Thread: Immigration Releases Workers Arrested In Bellingham Raid

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... id31m.html

Workers arrested in Bellingham work-site raid freed

In an unusual move, a group of illegal immigrants arrested in a work-site raid at a Bellingham engine plant last month have been released from detention, without bond, and given permission to work legally, while a post-raid investigation continues.

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

In an unusual move, a group of illegal immigrants arrested in a work-site raid at a Bellingham engine plant last month have been released from detention, without bond, and given permission to work legally, while a post-raid investigation continues.

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested 28 workers during a Feb. 24 raid at Yamato Engine Specialists. ICE investigators said many of the workers from Mexico and Central America had used false documents to obtain employment at the plant.

Saying she had not been made aware of the raid, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano immediately ordered a probe into the actions of the Seattle-based ICE team that conducted the raid. Napolitano and the Obama administration have said they want to shift the focus of these raids from the illegal workers themselves to the employers who knowingly hire them.

Immediately following the arrest of the workers, three women with children were released on humanitarian grounds and a fourth worker with a medical condition was also allowed to leave.

Last week, all the remaining workers not deported were allowed to leave the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma without bond — a move immigration attorneys call highly unusual.

Illegal immigrants arrested in raids or other ICE actions are often detained for months until they can get a hearing before a judge. Sometimes they waive their rights to a hearing and agree to return home.

Besides their freedom, the workers also have permission to look for work.

What is this country doing? May as well say come on over, get caught working illegally and you'll get permission to work. Watch the border activity now!

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-4092--0-0.html

You know those illegals are going to run off to another location and start working again. Seriously, they will just pack up and move to another city and get another job, instead of being wittiness or helping DHS in the investigation. They will do the same thing they do when they bond out, they bug out.

They are not going to obey the law. You are going to have to make them!

More "Change for the Worse".

Next thing you will hear about are the reprieves and extensions for the permits for cooperating.

I'm sure the Work Authorization Documents were intended to be used for valuable wittiness for the prosecution, not every Tom, Dick and Illegal that just happened to work there.

What a bright Idea! Give them another form of document to forge.

Dixie

jamesw62 wrote:

okay here is what i got from Emily Langlie.

they are given authorization to look for work based on being potential witnesses against the company, in case the company was the ones who know they were illegal and hired them anyways.

I can understand needed 3 or 4 witnesses, but not 26! Perhaps ICE is expecting many of the released illegals to look for happier hunting grounds in another state before the Bellingham engine plant case goes to court.

The illegals should have never been released. Taped interviews from the 28 illegals should be all that is necessary to prosecute the owner and management of the company.

"okay here is what i got from Emily Langlie.

they are given authorization to look for work based on being potential witnesses against the company, in case the company was the ones who know they were illegal and hired them anyways. when the case goes to court, the work permits will expire and they will be DEPORTED once the case is heard in court"



And you know with the upcoming amnesty all of them including identity thieves and gang members will be allowed to stay here. How many will show up at the hearing? I am willing to bet many already are in other states taking jobs from Americans using those stolen identities if not new ones compliments of illegal alien run fraudulent document mills encouraged and aided by this government.
This is just another part of the back door amnesty where this damn corrupt and worthless government now has legalized and rewarded illegal aliens with jobs, benefits and citizenship who violated our laws, borders, sovereignty and use stolen identities to obtain jobs and benefits. They do not give a horse's ass about suffering, struggling and unemployed Americans because it all is about open borders and cheap labor. We now are a third world illegal alien sanctuary country thanks to American worker hating illegal alien huggers as Obama and Napolitano.

Homeland Security Frees 27 Illegal Immigrants, Sends Them Back to Work

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

By Dan Springer

FOX News

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512098,00.html

SEATTLE — The Department of Homeland Security freed 27 illegal immigrants arrested during a workplace raid in February and offered them legal work permits, signaling a major departure from the immigration enforcement policy of the Bush administration.

The Feb. 24 raid of an auto parts plant in Bellingham, Wash., netted 28 illegal immigrants. While one was deported, the remaining workers were released from custody and given employment authorization documents, or EADs, in exchange for cooperating with an ongoing investigation of their employer, Yamato Engine Specialists.

The EAD is a temporary work permit most commonly given to people applying for green cards or citizenship. It usually lasts for one year, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement sources tell FOX News that these work permits will expire when the case against Yamato is closed.

Immigrant rights activists support the move and the new direction Secretary Janet Napolitano is taking the Homeland Security Department with her focus on penalizing employers rather than the immigrants themselves.

"She is crafting and the people in her department are crafting a strategy that could target some people who are abusive and manipulative as employers," said Pramila Jayapal, executive director of the Seattle-based immigrant aid group OneAmerica.

But critics say the softened policy will increase the number of illegal immigrants entering the country.

"The signal that it sends to illegal immigrants is that if you can get here, you're pretty much home free," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The Bellingham raid was the first and only mass arrest of immigrants since President Obama took office and came as a shock to Napolitano, who ordered a review of the incident the day after.

"I didn't know about it beforehand," she told the House Homeland Security Committee the morning following the raid. "I want to get to the bottom of this as well."

The response from the Department of Homeland Security marks a major shift from the last years of the Bush administration, when workplace arrests of illegals were commonplace.

Criminal arrests of employers who hired illegal immigrants skyrocketed from 25 in 2002 to 1,103 in 2008. The number of deportations jumped from 485 to 5,184 over that same time period. The Obama administration has sought a freeze on immigrant arrests.

Enforcement advocates say Americans should be outraged by the government giving illegal immigrants a right to work when unemployment is so high for documented workers.

Unemployment in Whatcom County, home to the Yamato plant, has risen to 8.1 percent, and in the days after the Yamato raid, more than 150 people applied for the jobs made open by the arrests.

Immigrant groups say the release was a humane act that is keeping families together and allowing them to earn a decent living.

Secretary Napolitano is expected to soon formally announce new guidelines for workplace immigration enforcement.

I have to be very careful about what I type here because reading this has flamed a sense of absolute rage in my heart.

This is AMNESTY! This is AMNESTY by executive decree. Congress did not vote on these policies, these laws are being created and executed arbitrarily by the Obama administration.

Obama's ICE just granted these illegal aliens amnesty and a new guest worker program with a policy that has been defeated in Congress several times.

The Constitution and our entire Republic has been thrown to the ground by this.

What use is it for Americans to vote for Congress or call their Congressional representatives when the President of the United States throws the existing laws aside and instates his own laws by authoritarian decree?

I'm going to show this to our supporters and ask how many support calling for the impeachment of Barrack Obama.

Right now, I want him stripped out of office because this news is going to send America into a titanic uproar!

W

Fox Article added to homepage with new title

Obama's DHS Creates Amnesty Program Not Authorized By Congress!
http://www.alipac.us/article4097.html

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