Thread: Agents arrest 9 illegal immigrants in city

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Agents arrest 9 illegal immigrants in city
Thursday, August 17, 2006
By Jim Six
jimsix@sjnewsco.com
WOODBURY -- Nine illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including two already ordered deported, were arrested here early Wednesday.

Agents from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security raided a house in the 300 block of Glover Street at about 5:30 a.m.

ICE spokesman Mike Gilhooly said one of three ICE/DHS Fugitive Operations Teams active in New Jersey went to the Glover Street location looking for a Guatemalan national who had ignored a judge's deportation order.

When they entered the house, the team members also found eight other Guatemala nationals and took them into custody so they could question them "as to their rights to remain in the United States," said Gilhooly.

The special team found the man it was looking for and another man under a federal judge's deportation order, he said.

"When a federal judge orders a deportation, that is not an optional order," he said.

The other seven Guatemalans "are being processed for removal from the United States," Gilhooly said. That requires serving them with documents charging with being in the country illegally and immigration hearings, he said.

All nine were placed in federal detention and decisions will be made about whether to keep them in custody, Gilhooly said.

"It was all around a successful operation," he said.

"Good guys, they said 'Hello,' they are polite, obviously these guys, (from) what I gathered, work in the restaurants," said Mike Rothgery, who has lived on the block for about four years.

"It is the classic immigrant story, they come here like three guys, then maybe eight months later there were seven to eight guys, then came the wives," he said.

"I am a little concerned if that is all of them," Rothgery said.

"They had the biggest van you could get, I guess one of the (business) owners would pick them up," he said.

- Staff Writer Jonathan Vit contributed to this report.



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All nine were placed in federal detention and decisions will be made about whether to keep them in custody, Gilhooly said.

What happened to "the end of catch and release"?