Thread: ACLU demands details of mass immigrant roundups

ACLU demands details of mass immigrant roundups

western news
By SUSAN FERRISS
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is demanding that immigration officials provide details about a controversial series of roundups of illegal immigrants.

"Agents are alleged to have threatened residents, forced their way into homes and misused warrants in order to gain entry to residences without valid warrants or consent," the ACLU says in a Freedom of Information Act request sent Tuesday to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE.

An ICE action called Operation Return to Sender that began last year may have led to "interrogations, searches and arrests" in violation of Fourth Amendment rights, the ACLU says.

The ACLU cites press reports and activists' claims of abuses, including children being left alone after arrests of parents and a U.S. Marine being manhandled.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area joined the request for information about ICE's methods and the results of Operation Return to Sender.

In the request, the lawyers cite claims ICE agents have damaged local police relations with immigrants because they identify themselves as "police" when they knock on doors.

"We want to find out the facts so we can evaluate them," said ACLU attorney Julie Harumi Mass.

Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman, said, "A lot of the information circulating in Northern California is completely baseless."

For instance, she said, a claim aired on television that agents arrested a woman in front of a Bay Area school was false.

"What it comes down to is there are people who don't like our immigration laws," Kice said. "If that's the primary issue, then they need to contact their elected representatives in Congress."

As a rule, ICE agents are allowed to identify themselves as "police," Kice said, or "federal agents." They are not supposed to say they represent a city's police force, which is a claim the ACLU says should be investigated.

The reason agents identify themselves as "police," Kice said, is so those inside a building "know they are dealing with law enforcement agents."

The purpose of Operation Return to Sender, Kice said, is to track down, with warrants, illegal immigrants who lost court bids to become legal _ through family sponsorship, an asylum claim or other means _ as well as people who should have been deported because they committed an aggravated felony.

When agents enter a home, Kice said, they have the discretion to arrest anyone else who can't prove legal status.

Mass said that arresting those who happen to be in a home of a target appears to contradict President Bush's position on immigration reform. The president supports a proposal that, if approved by Congress, would have allowed many of the same people ICE has deported to apply to remain here with legal work status.

On March 1, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the new chairwoman of a congressional immigration subcommittee, asked ICE to provide similar details about Operation Return to Sender.

Since last May, the operation has resulted in 18,000 arrests nationwide, Kice said. She didn't know how many were of people who were targets of warrants.

In Northern California, 838 people have been arrested in the last four months. Five hundred were the subjects of warrants, with 157 out of 500 people with criminal convictions.

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/19896

Hey ACLU!! Here's the details;
1) we checked to see if these people were illegal
2) we arrested those who were
3) we deported them


How's that? Now you know the entire story!

Screw You ACLU!

Word! That rymes!

We should make a chant out of it.

W

ACLU really wants to shut down ALL OPERATIONS of the U.S. government. ACLU should be completely shut down itself!!! These people are the communist ploy of the American Bar Association.

We need to look into who is providing resources to the ACLU. If it is mexico or any other foreign government, it needs to loose it's taxfree status. The ACLU is playing politics which is illegal for a tax free organization. Time for us to put the pressure on them.

Since last May, the operation has resulted in 18,000 arrests nationwide, Kice said. She didn't know how many were of people who were targets of warrants.

Screw you ACLU!! more than that cross our borders every week, and the ones they deport will probably be among them!!
Its just a big game with taxpayers money!

I've looked around the net re who funds the ACLU and it looks like a major contributor is The Ford Foundation. But there are many many others. I also found this although I can't verify it. I believe I found this info at freerepublic.com

Finances

How does the ACLU pay for its activities?

George Grant, author of "Trial and Error," puts the ACLU's annual budget (1993) at $14 MILLION (FOURTEEN MILLION DOLLARS) - much of which is "SUPPLIED BY THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER through the Federal program mandated by the Civil Rights Attorneys' Fee Awards Act of 1976. If the ACLU wins a case that involves a public institution, for instance, the organization collects the full legal fees of its attorneys even though those attorneys offered their services pro bono (without charge).
Membership

1993 membership in the ACLU was 250,000 members, with 70 staff lawyers, and 5,000 volunteer attorneys, handling an average of 6,000 cases at any one time.
You can read about the ACLU at the ACLU's official web site: http://aclu.org/

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Screw You ACLU!

Word! That rymes!

We should make a chant out of it.

W

I would have used a different word, but don't want to get banned. Plus it wouldn't have rhymed.

Screw You ACLU !

Lou Dobbs just told Bill Gates off but good on CNN, he is hot!!! going to talk about it on his show today!! GO LOU!!!!!!!Oh, about our schools!!

Screw you ACLU sounds right to me!!!