Thread: Feds plan more raids on fugitive migrants

Feds plan more raids on fugitive migrants
Voluntary-deportation program's poor results prompt crackdown
by Daniel González - Aug. 23, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Federal authorities say they will step up raids on illegal immigrants' homes after only eight immigrants, including one in Phoenix, stepped forward to take an offer of planned deportation.

The lack of participation in Operation Scheduled Departure, a pilot program, showed that the only way to solve the problem of immigrants staying in the U.S. after being ordered to leave is through enforcement, Jim Hayes of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a conference call Friday with reporters.

The 3-week-old program in five cities is being canceled. The only immigrant who stepped forward for voluntary deportation in Phoenix was from Estonia.

"This program proves that the most effective way is the way we have been doing it, through fugitive operations," said Hayes, who is acting director of ICE's detention-and-removal operations.


Thousands apprehended

Over the past two years, fugitive-operation teams in Phoenix and other U.S. cities have nabbed tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, most at their homes but also at job sites. The teams work daily to identify, locate and arrest immigrants who have previously been ordered to leave the U.S. but remained.

The majority are immigrants who applied for legal residency but were denied. Others were ordered deported after committing crimes. The teams have arrested 29,000 fugitive immigrants this fiscal year and are on pace to surpass the 30,000 arrested last year, Hayes said.

Nine more teams will be operating soon, bringing to 104 the total number assigned to hunt down deportation absconders full time, Hayes said.

In Phoenix, the ICE fugitive-operation team arrested 452 people through the first nine months of this fiscal year, compared with 472 all of last year, ICE spokesman Vincent Picard said. Of the 452 arrested in the current fiscal year, 255 were fugitives. The other 197 were undocumented immigrants that ICE officers came across while looking for fugitives, Picard said.

Immigrant advocates have criticized the operations, saying they break up families and terrorize immigrant communities. In response, the government launched the experimental scheduled-departure program on Aug. 5. It gave non-criminal fugitives the chance to turn themselves in and arrange for their departure within 90 days. In exchange, participants would not have to worry about agents unexpectedly showing up at the crack of dawn and removing them without a chance to settle their affairs.


Critics: Designed to fail

Advocates for immigrants said Operation Scheduled Departure was merely a ruse intended to give the government justification for continuing its sweeps.

"They knew this project was going to be a failure. They needed an excuse to justify what they have been doing," said Elias Bermudez, founder of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Immigrants Without Borders.

Bermudez predicted that the government will now intensify fugitive operations and that more non-fugitive illegal immigrants will get caught in the dragnets.

"We are telling people not to answer their doors (if ICE officers arrive looking for fugitives)," Bermudez said.

Magdalena Schwartz, a Mesa pastor and member of the Alliance of Valley Religious Leaders, said she believes more immigrants would have participated in the voluntary program if the government had given them more time to settle their affairs.

"Many of these immigrants have lived in this country for years," Schwartz said. "It takes more than (90 days) to sell their house, close their bank accounts, take care of their finances and take their children out of school."

In the four other participating cities - San Diego and Santa Ana, Calif.; Chicago; and Charlotte, N.C. - two Guatemalans, a couple from India, a Salvadoran, a Lebanese and a Mexican came forward.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... e0823.html

Advocates for immigrants said Operation Scheduled Departure was merely a ruse intended to give the government justification for continuing its sweeps.

"They knew this project was going to be a failure. They needed an excuse to justify what they have been doing," said Elias Bermudez, founder of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Immigrants Without Borders.

Since when does the government need justification to enforce the law?