150 illegal immigrants arrested in Chicago area, officials announce

Immigrant advocate group protests higher citizenship fees

By Antonio Olivo | Chicago Tribune reporter
September 18, 2008

Nearly 150 illegal immigrants in the Chicago area have been arrested during a four-day sweep that ended earlier this week, officials announced Wednesday, the same day that Immigration advocates held a Citizenship Day protest against federal policies.

The arrests occurred in northern Indiana, Chicago and 26 other Illinois communities, with agents targeting immigrants who have failed to leave the country after being ordered by a judge to do so, said Gail Montenegro, Chicago spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Those arrested in the operation hail from 26 countries, including Mexico, Croatia and India, she said.

So far this year, officials have made about 23,000 such "fugitive arrests," and 7,000 others have been detained after being questioned during sweeps and found to be in the country illegally, Montenegro said.

"A lot of these fugitives have been ignored [by the federal government] for many, many years," she said. "It could be someone who just became a fugitive, or someone who has been here for 20 years and we're now just tracking them down."

Immigrant advocates called the action an emblem of a broken system that has separated thousands of families through deportation. As part of Citizenship Day, they protested Wednesday in Grant Park against higher fees for U.S. citizenship applications that they argue has led to fewer legal residents applying for citizenship.

In Chicago, applications for U.S. citizenship dropped 39 percent during the first four months of the year to 8,049, compared with the same period last year, according to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

"The United States needs to rediscover that the center of democracy is citizenship, a democracy where the people have a stake," said Joshua Hoyt, the group's executive director. "We need to create a stake for the undocumented so they're no longer vulnerable and their families aren't being broken."
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