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