Catholics complain to feds about immigration raids
Catholics complain to feds about immigration raids
ICE leader defends government crackdown that religious groups say inflict unnecessary harm
By STEWART M. POWELL Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
July 29, 2008, 8:04PM
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WASHINGTON — The official leading the Bush administration's election-year crackdown on undocumented immigrants got an earful Tuesday from immigrants' advocates tied to the Roman Catholic Church who dubbed the effort ''enforcement only."
Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security in charge of immigration and customs enforcement, vigorously defended a nine-month campaign that has detained nearly 4,500 undocumented workers, 111 employers and more than 26,000 illegal immigrants who defied judges' orders to leave the country.
"I certainly understand that there are many people who do not like the immigration laws created by Congress — not created by this agency but created by Congress," Myers declared.
Myers responded to complaints that some mothers inadvertently had been separated from nursing babies in violation of the policy of her agency — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, popularly called ICE. Congress, she said, did not make an exception for undocumented workers who became parents while living in the U.S. illegally.
"Congress could do that — but they have not," she said.
Many participants at a three-day conference convened by the Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network criticized the administration's hard-hitting approach.
The stepped-up enforcement policy was adopted after Congress failed last year to enact a blend of border enforcement and a pathway to legalization for some 12 million illegal immigrants.
The Bush administration contends it must strengthen enforcement to win back public confidence and set the stage for a more balanced approach to immigration.
Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, which serves 600,000 clients each year, told Myers that participants at the conference were concerned that ''these large-scale enforcement actions that often involve hundreds of law enforcement people" are inflicting unnecessary harm on immigrants.
The organizations provide housing, food and day care to the families of arrested immigrants and legal counsel to those facing deportation. Many immigrants picked up in the raids are Roman Catholics originally from Mexico and Central America, prompting their families in the United States to turn to local parishes for emergency help.
The Houston area has seen immigration raids, including operations at Shipley Do-Nuts and Action Rags USA.
"Everybody champions immigration reform," said Kerwin, whose organization supports a national network of 173 charitable legal programs for immigrants in nearly 270 locations. "It seems like it is enforcement only right now."
In a subsequent interview with the Houston Chronicle, Kerwin likened the raids' impact to damage from a hurricane.
"Our programs are seeing families divided and communities devastated," he said. "Basically we're seeing the equivalent of a natural disaster, and we're organizing and responding accordingly."
Myers tried without success to win over her audience with comments about her 22-month-old son, the Roman Catholic faith and commitment of her agency's senior leadership to "Catholic principles and Catholic traditions" and the portrayal of her enforcement organization as "an agency of immigrants."
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