Thread: Chicago aldermen urge moratorium on ‘cruel deportations’

Chicago aldermen urge moratorium on ‘cruel deportations’
By FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter Jan 13, 2011 01:52PM

The Chicago City Council on Thursday turned up the heat on President Obama on the volatile issue of immigration reform that Ilinois’ native son promised to — but so far has failed to — deliver.

[b]Aldermen unanimously approved a resolution urging Obama to use his executive powers to call an immediate halt to deportation of undocumented workers that separate them from families that include either a U.S. citizen or a child who would be covered by the so-called “DREAM Act.â€

[quote]Now, aldermen want Obama to take matters into his own hands to stop a deportation policy they called “inhumaneâ€

The DREAM Act failed for a reason...the WILL of the people! The people who followed the laws in coming to this country and are now citizens, many latinos/hispanics among them. The people who have lost jobs because of rampant, unenforced illegal immimgration. The people who see their tax dollars going to anchor babies of illegal aliens, while their own children suffer. The people who cannot go to college because they cannot even afford in-state tuition. The people who have lost homes because of the banks giving loans to illegal aliens and ineligible people, who then defaulted on those loans. People who have lost loved ones to illegal aliens. People who have seen hospitals close because they've been overrun with illegal aliens getting free care.

There are so many more reasons, all ignored by these greedy opportunists who aid, abet, exploit illegal immigration for their own means.

WE the People have said NO, NYET, NEIN, NO MAS, NEVER!!

End of rant.

[quote][b]“the new civil rights movement.â€

Our federal government has been so irresponsible by not enforcing their own immigration laws.

Report criticizes immigration enforcement

Advocacy group report challenges federal program designed to target hardened criminals

By Antonio Olivo, Tribune reporter

9:48 PM CST, January 13, 2011


More than three-quarters of the roughly 630 illegal immigrants in Illinois turned over to federal authorities under a program targeting hardened criminals had no prior criminal convictions, according to a report set to be released Friday.

Nationwide, 27 percent of those arrested under the federal "Secure Communities" program had no prior criminal records, according to an analysis of federal data from 2008 to last July 31 by the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

The findings, which were disputed Thursday by federal immigration authorities, add to a drumbeat of criticism by immigrant advocates frustrated by a lack of action in Congress even as deportations escalate — nearly 54,000 illegal immigrants have been kicked out of the country since October.

On Thursday, Chicago's City Council passed a resolution calling on the federal government to stop deporting people in "mixed-status" families, meaning some members have legal U.S. status.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the coalition, said the Secure Communities program represents a "dragnet" approach to immigration enforcement and has diminished the trust between immigrants and local law enforcement.

"The way it's being implemented, I guarantee you that not one undocumented person will stick around after a traffic accident, not one undocumented person will be willing to be a witness against a criminal, and all undocumented people will avoid all contact with the law enforcement whether they're a witness or a victim of a crime," Hoyt said.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles deportations, defended the program and said Thursday that more recent data indicates that about 44 percent of those handed over to the feds through the Secure Communities program lack a criminal record.

Nationally, the spokeswoman put the figure at 37 percent, which is actually higher than the coalition's findings.

Launched in 2008, the Secure Communities program is aimed at finding illegal immigrants with criminal records by running the fingerprints of inmates arrested in other crimes through federal databases.

Hailed by the Obama administration as a way to weed out bad elements among the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, the voluntary program has been adopted by local law enforcement agencies in 35 states so far and has led to the removal of nearly 51,000 people. In Illinois, the program exists in 26 counties, including Lake, DuPage, Will, Kane and McHenry.

Susana Ramirez, 25, said she was nabbed under the program last year in McHenry County. A resident of Harvard who arrived on a six-month tourist visa in 2004, Ramirez said she was stopped for a minor traffic violation last March after leaving a housekeeping job and driving her 6-year-old daughter home from a babysitter.

Because she had no driver's license, said Ramirez, who has no prior criminal record, she was put in jail. Once there, her fingerprints were taken and it was discovered she had overstayed her visa, she said.

She said she now awaits a December court date to learn whether she'll be ordered to go back to Mexico. She said she left her native state of Durango after she was kidnapped and her family was forced to pay a ransom equivalent to $827.

"If I have to go back to Mexico, I won't go there," Ramirez said.

Responding to criticism over such cases, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has begun emphasizing that it places its highest priority on people convicted of aggravated felonies or multiple crimes, or who pose a threat to national security.

"One of our greatest challenges in identifying criminal aliens is access to timely and accurate information about foreign nationals who commit dangerous crimes when they are arrested and in the custody of a state or local law enforcement agency," said agency spokeswoman Gail Montenegro in a statement.

www.chicagotribune.com

I think it is cruel to the American people to allow them to stay. They knew when they hopped the border that they could be deported. There is nothing cruel about enforcing the law.

Related: http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-224839.html

Illegals don't stick around after accidents anyway they run because they have no respect for the law and for them auto insurance is not a nessitty its just one more way the white man sticks it to them

The parents of those children are the ones who were cruel and inhumane.
And even worse, despicable because they USED their children for their own personal gain. No different at all than the Mexican beggars I see daily who use their children as begging props.