30 people arrested in raids by US immigration officials
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30 people arrested in raids by US immigration officials
By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | March 8, 2006
Federal immigration officials yesterday announced the arrests of 30 undocumented immigrants, including 26 who allegedly failed to obey federal orders to leave the country.
The arrests, which occurred Monday morning, were part of a coordinated sweep through Revere, Malden, Chelsea, Everett, and East Boston, officials said. None of those arrested were found to have ties to terrorism. Some of those arrested have been running from the law for 15 years, officials said.
Advocates for Boston's immigrant communities said the sweep achieved little and only helped create fear in New England's immigrant communities.
Officials with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said those arrested were from Algeria, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Morocco, Honduras, and Togo.
Federal immigration officials can't say with certainty how many immigrants have been ordered to leave the country but still remain in the Boston region. But Bruce E. Chadbourne, director of the New England field office of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview that there could be between 5,000 and 6,000, depending on how many of the fugitives under deportation orders have left the region and how many have relocated to Boston or New England from elsewhere.
In a raid two years ago, immigration agents swept up undocumented immigrants with violent criminal records, prompting Chadbourne to state in a news release yesterday that ''we remove violent criminals who pose a threat to public safety from our communities." In an interview, however, he said the worst crimes in Monday's sweep were motor vehicle violations.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the latest raids were ''yet another instance of ICE going after low-hanging fruit."
''There's some validity that they're out of status and they have not obeyed orders. But the overarching issue . . . is I'm not sure that Greater Boston is any safer after the people were picked up yesterday. I think I would rather see those dollars spent on finding terrorists and making sure our country is safer," he said.
Since last October, 472 fugitive illegal immigrants have been arrested in the New England field office's jurisdiction, officials said.
Twenty of this week's arrests occurred in Revere, and 19 of them are fugitive immigrants who were previously ordered to leave the country. Chadbourne said Revere's role in the sweep was more luck than a trend.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of three new bureaus of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, working under the US Department of Homeland Security.
Cherylann Tranfaglia, 20, of East Boston, witnessed one of the arrests after agents knocked on her front door and arrested her boyfriend, Tony Martinez, 20, of Honduras.
Tranfaglia said agents rifled through her belongings and refused to tell her why Martinez was being arrested around 7 a.m. Monday.
She also said her boyfriend has a residency card, but she could not say with certainty if he is in the country legally. ''I grew up with these kids, we went to middle school and high school together, and they're not gang members," she said. ''And now they're doing the right thing and staying at home, some with their babies."
Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
