Thread: Ala - Federal immigration officials step up deportations,

Federal immigration officials step up deportations, detentions, in Alabama and Southeast
Sunday, February 08, 2009 ERIN STOCK
Federal immigration authorities are clamping down on illegal immigrants in Alabama and across the Southeast, increasing the number of people detained or deported and more aggressively pursuing illegal aliens who fail to leave the country.

During the federal government's 2008 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service deported 14,331 illegal immigrants who were picked up in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee - up sharply from 9,842 deportations in 2007 and 4,496 in 2006.

Also, in recent months:

A new team of federal agents was formed in Birmingham to track down and detain people in the area who have ignored orders to leave.

A task force with federal and local officials was organized to collaborate on immigration enforcement.

ICE officials began working to expand the agency's office in Montgomery, while continuing to operate offices in Birmingham, Gadsden and Mobile.

ICE also has trained 60 Alabama state troopers to enforce immigration laws.

These changes came as the state's immigrant population has risen. According to recent U.S. Census estimates, Alabama had nearly 131,000 foreign-born residents, up 49 percent since 2000. How many are here illegally is uncertain.

Immigration lawyers in metro Birmingham say they are handling more detention and removal cases. In one recent case, ICE detained a former Spain Park High School track captain and his mother, Palestinians living in the U.S. since 1993, who are now on supervised release and facing deportation.

"There's definitely a crackdown," said Philip Barr, an immigration lawyer in Birmingham. ICE agents recently showed up at the Shelby County homes of two of his clients who had been ordered to leave years ago, and they detained both women; one had a baby here about four months ago.


Visa violations under the radar:

Lebanon-born Charbel Nader's green card expired, and in 2001 an immigration judge ordered him to leave the U.S. But he stayed.

Seven years later, Nader was married to a U.S. citizen and living in Homewood when ICE officials asked him to come to the Gadsden office to discuss his case, his attorney said. Nader had filed a stay of his removal order as well as a family petition.

"We weren't worried about him being detained because we had had these things pending," said Douglas Cooner, his attorney.

When Nader arrived Dec. 9, ICE agents arrested him for failing to leave the country as ordered.

Since then, Nader also has filed for a visa available for victims of violent crimes who have cooperated with prosecutions. A man fleeing police in Mountain Brook crashed head-on into Nader's car in 2005, injuring him severely, medical and district attorney records show.

Cooner said Nader is being held in the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, La., and in need of hernia surgery for injuries relating to the wreck.

"Psychologically, he's at the point of a breakdown," Cooner said.

Nader's story is one of many that local immigration attorneys tell of heightened enforcement and stricter detentions.

Birmingham lawyer Kristin Johnson said that in the past, people who overstayed their visas were seldom rounded up. "The enforcement people really had so much to do to get the murderers and the drug dealers and the child molesters into their deportation proceedings." But she said ICE has become more efficient at tracking people who violate their visas.


Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said the agency has become more efficient working with police, too.

Four years ago, ICE had little impact in the area, he said, but now agents respond more quickly. About a year ago, Hoover police dedicated an officer to work with ICE daily on a task force that includes officers from other area law enforcement agencies.

Swept up in crackdown:

At least 2,104 illegal immigrants removed by ICE in the five Southeastern states last year had criminal histories, including charges of murder, domestic violence, sexual assault and robbery.

There also are people like Victor Sosa, a brick mason who lives in Alabaster.

Sosa went to pick up his paycheck one day last fall, as he has for 11 years. Instead of getting paid, he was arrested. ICE agents were waiting at Rodriguez Construction in Alabaster to detain the 40-year-old Mexican and 30 others suspected of working in the U.S. illegally.

Sosa, who sneaked into the United States in 1996 with about 30 other men, has four children; two were born here and are U.S. citizens. He will appeal to an immigration judge to stay in the country based on several claims, including that he has paid taxes for six or seven years and that two of his children have severe medical problems.

Speaking in his native tongue, Sosa said he came to the U.S. to give his children "opportunities that we didn't have in Mexico - like to study and have a good life."

Illegal immigrants in the area who have no other record of illegal activity, like Sosa, increasingly are being swept up in the immigration crackdown. About 85 percent of the immigrants ICE deported from the five Southeastern states in 2008 were classified as non-criminals, compared with about 24 percent in 2001.

The criminal/non-criminal classification can be misleading, said Philip Miller, acting field office director for ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations in New Orleans.


Most people who have been removed are found through an ICE program that targets criminal aliens in federal, state and local custody, he said. They may not be classified as criminals, however, if they were turned over to ICE before being prosecuted.

Enforcement priorities:

Hoover police contact ICE when they come across someone without papers who committed a violent crime, Derzis said, but generally not for crimes such as public intoxication or shoplifting.


ICE "would receive so many calls, not only from our office but from other police departments, that they would never get to all of them," he said.

Most undocumented workers in Hoover are not criminals but hard workers trying to find jobs, Derzis said. But the chief said Latino gang members in the area are increasing. Those are the kinds of people that some local law enforcement, elected officials and residents say should be ICE's priority.

Aggie Hodges, 68, of Alabaster wants stronger enforcement. She would like authorities to set up roadblocks to check for valid driver's licenses. Hodges, who works from home, has reported suspicious activity at a neighbor's house where she suspects illegal immigrants live.

"It's not that I have something against Hispanics, per se," she said. "I have trouble with illegals' drug trafficking."

Shay Farley, an advocate for immigrants, said heightened enforcement is costly during a budget crisis. And an enforcement-only focus, rather than a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, will not work, she said.

Others, such as state Sen. Scott Beason, point to the costs of not enforcing immigration laws. Every illegal alien hired in Alabama takes a job that an Alabama resident no longer can take, he said.

"We're in tough economic times," said Beason, R-Gardendale. "We have to enforce the law to do what is best for the people of Alabama."

Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos said the focus should be on rounding up criminals. He called the recent detention of a Palestinian mother and son from Hoover "ludicrous."

"We need to be concentrating on the criminal elements and the people who break the law and who are a threat to the community," Petelos said.

E-mail: estock@bhamnews.com



http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/m ... thispage=4

ICE also has trained 60 Alabama state troopers to enforce immigration laws.

These changes came as the state's immigrant population has risen. According to recent U.S. Census estimates, Alabama had nearly 131,000 foreign-born residents, up 49 percent since 2000. How many are here illegally is uncertain.

Immigration lawyers in metro Birmingham say they are handling more detention and removal cases. In one recent case, ICE detained a former Spain Park High School track captain and his mother, Palestinians living in the U.S. since 1993, who are now on supervised release and facing deportation.

All State Troopers in North Carolina should be enforcing Immigration Law, too. North Carolina State Jobs for new hires are being E-Verifying, why isn't NC checking everyone's license plate; not just American Citizens/NC Citizens.

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