Don't blame ICE, agency spokesman says

By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com
http://www.theindependent.com/stories/1 ... ce01.shtml



Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Tim Counts said on Wednesday that his organization should not be blamed for the disruption to children when their parents are arrested as illegal immigrants.
He said blame should be laid at the feet of the parents.

"You know, U.S. citizens are arrested every day across the country, separated from their family and taken away from their children because of the offenses they've committed," Counts said. "How is that any different than this?

"It seems very odd that somehow they are placing responsibility with ICE," he said.

Immigrant children are the victims of their parents' bad decisions, just as children of parents who break criminal law are victims of those bad decisions, Counts said.

Grand Island public schools Superintendent Steve Joel, though, has a little different take about children.

Joel, who was at the press conference in Washington, D.C., where a new report on the impact of last December's immigration raids was released, said he still sees children as innocent victims.

In addition to the report's refusal to assign blame to immigrant parents, Counts criticized the report because it listed a number of recommendations specifically for ICE. But he said his organization already does all the things included in the recommendations and has for many years.

Counts criticized the Urban Institute and La Raza for apparently not contacting ICE officials prior to the publication of the report.

If they had, he said, they would have realized that their recommendations were already being implemented.

Counts said it is not reasonable for anyone to expect ICE not to arrest and detain adults who are accused of being in the country illegally.

He discounted the argument from Darcy Tromanhauser of Nebraska Appleseed that living and working in this country is a civil offense, not a criminal one.

Counts said that some illegal immigrants are simultaneously wanted on criminal charges and so should be arrested and placed in a detention facility until their court dates.

Even though being an illegal immigrant is a civil offense, there are good reasons to detain those people as well, Counts said. He said illegal immigrants are flight risks who may "go on the lam" and not appear for their court dates.

During the enforcement action at the Grand Island Swift & Co. plant last December, Counts said, adults were asked about children and caregiving issues in an attempt to determine if they should be released so they could provide for their children.

He said 27 people were released "on the spot" at the Grand Island plant so they could care for their children on that first night. Counts said detainees were asked again about child-care issues as they were boarding the bus at the Swift plant.

Counts said detainees were also asked if they had child-care issues while they were first being processed at the Iowa detention center and other times after that as well.

He said detention and deportation have been part of immigration law for at least the past 100 years. Counts said everybody understands that is how the system works.

Even if there is immigration reform, Counts said, he sees no possibility that detention and deportation will not be part of the new system as well.

Counts was particularly critical of breaking and continuing coverage of the raid at the New Bedford, Mass., plant of Michael Bianco Inc. He said coverage was highly inaccurate.

He said interested individuals should look at two Web sites to get the facts. Those sites are:

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/w ... _myths.htm

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/w ... 070312.htm

Joel said the raids do impact school districts' ability to educate their students.

"The most political statement I made was that, 'We live and die by No Child Left Behind (federal education law), and immigration raids leave plenty of children behind,'" Joel said.

He said Grand Island must abide by federal and state education benchmarks no matter how much a raid emotionally upsets children.

Joel suggested that districts whose students have been affected by raids should perhaps have an asterisk placed by their student achievement results. He noted that the state report card will be published next week.

Joel said Grand Island students will perform fairly well on that report card, but he wondered, "Could we have done even better if there had not been a raid?"