Everyone! Please email this goody two shoes at the Birmingham news and educate her!!!!!!!!!!!! Her email address is at the bottom. The meeting in Hoover was packed! They were there to protest the multicultural center which is nothing more than a pick up point for illegals! go to www.russanddeeonline.com to see the pictures!





ICE raid needs absolute certainty
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Gangs.

Throw that word - dripping with innuendo of drugs and murder - out in connection to a mass arrest of Hispanics, and fear should override any questions about the secret operation.

Officials with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement seem to be counting on that.

Federal immigration officers swept through Hoover and Shelby County last week, arresting 30 Hispanics. The only comment ICE would make on the Alabama sweep was that it was part of "an ongoing anti-gang enforcement effort." An ICE spokesman in the bureau's regional office in New Orleans was authorized to provide that illuminating tidbit of information.

Police in Hoover, Pelham and Alabaster dutifully referred comment to the federal immigration authorities.The director of Hoover's newly formed Department of Homeland Security and Immigration said he had been out of town before the raid and learned of it after the fact.

The federal immigration officers needed a convenient holding place for the 30 people they arrested, so they held them briefly July 19, the morning of the raid, in the Hoover City Jail. If the 30 names hadn't been entered on the jail log there, we might still have no knowledge of the roundup.

The Hoover jail docket shows 30 people with Hispanic names passed through the jail that morning and were transferred to the Etowah County Jail in Gadsden, where the federal government processes illegal immigrants.

The desired deduction: 30 illegal Hispanic immigrants with possible connection to illegal gang activity were excised from our community by federal authorities.

If agents acted on accurate information and no mistakes of identity were made in the multiple arrests, maybe the Hispanic community and the larger Birmingham-Hoover community should thank the feds for clearing out a criminal element and keeping us all safer.

Problem is, we'll probably never know for sure.

Those arrested won't be brought to court unless authorities charge them with a crime. Since, ostensibly, those picked up were in the U.S. illegally, immigration officials can ship them home following an administrative proceeding.

Some people think that's enough: if they entered our country illegally, send them home, regardless.

Personally, I would feel safer if federal authorities had to show some of the frightening evidence that justifies their roundup. How long can we be certain our society is still free if federal agents can drop one explosive label and answer no more questions about 30 people pulled from the streets, their homes or their jobs and immediately shuffled out of town.

And this word wasn't even "terrorist."

Peggy Sanford edits Hoover news. She can be reached by e-mail at psanford@bhamnews.com.