices of Global Horizons," said Lori Isley of Columbia Legal Services. Liability for Green Acre Farms of Harrah and Valley Fruit Orchard of Wapato, local growers who used workers supplied by Global Horizons, will be determined in a later hearing by Judge Robert Whaley. [Yakima Herald 9/28/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
**************************************************************************
Sunday, September 23, 2007
INB 9/23/07: Marchers Rally at Georgia Prison; No-Match Protest
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 24 - September 23, 2007
1. Marchers Rally at Georgia Prison
2. Arrests at Texas Military Base
3. Illinois Workers Fired Over No-Match
4. Border Agency Arrests 202 in Alabama
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.
*1. MARCHERS RALLY AT GEORGIA PRISON
On Sept. 15, some 100 people rallied outside the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, a privately-run immigration prison, to protest the treatment of detainees. The rally culminated a week-long 105-mile march through six counties, organized by the Prison & Jail Project, a 15-year-old civil rights and prisoner rights advocacy group based in Americus, Georgia. The group's annual "Freedom Walk"--now in its 12th year--highlights racial and social inequities in the criminal justice system in rural southwest Georgia.
About eight people from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Atlanta Minuteman Project held a counter-demonstration with banners reading: "Enforce our existing laws" and "Secure our borders."
The Stewart Detention Center is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company, under contract for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It opened in October 2006 and with about 500 employees it has become the largest employer in Stewart County, one of the poorest counties in Georgia.
"This is a for-profit prison. Is America about turning prisoners into commodities?" asked Anton Flores, a leader of the faith-based Alterna community, which co-sponsored the Lumpkin protest. The groups also pointed out that the prison's remote location makes it difficult for attorneys or family members to visit detainees. Flores said he planned to visit detainees from El Salvador and Colombia later in the day. "I will let them know that there are people who see them as people," he said. [Associated Press 9/15/07; WALB.com (Albany, GA) 9/13/07; Email Message from Anton Flores 9/18/07]
*2. ARRESTS AT TEXAS MILITARY BASE
On Sept. 14, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 12 construction workers at the Fort Bliss US Army post in El Paso County, Texas, for lacking proper work permits. The 12 were detained after Military Police and ICE agents interviewed 335 workers at a housing construction site at Fort Bliss and one at Biggs Army Airfield on the base.
Most of the workers were employed by four subcontractors for Balfour Beatty Construction, said Winn Maddrey, a Balfour Beatty spokesperson. The four companies were doing framing, drywall, rock-wall building and flooring at the sites. Maddrey said the subcontractors are required to provide documentation of workers' immigration status to Balfour Beatty, and it is the subcontractor's responsibility to verify the information. The prospective employee must present a copy of the form certifying his documentation and personal identification before he is issued a work badge, Maddrey said.
ICE agents will continue an investigation into the source of the false documentation, post officials said. Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said it will be up to the prime contractor for Fort Bliss housing to determine whether any action will be taken against the subcontractors. [El Paso Times 9/15/07]
*3. ILLINOIS WORKERS FIRED OVER NO-MATCH
On Sept. 19, eight Latino workers were fired from the Ballco Manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, apparently over allegedly mismatched Social Security numbers. The next day, Sept. 20, a number of other workers walked off the job at Ballco and joined their fired co-workers on a picket line outside the plant. Early on Sept. 21, 15 of the workers who protested the firings were also fired.
On Sept. 21, more than 20 workers formed two picket lines outside Ballco, carrying signs that read "Unfair Labor Practice Strike" and "Honk for Justice." The protesters said they had been called individually into a supervisor's office and told that the Social Security numbers they had provided did not match government records. "They just told me, 'There's a problem with your Social Security number, so we're going to have to fire you,'" said Arturo Lopez, a machine operator at the plant, which manufactures steel balls, valves and pipe fittings. Another machine operator, Gonzalo Bello, said: "They said if I ever fix the problem with my Social Security number that I can try to come back."
Marcos Samano, a supervisor at the plant, said he was initially told to stay at Ballco through the end of the year to train new employees, but he was fired after walking out to join other workers in the protest. Samano said he was confused about apparently being fired for not documenting his employment eligibility, although he had been working at the plant for eight years. Ballco declined to comment on the firings. [Chicago Tribune 9/22/07]
*4. BORDER AGENCY ARRESTS 202 IN ALABAMA
Between Sept. 2 and 14, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents arrested 202 out-of-status immigrants in Mobile County, Alabama, according to Ken Fuller, the agent in charge of the CBP station in Mobile. The two-week crackdown, dubbed "Operation Uniforce III," targeted migrants who were traveling through Alabama by vehicle after crossing into the US from Mexico. In announcing the arrests on Sept. 17, Fuller said that more important than the number of people arrested is the information gathered from those arrested, including when, how and where they crossed from Mexico into Texas. The Border Patrol, in partnership with other law enforcement agencies, plans to continue these operations in the future. [Press-Register (Mobile, AL) 9/7/07, 9/17/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
Vol. 10, No. 24 - September 23, 2007
1. Marchers Rally at Georgia Prison
2. Arrests at Texas Military Base
3. Illinois Workers Fired Over No-Match
4. Border Agency Arrests 202 in Alabama
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.
*1. MARCHERS RALLY AT GEORGIA PRISON
On Sept. 15, some 100 people rallied outside the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, a privately-run immigration prison, to protest the treatment of detainees. The rally culminated a week-long 105-mile march through six counties, organized by the Prison & Jail Project, a 15-year-old civil rights and prisoner rights advocacy group based in Americus, Georgia. The group's annual "Freedom Walk"--now in its 12th year--highlights racial and social inequities in the criminal justice system in rural southwest Georgia.
About eight people from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Atlanta Minuteman Project held a counter-demonstration with banners reading: "Enforce our existing laws" and "Secure our borders."
The Stewart Detention Center is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison company, under contract for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It opened in October 2006 and with about 500 employees it has become the largest employer in Stewart County, one of the poorest counties in Georgia.
"This is a for-profit prison. Is America about turning prisoners into commodities?" asked Anton Flores, a leader of the faith-based Alterna community, which co-sponsored the Lumpkin protest. The groups also pointed out that the prison's remote location makes it difficult for attorneys or family members to visit detainees. Flores said he planned to visit detainees from El Salvador and Colombia later in the day. "I will let them know that there are people who see them as people," he said. [Associated Press 9/15/07; WALB.com (Albany, GA) 9/13/07; Email Message from Anton Flores 9/18/07]
*2. ARRESTS AT TEXAS MILITARY BASE
On Sept. 14, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 12 construction workers at the Fort Bliss US Army post in El Paso County, Texas, for lacking proper work permits. The 12 were detained after Military Police and ICE agents interviewed 335 workers at a housing construction site at Fort Bliss and one at Biggs Army Airfield on the base.
Most of the workers were employed by four subcontractors for Balfour Beatty Construction, said Winn Maddrey, a Balfour Beatty spokesperson. The four companies were doing framing, drywall, rock-wall building and flooring at the sites. Maddrey said the subcontractors are required to provide documentation of workers' immigration status to Balfour Beatty, and it is the subcontractor's responsibility to verify the information. The prospective employee must present a copy of the form certifying his documentation and personal identification before he is issued a work badge, Maddrey said.
ICE agents will continue an investigation into the source of the false documentation, post officials said. Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said it will be up to the prime contractor for Fort Bliss housing to determine whether any action will be taken against the subcontractors. [El Paso Times 9/15/07]
*3. ILLINOIS WORKERS FIRED OVER NO-MATCH
On Sept. 19, eight Latino workers were fired from the Ballco Manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, apparently over allegedly mismatched Social Security numbers. The next day, Sept. 20, a number of other workers walked off the job at Ballco and joined their fired co-workers on a picket line outside the plant. Early on Sept. 21, 15 of the workers who protested the firings were also fired.
On Sept. 21, more than 20 workers formed two picket lines outside Ballco, carrying signs that read "Unfair Labor Practice Strike" and "Honk for Justice." The protesters said they had been called individually into a supervisor's office and told that the Social Security numbers they had provided did not match government records. "They just told me, 'There's a problem with your Social Security number, so we're going to have to fire you,'" said Arturo Lopez, a machine operator at the plant, which manufactures steel balls, valves and pipe fittings. Another machine operator, Gonzalo Bello, said: "They said if I ever fix the problem with my Social Security number that I can try to come back."
Marcos Samano, a supervisor at the plant, said he was initially told to stay at Ballco through the end of the year to train new employees, but he was fired after walking out to join other workers in the protest. Samano said he was confused about apparently being fired for not documenting his employment eligibility, although he had been working at the plant for eight years. Ballco declined to comment on the firings. [Chicago Tribune 9/22/07]
*4. BORDER AGENCY ARRESTS 202 IN ALABAMA
Between Sept. 2 and 14, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents arrested 202 out-of-status immigrants in Mobile County, Alabama, according to Ken Fuller, the agent in charge of the CBP station in Mobile. The two-week crackdown, dubbed "Operation Uniforce III," targeted migrants who were traveling through Alabama by vehicle after crossing into the US from Mexico. In announcing the arrests on Sept. 17, Fuller said that more important than the number of people arrested is the information gathered from those arrested, including when, how and where they crossed from Mexico into Texas. The Border Patrol, in partnership with other law enforcement agencies, plans to continue these operations in the future. [Press-Register (Mobile, AL) 9/7/07, 9/17/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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".)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
INB 9/16/07: Pro-Immigrant Rallies, More Raids
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 23 - September 16, 2007
1. Pro-Immigrant Rallies in DC, Wisconsin
2. Iowa: Egg Factory Raided Again
3. Nebraska: Tyson Workers Arrested
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.
*1. PRO-IMMIGRANT RALLIES IN DC, WISCONSIN
On Sept. 12, some 150 activists (according to the Chicago Tribune) marched through the House of Representatives' Rayburn Office Building, chanting for an end to deportation raids. The protesters had arrived in buses from Chicago, New York, Rhode Island and elsewhere. Capitol police arrested two Puerto Rican activists from Chicago following a tussle near the office door of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where demonstrators taped up a letter demanding she take action for immigrant rights. The two were charged with disorderly conduct and released. Pelosi was out of town.
The demonstration also included an afternoon prayer vigil on the National Mall. The Washington demonstration was originally planned to be led by Mexican activist Elvira Arellano, who left church sanctuary in Chicago in August to help mobilize for it. But Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles and deported on Aug. 19 [see INB 8/26/07]; on Sept. 12 she headed a separate demonstration near the US border in Tijuana, Mexico. Her 8-year-old son, Saul, was part of the Washington protest, joining other US-born children whose parents have been deported. [Chicago Tribune 9/13/07] Also attending were Chicago activist Emma Lozano, director of the Centro Sin Fronteras, who works closely with Elvira Arellano, and Reverend Walter Coleman, pastor of the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano lived in sanctuary from Aug. 15, 2006 to Aug. 15, 2007. [Womensenews.org 9/14/07]
The DC demonstration was one of more than a dozen protests taking place across the country on Sept. 12 in what organizers called a National Day of Action. About two dozen people rallied in Chicago. [Chicago Tribune 9/13/07] In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an estimated 2,000 people rallied in Mitchell Park to protest a new federal crackdown on workers who use invalid social security numbers. Many people skipped work or school to attend the protest, and participated in a "no shopping" boycott for immigrant rights. The rally was organized by Voces de la Frontera, a local immigrant rights group. [Marquette Tribune 9/13/07]
In Madison, Wisconsin, the Immigrant Workers Union staged a rally to raise awareness of their continuing struggle to change immigration laws and claim equal rights. IWU will continue leafleting and other actions in Madison throughout the next month, culminating in a march to the Capitol on Oct. 12. [Badger Herald 9/13/07]
Saul Arellano, Emma Lozano and Walter Coleman spoke at events in several other cities in the days leading up to Sept. 12, including a standing-room-only rally on Sept. 10 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Nueva Vida church. [People's Weekly World 9/13/07]
On Sept. 2, thousands of Latino immigrants and advocates from across the Washington, DC area marched and rallied at the Prince William County government center in Woodbridge, Virginia, to protest a strict new county law, passed July 10, that seeks to deny many public services to undocumented immigrants. Informal estimates placed turnout at 5,000 to 7,000. The event was organized by a group called Mexicans Without Borders, which also called a week-long boycott of county businesses that were not pro-immigrant or immigrant-owned. [AP 9/2/07; Washington Post 9/3/07]
*2. IOWA: EGG FACTORY RAIDED AGAIN
On Sept. 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 51 workers at the DeCoster egg processing plant near Clarion, Iowa, for being present in the US without permission. Deportation hearings will be held the week of Sept. 17 in Omaha, Nebraska, officials said. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said 43 workers were from Mexico, four were from Guatemala, three from Honduras and one from El Salvador. Counts said all but two of the workers were detained in city and county jails in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and other nearby locations. A woman with child care issues and a juvenile were released and ordered to appear at their hearings.
No DeCoster management employees were arrested. Counts said the raid was a follow-up to a 2003 action against Austin "Jack" DeCoster, the company's owner, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Sioux City to two counts of aiding and abetting the continued employment of unauthorized workers and is serving five years' probation. As part of the plea bargain, DeCoster agreed to a five-year compliance program that allows ICE to access his company's personnel records on demand and acknowledges the agency's right to make unannounced inspections of his facilities. Agents have raided DeCoster's egg processing and packing plants at least four times since 2001, arresting about 100 workers in all. About 36 workers were arrested in the last raid in June 2006. [Des Moines Register 9/14/07; AP 9/14/07]
*3. NEBRASKA: TYSON WORKERS ARRESTED
On Sept. 11 and 12 in Lexington, Nebraska, ICE agents arrested 15 "immigration fugitives"--people who had failed to comply with prior deportation orders--and one additional immigrant who was found to be in the US without permission. All 16 were citizens of Guatemala or El Salvador. The arrests were made at homes and at five different businesses, including the Tyson meatpacking plant in Lexington. Earlier in the week, ICE agents visited Tyson's Lexington plant with questions about six workers, Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson told Meatingplace.com. During the Sept. 11-12 sweep, ICE arrested four workers at the Tyson plant who were among the six being sought. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts claimed the action was not a raid at the Tyson Foods facility. "These were all absconders who happened to be employees at Tyson," he said. [CattleNetwork.com 9/14/07 from Meatingplace.com; ICE News Release 9/13/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
**************************************************************************
Vol. 10, No. 23 - September 16, 2007
1. Pro-Immigrant Rallies in DC, Wisconsin
2. Iowa: Egg Factory Raided Again
3. Nebraska: Tyson Workers Arrested
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.
*1. PRO-IMMIGRANT RALLIES IN DC, WISCONSIN
On Sept. 12, some 150 activists (according to the Chicago Tribune) marched through the House of Representatives' Rayburn Office Building, chanting for an end to deportation raids. The protesters had arrived in buses from Chicago, New York, Rhode Island and elsewhere. Capitol police arrested two Puerto Rican activists from Chicago following a tussle near the office door of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where demonstrators taped up a letter demanding she take action for immigrant rights. The two were charged with disorderly conduct and released. Pelosi was out of town.
The demonstration also included an afternoon prayer vigil on the National Mall. The Washington demonstration was originally planned to be led by Mexican activist Elvira Arellano, who left church sanctuary in Chicago in August to help mobilize for it. But Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles and deported on Aug. 19 [see INB 8/26/07]; on Sept. 12 she headed a separate demonstration near the US border in Tijuana, Mexico. Her 8-year-old son, Saul, was part of the Washington protest, joining other US-born children whose parents have been deported. [Chicago Tribune 9/13/07] Also attending were Chicago activist Emma Lozano, director of the Centro Sin Fronteras, who works closely with Elvira Arellano, and Reverend Walter Coleman, pastor of the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano lived in sanctuary from Aug. 15, 2006 to Aug. 15, 2007. [Womensenews.org 9/14/07]
The DC demonstration was one of more than a dozen protests taking place across the country on Sept. 12 in what organizers called a National Day of Action. About two dozen people rallied in Chicago. [Chicago Tribune 9/13/07] In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an estimated 2,000 people rallied in Mitchell Park to protest a new federal crackdown on workers who use invalid social security numbers. Many people skipped work or school to attend the protest, and participated in a "no shopping" boycott for immigrant rights. The rally was organized by Voces de la Frontera, a local immigrant rights group. [Marquette Tribune 9/13/07]
In Madison, Wisconsin, the Immigrant Workers Union staged a rally to raise awareness of their continuing struggle to change immigration laws and claim equal rights. IWU will continue leafleting and other actions in Madison throughout the next month, culminating in a march to the Capitol on Oct. 12. [Badger Herald 9/13/07]
Saul Arellano, Emma Lozano and Walter Coleman spoke at events in several other cities in the days leading up to Sept. 12, including a standing-room-only rally on Sept. 10 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Nueva Vida church. [People's Weekly World 9/13/07]
On Sept. 2, thousands of Latino immigrants and advocates from across the Washington, DC area marched and rallied at the Prince William County government center in Woodbridge, Virginia, to protest a strict new county law, passed July 10, that seeks to deny many public services to undocumented immigrants. Informal estimates placed turnout at 5,000 to 7,000. The event was organized by a group called Mexicans Without Borders, which also called a week-long boycott of county businesses that were not pro-immigrant or immigrant-owned. [AP 9/2/07; Washington Post 9/3/07]
*2. IOWA: EGG FACTORY RAIDED AGAIN
On Sept. 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 51 workers at the DeCoster egg processing plant near Clarion, Iowa, for being present in the US without permission. Deportation hearings will be held the week of Sept. 17 in Omaha, Nebraska, officials said. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said 43 workers were from Mexico, four were from Guatemala, three from Honduras and one from El Salvador. Counts said all but two of the workers were detained in city and county jails in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and other nearby locations. A woman with child care issues and a juvenile were released and ordered to appear at their hearings.
No DeCoster management employees were arrested. Counts said the raid was a follow-up to a 2003 action against Austin "Jack" DeCoster, the company's owner, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Sioux City to two counts of aiding and abetting the continued employment of unauthorized workers and is serving five years' probation. As part of the plea bargain, DeCoster agreed to a five-year compliance program that allows ICE to access his company's personnel records on demand and acknowledges the agency's right to make unannounced inspections of his facilities. Agents have raided DeCoster's egg processing and packing plants at least four times since 2001, arresting about 100 workers in all. About 36 workers were arrested in the last raid in June 2006. [Des Moines Register 9/14/07; AP 9/14/07]
*3. NEBRASKA: TYSON WORKERS ARRESTED
On Sept. 11 and 12 in Lexington, Nebraska, ICE agents arrested 15 "immigration fugitives"--people who had failed to comply with prior deportation orders--and one additional immigrant who was found to be in the US without permission. All 16 were citizens of Guatemala or El Salvador. The arrests were made at homes and at five different businesses, including the Tyson meatpacking plant in Lexington. Earlier in the week, ICE agents visited Tyson's Lexington plant with questions about six workers, Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson told Meatingplace.com. During the Sept. 11-12 sweep, ICE arrested four workers at the Tyson plant who were among the six being sought. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts claimed the action was not a raid at the Tyson Foods facility. "These were all absconders who happened to be employees at Tyson," he said. [CattleNetwork.com 9/14/07 from Meatingplace.com; ICE News Release 9/13/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
**************************************************************************
Sunday, September 9, 2007
INB 9/9/07: Detainees on Hunger Strike, More Raids
Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 22 - September 9, 2007
1. AZ: Detainees on Hunger Strike
2. Nebraska: Lawncare Company Raided
3. Arrest Protested in Hartford
4. Florida: 195 Picked Up in Raids
5. "Anti-Gang" Raids in Boston Area
6. "Anti-Gang" Raids: Chicago, North Carolina, Oklahoma
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.
*1. AZ: DETAINEES ON HUNGER STRIKE
According to information confirmed by Raha Jorjani of the School of Law Clinical Programs at University of California, Davis, at least 30 immigration detainees have been refusing some or all meals at Pinal County Jail in Florence, Arizona. The hunger strikers are among some 60 detained immigrants who were transferred on or around Sept. 5 from the Florence Service Processing Center to the county jail, which has a new contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide bed space for immigration detainees.
The detainees say they were promised they wouldn't lose any rights or privileges in the transfer. But they were woken up in the early hours of the morning to be moved out of the Florence Service Processing Center and many were not allowed to gather their personal property, including legal documents relating to their cases. Since they arrived at the county jail they have apparently been on 23-hour lockdown in 2-person cells, and there is no outdoor recreation area. There have also been very serious complaints about food and water quality. In addition, Pinal County Jail only allows family visitation to take place through video conferencing; no contact visits are allowed. Some of the transferred detainees who are facing imminent removal had planned for what they expected to be their final contact visits with family before being deported. Now they will be unable to see their families. [Email message from Raha Jorjani, University of California, Davis School of Law Clinical Programs 9/7/07]
*2. NEBRASKA: LAWNCARE COMPANY RAIDED
On Sept. 6, ICE agents arrested 19 people who work for Cloudburst Lawn and Sprinkler in Grand Island, Nebraska. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said all 19 people were arrested on "administrative immigrations violations." Counts said those arrested were being processed in Grand Island and would be detained in the Phelps County Jail. He said preliminary indications are that 11 of the people arrested are from Mexico, six are from El Salvador and two are from Guatemala. [Grand Island Independent 9/7/07]
According to Counts, ICE agents had gone to Cloudburst intending to arrest company owner David L. Wortman, but Wortman wasn't there, and the search warrant gave the agents the right to question and arrest unauthorized workers who were present. On the afternoon of Sept. 7, a criminal complaint dated Sept. 4 was unsealed in US District Court in Nebraska accusing Wortman of knowingly hiring unauthorized immigrants and paying them in cash. Wortman turned himself in and was arraigned on Sept. 7 but did not enter a plea, US attorney Joe Stecher said. A preliminary hearing was set for Sept. 20. [AP 9/7/07]
The last major ICE raid in Grand Island was in December 2006, when 261 workers were arrested at the Swift plant there. Only one of the 261 workers faced criminal charges. ICE arrested four more Swift employees in Grand Island this past July. [Grand Island Independent 9/7/07]
*3. ARREST PROTESTED IN HARTFORD
On Aug. 24, 140 people rallied outside the immigration court in Hartford, Connecticut to demand the release of Said Zaim-Sassi, a Moroccan-born resident of Wallingford, Connecticut. Marchers wore T-shirts that said "Keep Families Together" and held up signs that called for a stop to immigration raids. Zaim-Sassi has been living in the US for 20 years; he worked for Metro-North, volunteered to help other immigrants and played soccer. His wife, Souhair Zaim-Sassi, is a Morocco-born US citizen; the couple has three US-born children, ages two, four and seven.
Said Zaim-Sassi had been seeking to remain legally in the US, but had lost a final round in court this past January. Immigration officials have alleged in court documents that his first marriage was a sham marriage to obtain citizenship.
After losing his final appeal in January, Said Zaim-Sassi told immigration he would surrender whenever they required it. Instead, immigration agents came to his home at 5:45am and arrested him in front of his family. "It was so horrible," recounted Souhair Zaim-Sassi. "I thought they were burglars. They came pounding on the door and said, 'Open the door or we will break the door down.' They were screaming and using profanities. They stripped the blankets off the beds."
"My sister asked for a warrant. They flashed her a piece of paper but wouldn't let her look at it. There was no need for them to do it this way. They took him away like an animal in front of his children," Souhair Zaim-Sassi said. [New Haven Register 8/25/07; WTNH News Channel 8 8/31/07]
Paula Grenier, ICE's spokesperson for New England, claimed otherwise: "We were granted consent to enter and when we got there the family was evasive as to his whereabouts. We found him hiding," she said. Souhair Zaim-Sassi rejected that statement: "He was in my bedroom asleep," she explained. According to Grenier, Said Zaim-Sassi is currently at a detention center in Rhode Island and will be transported back to Morocco under the court's decision.
Egyptian-born Khalil Iskarous of New Haven helped organize the demonstration. "I think the main reason for the recent (immigrant) arrests has been because immigrants are working together for immigrants' rights, but we are not going to be silent any longer." Iskarous said people who fear immigrant labor will drive down wages do not realize that better protections and wages for immigrants will raise wages for everyone. "When we've had amnesty, everybody's wages go up," he said. [New Haven Register 8/25/07]
On Aug. 31 protesters again marched in Hartford to demand freedom for Said Zaim-Sassi, and pressed Senator Joe Leiberman to intervene. Lieberman agreed to look into the case, but he raised concern about the alleged marriage fraud. "The question is whether within the law there's any element for mercy here," said Leiberman, "or if immigration service feels he committed a fraud... if they have to punish him to make a point." [WTNH News Channel 8 8/31/07]
*4. FLORIDA: 195 PICKED UP IN RAIDS
ICE announced on Aug. 29 that it had arrested 195 immigrants over the previous two weeks in the areas of Miami, Tampa and Orlando, Florida. According to ICE, "dozens" of those picked up in the sweep had criminal records, and 115 had failed to comply with deportation orders; the others were presumably merely out of status. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel 8/31/07]
*5. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS IN BOSTON AREA
On Aug. 28, 29 and 30, ICE agents swept through the greater Boston area, arresting 36 immigrants the agency claims are members or associates of the MS-13 street gang. ICE said the raids were part of ICE's national anti-gang initiative, Operation Community Shield, launched in 2005. Most of the arrests were made in Chelsea, East Boston, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville. Those arrested come from El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The Boston Globe cited Matthew Etre, deputy special agent in charge of ICE investigations in Boston, saying that 20 of the 36 immigrants arrested had criminal convictions, and another 14 were facing criminal charges or outstanding warrants. But ICE's own news release reported that of the 36 arrested, 27 had merely entered the US without inspection, four were lawful permanent residents with criminal convictions that make them subject to removal, two had re-entered the US after having been deported, two had final orders of removal from an immigration judge, and one was arrested on a state warrant. Etre said none of the detainees were charged criminally in connection with the raids. Two of those detained on civil immigration violations were minors who were released to their parents' custody. [ICE News Release 8/31/07; Boston Globe 9/1/07]
According to Etre, local authorities often partner with ICE to use the immigration status of alleged gang members as a way to get them out of the country. "When ICE gets involved, we're using our immigration and customs authorities to make an impact where maybe local law enforcement can't," Etre said. [BG 9/1/07]
In addition to the 36 people arrested in this operation, ICE said 23 other "gang members and associates" have been arrested by law enforcement agencies in conjunction with ICE since the beginning of August in the Boston area. ICE was assisted in the operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the US Attorney's Office, the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, Boston Police Department, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Police, Massachusetts State Police and the police departments of Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville. [ICE News Release 8/31/07]
*6. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS: CHICAGO, NORTH CAROLINA, OKLAHOMA
From Aug. 26 to 29, ICE agents arrested 58 Mexican men in Chicago's northern and northwest suburbs. According to ICE, those arrested have ties to "violent street gangs such as the Latin Kings, Sureno-13s, and the Latin Lovers, among others." Of the 58 people arrested, 37 are out-of-status immigrants and 21 are US permanent residents whose criminal convictions make them eligible for deportation. Six of those arrested had active warrants for their arrest and will be turned over to local authorities to face criminal charges. After those charges are resolved, they will be transferred back to ICE for deportation. Three of those arrested are being presented to the US Attorney's Office for federal prosecution for re-entering the US after having already been deported, which is a felony. The US Marshals Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force, Lake County Sheriff's Department, and the Waukegan and Mundelein police departments assisted ICE in the raids. [ICE News Release 8/30/07]
In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 7, ICE agents and officers from the Alamance County Sheriff's Office raided homes in the towns of Burlington and Graham and in rural areas of Alamance County, North Carolina, arresting at least 19 suspected members of Sureno 13 and other gangs. Officers had expected to arrest only 11 people, but at least seven more suspects turned up at homes in Burlington, according to sheriff's spokesperson Randy Jones. Three other people were arrested during the operation who had nothing to do with suspected gang activity, said Jones. No charges have been filed against any of those arrested.
The operation was spearheaded by the Alamance County Sheriff's Office, with support from North Carolina Probation and Parole and the Gibsonville Police Department. Sheriff Terry Johnson said all those arrested are Latinos, but he insisted that the arrests were focused on reducing gang activity, not targeting those present in the US without authorization. About six months ago, the Alamance County Sheriff's Office took on the 287(g) program, a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security that trains and authorizes local law officers to enforce federal immigration law. Before the latest arrests, the sheriff's Alamance County Gang Unit had processed 21 other alleged gang members for deportation. [News 14 Carolina (Raleigh) 9/7/07; Burlington Times News 9/7/07]
From Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, ICE agents acting in partnership with other federal and local law enforcement agencies arrested 65 people in a sweep targeting members of street gangs in the Oklahoma City area. Those arrested were from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq and Mexico. Three US citizens were arrested by local law enforcement agencies during the operation. ICE described 42 of those arrested as "known members of local street gangs"; 15 of those arrested had active warrants or were arrested on state charges. Some cases are being presented to the US Attorney's Office for federal prosecution for re-entering the US after having already been deported. Three immigrants with no previous criminal convictions who were picked up in the sweep were voluntarily returned to Mexico. Agencies participating in the operation included the US Attorney's Office, Western District of Oklahoma; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Oklahoma Highway Patrol; Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office; Oklahoma City Police Department; and Oklahoma Department of Corrections. [ICE News Release 9/4/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
****************************************************************************
Vol. 10, No. 22 - September 9, 2007
1. AZ: Detainees on Hunger Strike
2. Nebraska: Lawncare Company Raided
3. Arrest Protested in Hartford
4. Florida: 195 Picked Up in Raids
5. "Anti-Gang" Raids in Boston Area
6. "Anti-Gang" Raids: Chicago, North Carolina, Oklahoma
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.
*1. AZ: DETAINEES ON HUNGER STRIKE
According to information confirmed by Raha Jorjani of the School of Law Clinical Programs at University of California, Davis, at least 30 immigration detainees have been refusing some or all meals at Pinal County Jail in Florence, Arizona. The hunger strikers are among some 60 detained immigrants who were transferred on or around Sept. 5 from the Florence Service Processing Center to the county jail, which has a new contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide bed space for immigration detainees.
The detainees say they were promised they wouldn't lose any rights or privileges in the transfer. But they were woken up in the early hours of the morning to be moved out of the Florence Service Processing Center and many were not allowed to gather their personal property, including legal documents relating to their cases. Since they arrived at the county jail they have apparently been on 23-hour lockdown in 2-person cells, and there is no outdoor recreation area. There have also been very serious complaints about food and water quality. In addition, Pinal County Jail only allows family visitation to take place through video conferencing; no contact visits are allowed. Some of the transferred detainees who are facing imminent removal had planned for what they expected to be their final contact visits with family before being deported. Now they will be unable to see their families. [Email message from Raha Jorjani, University of California, Davis School of Law Clinical Programs 9/7/07]
*2. NEBRASKA: LAWNCARE COMPANY RAIDED
On Sept. 6, ICE agents arrested 19 people who work for Cloudburst Lawn and Sprinkler in Grand Island, Nebraska. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts said all 19 people were arrested on "administrative immigrations violations." Counts said those arrested were being processed in Grand Island and would be detained in the Phelps County Jail. He said preliminary indications are that 11 of the people arrested are from Mexico, six are from El Salvador and two are from Guatemala. [Grand Island Independent 9/7/07]
According to Counts, ICE agents had gone to Cloudburst intending to arrest company owner David L. Wortman, but Wortman wasn't there, and the search warrant gave the agents the right to question and arrest unauthorized workers who were present. On the afternoon of Sept. 7, a criminal complaint dated Sept. 4 was unsealed in US District Court in Nebraska accusing Wortman of knowingly hiring unauthorized immigrants and paying them in cash. Wortman turned himself in and was arraigned on Sept. 7 but did not enter a plea, US attorney Joe Stecher said. A preliminary hearing was set for Sept. 20. [AP 9/7/07]
The last major ICE raid in Grand Island was in December 2006, when 261 workers were arrested at the Swift plant there. Only one of the 261 workers faced criminal charges. ICE arrested four more Swift employees in Grand Island this past July. [Grand Island Independent 9/7/07]
*3. ARREST PROTESTED IN HARTFORD
On Aug. 24, 140 people rallied outside the immigration court in Hartford, Connecticut to demand the release of Said Zaim-Sassi, a Moroccan-born resident of Wallingford, Connecticut. Marchers wore T-shirts that said "Keep Families Together" and held up signs that called for a stop to immigration raids. Zaim-Sassi has been living in the US for 20 years; he worked for Metro-North, volunteered to help other immigrants and played soccer. His wife, Souhair Zaim-Sassi, is a Morocco-born US citizen; the couple has three US-born children, ages two, four and seven.
Said Zaim-Sassi had been seeking to remain legally in the US, but had lost a final round in court this past January. Immigration officials have alleged in court documents that his first marriage was a sham marriage to obtain citizenship.
After losing his final appeal in January, Said Zaim-Sassi told immigration he would surrender whenever they required it. Instead, immigration agents came to his home at 5:45am and arrested him in front of his family. "It was so horrible," recounted Souhair Zaim-Sassi. "I thought they were burglars. They came pounding on the door and said, 'Open the door or we will break the door down.' They were screaming and using profanities. They stripped the blankets off the beds."
"My sister asked for a warrant. They flashed her a piece of paper but wouldn't let her look at it. There was no need for them to do it this way. They took him away like an animal in front of his children," Souhair Zaim-Sassi said. [New Haven Register 8/25/07; WTNH News Channel 8 8/31/07]
Paula Grenier, ICE's spokesperson for New England, claimed otherwise: "We were granted consent to enter and when we got there the family was evasive as to his whereabouts. We found him hiding," she said. Souhair Zaim-Sassi rejected that statement: "He was in my bedroom asleep," she explained. According to Grenier, Said Zaim-Sassi is currently at a detention center in Rhode Island and will be transported back to Morocco under the court's decision.
Egyptian-born Khalil Iskarous of New Haven helped organize the demonstration. "I think the main reason for the recent (immigrant) arrests has been because immigrants are working together for immigrants' rights, but we are not going to be silent any longer." Iskarous said people who fear immigrant labor will drive down wages do not realize that better protections and wages for immigrants will raise wages for everyone. "When we've had amnesty, everybody's wages go up," he said. [New Haven Register 8/25/07]
On Aug. 31 protesters again marched in Hartford to demand freedom for Said Zaim-Sassi, and pressed Senator Joe Leiberman to intervene. Lieberman agreed to look into the case, but he raised concern about the alleged marriage fraud. "The question is whether within the law there's any element for mercy here," said Leiberman, "or if immigration service feels he committed a fraud... if they have to punish him to make a point." [WTNH News Channel 8 8/31/07]
*4. FLORIDA: 195 PICKED UP IN RAIDS
ICE announced on Aug. 29 that it had arrested 195 immigrants over the previous two weeks in the areas of Miami, Tampa and Orlando, Florida. According to ICE, "dozens" of those picked up in the sweep had criminal records, and 115 had failed to comply with deportation orders; the others were presumably merely out of status. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel 8/31/07]
*5. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS IN BOSTON AREA
On Aug. 28, 29 and 30, ICE agents swept through the greater Boston area, arresting 36 immigrants the agency claims are members or associates of the MS-13 street gang. ICE said the raids were part of ICE's national anti-gang initiative, Operation Community Shield, launched in 2005. Most of the arrests were made in Chelsea, East Boston, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville. Those arrested come from El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The Boston Globe cited Matthew Etre, deputy special agent in charge of ICE investigations in Boston, saying that 20 of the 36 immigrants arrested had criminal convictions, and another 14 were facing criminal charges or outstanding warrants. But ICE's own news release reported that of the 36 arrested, 27 had merely entered the US without inspection, four were lawful permanent residents with criminal convictions that make them subject to removal, two had re-entered the US after having been deported, two had final orders of removal from an immigration judge, and one was arrested on a state warrant. Etre said none of the detainees were charged criminally in connection with the raids. Two of those detained on civil immigration violations were minors who were released to their parents' custody. [ICE News Release 8/31/07; Boston Globe 9/1/07]
According to Etre, local authorities often partner with ICE to use the immigration status of alleged gang members as a way to get them out of the country. "When ICE gets involved, we're using our immigration and customs authorities to make an impact where maybe local law enforcement can't," Etre said. [BG 9/1/07]
In addition to the 36 people arrested in this operation, ICE said 23 other "gang members and associates" have been arrested by law enforcement agencies in conjunction with ICE since the beginning of August in the Boston area. ICE was assisted in the operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the US Attorney's Office, the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, Boston Police Department, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Police, Massachusetts State Police and the police departments of Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville. [ICE News Release 8/31/07]
*6. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS: CHICAGO, NORTH CAROLINA, OKLAHOMA
From Aug. 26 to 29, ICE agents arrested 58 Mexican men in Chicago's northern and northwest suburbs. According to ICE, those arrested have ties to "violent street gangs such as the Latin Kings, Sureno-13s, and the Latin Lovers, among others." Of the 58 people arrested, 37 are out-of-status immigrants and 21 are US permanent residents whose criminal convictions make them eligible for deportation. Six of those arrested had active warrants for their arrest and will be turned over to local authorities to face criminal charges. After those charges are resolved, they will be transferred back to ICE for deportation. Three of those arrested are being presented to the US Attorney's Office for federal prosecution for re-entering the US after having already been deported, which is a felony. The US Marshals Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force, Lake County Sheriff's Department, and the Waukegan and Mundelein police departments assisted ICE in the raids. [ICE News Release 8/30/07]
In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 7, ICE agents and officers from the Alamance County Sheriff's Office raided homes in the towns of Burlington and Graham and in rural areas of Alamance County, North Carolina, arresting at least 19 suspected members of Sureno 13 and other gangs. Officers had expected to arrest only 11 people, but at least seven more suspects turned up at homes in Burlington, according to sheriff's spokesperson Randy Jones. Three other people were arrested during the operation who had nothing to do with suspected gang activity, said Jones. No charges have been filed against any of those arrested.
The operation was spearheaded by the Alamance County Sheriff's Office, with support from North Carolina Probation and Parole and the Gibsonville Police Department. Sheriff Terry Johnson said all those arrested are Latinos, but he insisted that the arrests were focused on reducing gang activity, not targeting those present in the US without authorization. About six months ago, the Alamance County Sheriff's Office took on the 287(g) program, a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security that trains and authorizes local law officers to enforce federal immigration law. Before the latest arrests, the sheriff's Alamance County Gang Unit had processed 21 other alleged gang members for deportation. [News 14 Carolina (Raleigh) 9/7/07; Burlington Times News 9/7/07]
From Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, ICE agents acting in partnership with other federal and local law enforcement agencies arrested 65 people in a sweep targeting members of street gangs in the Oklahoma City area. Those arrested were from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq and Mexico. Three US citizens were arrested by local law enforcement agencies during the operation. ICE described 42 of those arrested as "known members of local street gangs"; 15 of those arrested had active warrants or were arrested on state charges. Some cases are being presented to the US Attorney's Office for federal prosecution for re-entering the US after having already been deported. Three immigrants with no previous criminal convictions who were picked up in the sweep were voluntarily returned to Mexico. Agencies participating in the operation included the US Attorney's Office, Western District of Oklahoma; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Oklahoma Highway Patrol; Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office; Oklahoma City Police Department; and Oklahoma Department of Corrections. [ICE News Release 9/4/07]
----------------------------------------------------------------
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
****************************************************************************
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