ICE agents net 20 immigrants

October 21, 2008

By Bill Powell, Jasper Herald


JASPER — Twenty illegal immigrants in Dubois, Spencer, Daviess and four other southern Indiana counties were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a three-day enforcement action that began Friday and ended Sunday.


ICE came targeting immigration fugitives who had been through immigration court, were ordered deported by a federal immigration judge and who failed to comply with the judge’s order, according to Gail Montenegro, an ICE spokeswoman in Chicago.

The ICE arrests were made at homes, workplaces and places of business in Jasper, Huntingburg, Dale, Washington, Evansville, New Albany, Seymour and Columbus. The Jasper Police Department assisted with the enforcement action late Friday morning after being contacted by ICE agents who were already in the area, according to Police Chief Doug Tarvin.

The Jasper officers accompanied ICE agents to a Jasper apartment complex, Tarvin said. Other locations the ICE agents reportedly went to included the YMCA in Washington, Farbest Foods and a manufacturing factory in Huntingburg and the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Jasper, according to local authorities and those working with the local Hispanic community.

At the YMCA in Washington, Estaquio “Tacoâ€