Thread: Arrests double in crackdown on illegal immigrants in N.J.

Arrests double in crackdown on illegal immigrants in N.J.
NorthJersey.com ^ | 06.05.07 | ELIZABETH LLORENTE


Posted on 06/05/2007 1:57:52 PM PDT by Coleus


Immigration arrests in New Jersey have more than doubled in the last two years, an upswing that is likely to continue with the imminent addition of more agents devoted to arresting and deporting illegal immigrants. In the last year, immigration agents arrested 1,772 people in New Jersey living in the country illegally. The year before -- May 2005 to May 2006 -- they arrested 860.

Of the federal agency's 24 field offices, only one in Los Angeles and another in Miami surpassed the Newark district in the number of arrests. The hike in arrests shows "how seriously we take the issue of trying to locate and take into custody these fugitives," said Scott Weber, field office director in Newark for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The arrests are part of Operation Return to Sender, a two-year-old nationwide program to reduce illegal immigration. Nationally, the number of illegal immigrant arrests also doubled in the same time frame. This summer, ICE plans to add a third enforcement team in the Newark field office. A spokesman wouldn't say how many agents are on a team.

The crackdown comes as local public officials wrestle with what to do about the growing number of illegal immigrants who have settled in their towns. Those who favor strict immigration enforcement praise aggressive efforts such as Operation Return to Sender, but want more. "It's reassuring that the government is doing something," said Gayle Kesselman, a Carlstadt resident and co-chairwoman of New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control. "But it's a drop in the bucket. If the government was serious about enforcing immigration law, they would build a fence along the border, militarize the border and stop the invasion."

Raids criticized

But immigration advocates say the raids are over the top, with teams of more than a dozen agents sometimes showing up to arrest a single person with no known criminal record. They bitterly complain that the raids separate families, often taking away the male breadwinner, leaving behind mothers and children who, in some cases, are U.S. citizens. "These raids are done in front of children, who see their parents handcuffed and taken away," said Daniel Santo-Pietro, head of the Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey. "Most of these people are not criminals; they're people who tried to legalize their status and either because their lawyers didn't do something right, or they were misguided by one of the many scammers who take advantage of immigrants, had their applications denied and were ordered deported.

"The majority are not the criminals and terrorists that ICE says they're targeting with these raids," Santo-Pietro said. "They're laborers, hardworking people." The operation's main mission is to track down illegal immigrants with criminal records, as well as people who have ignored deportation orders and continue to live in the United States. Some 600,000 such immigrants, the majority of whom have no known criminal records, are in federal databases. ICE officials say the number of "absconders" in New Jersey is unclear. "For ICE, removing criminal and fugitive aliens from our streets and neighborhoods is an agency-wide initiative that improves our national security and combats the rise in local crime rates," Bartolome Rodriguez, an ICE official in Newark, said in an April press release announcing the arrest of 217 immigrants during an intensive three-week crackdown.

Operation Return to Sender has included the arrest of foreign nationals in New Jersey who had convictions for assaulting pregnant women, for felony theft, burglary, child abuse, identity theft and drug offenses. But it also has brought that pre-dawn knock on the door by ICE agents for hundreds of non-criminals in the state who see immigration violations that sometimes date more than a decade finally catch up with them. The vast majority -- 1,610 -- of those arrested in the past year had ignored deportation orders or, while in the midst of a raid targeting someone else, were unable to show ICE agents evidence that they were here legally. The rest, 162, had criminal records.

Immigration officials say they cannot turn a blind eye to those who have violated immigration laws. "They're not sweeps, our guys are not coming in in the morning and saying, 'Let's go out and find some people we can arrest today,' " Weber said. "When we find the fugitive, they've already gone through the process; they've had their day in court." Often, he said, agents will come across other illegal immigrants at the home or work site of their original target, and they become "collateral" arrests.

"These are people who know they're in the United States illegally," he said. "We have a responsibility to take action on it when we encounter someone who's here illegally." In Bergen County, Laureana Marte-Organ advises immigrants about their rights in the event of a raid. "People are making awful, heart-wrenching decisions," said Marte-Organ, a Montvale resident who is with the Dominican American Organization. "The husbands are taken, and wives have to decide whether to leave with their kids or stay here and keep the family divided."

But immigration officials say that they are not the culprit. Blaming immigration agents for separating families, said Adam Puharic, a spokesman for ICE in Newark, "unfairly places all responsibility with ICE rather than with the individual. The individuals themselves are making those decisions to break the laws."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1845385/posts

Judging by walking around here you'd never even know that there is an agency to enforce immigration law. The illegals all seem damn comfortable hanging out wherever.

Doubled! Is that even getting close to the pre-Bush years numbers?

It needs to way more than double. Double ain't enough.

Dixie

Same here in the Charlotte, NC area. They're so comfortable around here that they have over run the construction and landscaping industries. And the liberals keep saying "we need to bring them out of the shadows and into the sunlight". WHAT SHADOWS???????????????????????????????

BTW, don't let NJ Senator Menendez find out about this stepped up enforcement. His heart will bleed all over the Senate floor as he whines about "familes torn asunder".

Originally Posted by zeezil

Same here in the Charlotte, NC area. They're so comfortable around here that they have over run the construction and landscaping industries. And the liberals keep saying "we need to bring them out of the shadows and into the sunlight". WHAT SHADOWS???????????????????????????????

BTW, don't let NJ Senator Menendez find out about this stepped up enforcement. His heart will bleed all over the Senate floor as he whines about "familes torn asunder".

Nice to know the taxpayers of New Jersey are giving this idiot $165,200 a year for his incompetence.