Thread: {Sob}OH: Immigration crackdown tears families apart

Immigration crackdown tears families apart

By Andrea Hopkins 24 minutes ago

PAINESVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - Maria de la Luz Bocanegra Velasquez was leaving for work when the U.S. immigration agents surrounded her car.
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They were after another Maria but settled for arresting Velasquez, a pregnant mother of three who came illegally to this farming town from Mexico 15 years ago.

A week later, Velasquez, 33, sat in jail awaiting deportation while her partner, Antonio Ramos, tried to shelter their American-born children -- aged 12, 10 and 8 -- from the grim reality of a U.S. backlash against illegal immigrants.

Deep divisions have split this country of immigrants and
President George W. Bush, a Republican, is struggling to push a broad package of immigration reforms through Congress, where opponents from both sides are balking at different details.

Across the country, raids on workplaces and homes of suspected illegal immigrants have increased. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said some 20,000 people have been arrested since October 2006.

"Gone are the days where individuals will find a haven here," said Palmore.

Ramos, who came to Ohio in 1977 and works legally in the area's sprawling fields, started to cry when asked whether he will take his children to Mexico to be with their mother or split the family so they can continue their U.S. education.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "If we go, they won't know how to read or write and they'll get jobs just like me, in the dirt, in the mud, in the heat."

As he spoke, 10-year-old Luis lurked in a stairwell behind his father, straining to hear. His father told him his mother may be home next week, that she was filling out paperwork.

"But I know she's not coming back," Ramos said, wiping away tears.

He brought a small bag of clothes and personal belongings to the jail, hoping Maria would have some things when she was deported. The jailer refused all but two pairs of underwear and socks, all in plain white cotton.

SOME PARENTS, SOME FUGITIVES

Palmore said the Painesville raids, which began on May 18, targeted illegal immigrants wanted for missing court dates, as well as a few wanted for crimes including a sex offense and disorderly conduct.

He said only two of the wanted immigrants were found during the operation, plus 35 others who could not prove legal status. A local immigration advocate said 42 people were arrested and that raids continued on Wednesday.

Border crackdowns had already made it harder for employers in Painesville to find workers this year.

The raids infuriated Larry Secor, a third-generation farmer who is short of labor for his tree, flower and fruit farm.

"The public in this country has no idea who's feeding them," said Secor, 50, as he sorted fruit at his roadside store.

"People already complain that strawberries are $4 a quart. Do they want it to be $10?" he said. "If you don't let these people come over here you'll get food from the same place we get our oil -- overseas. Do you want them to control our food supply too?"

The suggestion that immigrants take American jobs and lower U.S. wages angered Secor further.

"Americans are not raising their kids to work on their knees in the fields. My daughter's in college -- she's not going to be a farmer," he said.

While most opponents of illegal immigration acknowledge that rounding up America's estimated 12 million undocumented workers is impossible, raids like the one in Painesville may convince some to leave voluntarily.

Rosario, a Mexican mother of four who did not want to give her full name because she is an illegal immigrant, faces the same bleak choice as Ramos -- stay in America with her children or follow her deported spouse back to Mexico.

Rosario's husband was caught in May moments after dropping their two youngest children at the babysitter. Word of the raid spread like wildfire to her factory and the local high school, where 15-year-old Saul heard his father had been caught.

"It was panic. Everyone was calling to see how the parents were," recalled the boy, who came to Ohio when he was 7 years old after a trek through the desert with his family.

Rosario has taken extra shifts at the factory to pay the bills and Saul, who wants to study medicine or technology in college, said he will leave school to get a job as well.

But the government's capture of the head of the family will probably send the other five packing as well.

"If he can't come back, I'll have to go back," Rosario said. "We've been destroyed."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070613/lf_ ... raids_dc_1

Well that's the risk when you commit a crime. I bet there are millions of felons in our prisons who cry about their families being split up. Why don't we just give all of them jobs, and set them free also?

send the children with the mother and then no one would need worry about separating families. Illegals should not have children knowing that the children might be separated from them. Very rarely do you hear about married couples or the single mother knowing where the father is. Just another way to bleed the American taxpayers.

Originally Posted by Dianne

Well that's the risk when you commit a crime. I bet there are millions of felons in our prisons who cry about their families being split up. Why don't we just give all of them jobs, and set them free also?

I would actually prefer releasing AMERICAN PRISONERS for a certain amount of hours per day to do the work that the illegals are claiming Americans won't do. We would save billions in tax dollars currently funding the social services of the illegal aliens, our neighborhoods would be safer, cleaner and civilized, American lives would be sparedwe would no longer have to press 2 for English . . . the list of pluses is endless.

Whatmatters, I am all for that. I've advocated the use of prison labor for years since it costs us a small fortune to house them. Unfortunately they have no oil.

I would actually prefer releasing AMERICAN PRISONERS for a certain amount of hours per day to do the work that the illegals are claiming Americans won't do. We would save billions in tax dollars currently ....

Also prisoners who are finished serving their time and just being released could use farmwork to restart their life. They could do it for awhile. Recovering addicts and alcoholics may also be able to use farmwork to restart their lives.

BOO HOO....I have zero sympathy for these people.

If we use the OBL logic in this method, we will have to pardon every prisoner because their families were broken up. We would have to bring back all our troops as their families are broken up.

I'm tired of hearing this crap. Illegals broke the law, and this is part of the consequence! GET OVER IT!

"People already complain that strawberries are $4 a quart. Do they want it to be $10?"

In a word, yes, if that is what it takes to rid the U.S. of cheap, illegal labor.

It is their family values....remember those?

Take your children with you when you leave...please.

Do not come here illegally. Go back down there and fight
your own battles...so our country will not have to go and
send our soldiers who if they do their job will be arrested.
March down there, take your children with you.

I am SICK, Sick, sick of this crap...and this is an
understatement.

How many on this site would go to another country illegally,
steal another person's identity and if get caught...LEAVE YOUR
CHILDREN BEHIND. ARE YOU KIDDING ME....NEVER. My children
and my pets go with me.