CA: False rumors of sweep keep immigrant community on edge

[Brian503a]

http://www.mercurynews.com

Posted on Tue, Apr. 25, 2006

False rumors of sweep keep immigrant community on edge

By Kelli Phillips
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Rumors of immigration sweeps and deportations happening across the East Bay kept illegal residents away from work, school, markets and even doctor's appointments Tuesday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said no enforcement operations were held in the Bay Area this week, a spokeswoman said.

The frenzy of false information, fueled by talk shows on Spanish-language radio and television news, hit the Hispanic community a week before a nationwide boycott to protest renewed talks on a failed immigration reform bill.

"If it's being done to put the fear of God in people, it's working," said Jerry Oquendo, Bay Area chapter president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC. "We're going to tell our people not to be intimidated and to come out and rally (May 1). We'll do everything in our power to protect them."

At the group's Tuesday night meeting, originally designed to focus on planning for local May 1 boycott activities, the session turned into a forum to discuss the unsettling rumors and to educate the local Hispanic community on immigrants' rights.

Oquendo and other organizers passed out pamphlets outlining basic civil rights and lists of attorneys and organizations that immigrants could receive help from if they are detained.

"There are a lot of organizations to protect us," Oquendo said at the meeting. "So you don't have to worry."

Veronica Gomez, a manager at Las Montanas market in Concord, did not see any immigration officers or any busloads of illegal employees carted away from her business Monday, but according to the latest buzz, that is what happened.

"(Monday), we got phone calls from customers asking if it was true that immigration was here," she said. "Customers were really afraid. I don't know where it started, but it's definitely a rumor here."

Stories spread like wildfire through tight-knit immigrant communities via phone calls, church groups, neighborhood conversations and the radio.

"It's word of mouth, yes, but Spanish radio talk shows ... the phone lines are open to the public," said Ramon Cardona of Centro Latino Cuzcatlan, a Richmond-based agency that works with immigrants. "All the time people call and make these reports and that spreads even more fear and alarm."

Representatives from KIQI and La Raza stations did not return calls seeking comment.

By Tuesday afternoon, tales of raids at popular day laborer haunts such as Home Depot and stories of immigration officers checking documents at supermercados and panaderías had spread from Oakland to Martinez and Richmond to Brentwood.

"The rumors are just flying rampant and we're just trying to figure out why," said ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley.

Haley said some of the panic may have come after a highly publicized immigration raid Thursday that targeted IFCO, a wooden pallet company with stores in 26 states.

"When (raids like that) happen it instills lots of fear in undocumented workers," said Cardona. "That brings the jitters and the rumors spread very quickly in an alarming proportion."

ICE offices have been inundated with calls about similar sweeps across the nation. Haley said most have come in from Fresno, Bakersfield, Sonoma and Reno.

"We don't conduct random sweeps," Haley said. "Our actions are carefully planned, we know who we are targeting and why. We don't wait at playgrounds or have checkpoints in grocery stores. We don't lie in wait and swoop down on people."

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, issued a statement saying rumors had reached her office that "individuals in unmarked vans have been traveling throughout our community and seizing individuals."

Lee said her staff spoke with ICE officials and the reports were not true.

A Lee staff member, as well as a representative from the office of Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, also attended the Tuesday evening LULAC meeting, and said both Congress members planned to further investigate the claims.

"We have questions of our own, and will be making more calls," said Lauren Hole, Miller representative.

Parking lots on Monument Boulevard in Concord, which normally boast up to 200 day laborers, were eerily quiet Tuesday morning. Only a handful of men, including Angel Cruz, stood at the west entrance to the Albertsons parking lot.

Cruz said he heard about the immigration sweeps from a friend who heard it on a Spanish-language radio station. "There's nobody here today," he said. "I don't like the crowds when I'm waiting for work, but it's not right. It scares me."

Julie Vasquez, a Contra Costa Health Services employee, said many women canceled appointments Tuesday at the clinic where she works. "A lot of our clients are undocumented," she said. "They're scared to come out of their homes."

Vasquez said she heard immigration officers raided La Superia market in Pittsburg and made patrons show documentation before they could leave.

Management and employees at La Superia said they had not seen anyone from immigration services in or around the store.

Carolyn Krantz of St. Peter Martyr Church in Pittsburg said residents have been calling the church for the last few days concerned about alleged immigration sweeps.

"We're trying to document where things are happening," she said. "People are very frightened, so they are calling the organizations and churches they trust for information."

Cambridge Elementary School in Concord fielded phone calls and visits this week from concerned parents asking whether ICE had visited the school. School employees, curious about the rumor, even sent a staff member to a nearby convenience store to confirm no raid had taken place there -- it hadn't.

"As far as we're aware we haven't had any of our parents or relatives of any of our children picked up," said Christina Deleon, Cambridge's community service assistant.

Deleon said she was not sure exactly what had sparked the rampant rumor, but she knew the general cause: "Fear, fear of the unknown."


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Staff writers Cassandra Braun, Tom Lochner, Danielle McNamara, John Simerman, and Sarah Tribble contributed to this story.

[ArticleIV]

Jeez..maybe that is why I only saw one car of hispanic men harassing a young girl tonight (which of course I brought my car in the middle of). It would have been more if they weren't so quiet.


El Presidente...let your daughters live in my neighborhood with all of these honest hard working honorable Mexicans!!

I am ready to go to war against all of this..my government will not even acknowledge what is happening. I am a US Veteran of two wars. I want my country back. I want my country back.

These friggin' illegals get more benefits from my tax dollars than I could ever hope to. It is time to go to war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!