Detained teens choose Mexico; others reported arrested
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News

FORKS, WA — The fate of a 16-year-old Forks resident who was detained by Border Patrol agents late last month has been decided, while reports of new detentions surface.

Carlos Bernabe, 16, will willingly return to Mexico to be with his family, Forks Mayor Nedra Reed said.

"We have been working on Carlos' issues all week," Reed said late last week.

"All of his remaining family have returned to Mexico.

"I spoke to Immigration, and he is being held in a facility in Seattle, and we are trying to get in touch with his father and uncle so they know where to meet him.

"He will be flown back to Mexico on a voluntary return."

Reed became aware that the boy was in federal detention in the Seattle area about two weeks ago.

He could have been released to a relative, Reed said, but his stepmother would not pick him up because she was an illegal immigrant.

She returned to Mexico, where the teen's father is, "out of fear," Reed said.

Reed said she knew several people who would have taken care of the boy, but that it was decided that he should be with his family.

"Although there are wonderful people in Forks who would take care and raise him, it was determined that he would be best off with his family, and he should be home with his parents by the weekend," Reed said.

Ayala seeking citizenship
The teen's case followed closely on the heels of that of Edgar Ayala, 19, a Forks High School athlete who graduated with honors in June, and who was arrested during a Border Patrol checkpoint near Forks on Aug. 20.

Ayala decided to join his father in Mexico.

Both father and son are seeking legal residency in the United States, said Rebecca Schwartz, Forks High School's registrar.

Ayala's father, she added, has an appointment with a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service on Thursday.

Said Reed: "It has been a difficult time.

"These instances divide the community.

"In the past, all of those taken were here on their own volition — but these recently were brought here by their parents."

Others detained
As the town awaited news of what would happen to the teen last week, four other Forks residents were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

ICE is an arm of the federal Department of Homeland Security, as is the Border Patrol, which is the law enforcement arm of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Two of the people detained — Francisco Martinez and Silvia Villicana — already had been ordered deported, said Lorie Dankers, ICE spokeswoman.

The other two — Octaviano Pablo and Ricardo Geranimo — were taken into custody at the Forks residences where ICE agents were searching for the first two.

"We did visit some homes in Forks looking for immigration fugitives who the judge had ordered deported and they failed to follow through on that," Dankers said.

"The other two hadn't received the final order of deportation, so they will have the opportunity to go before a judge."

A person who is detained can request to voluntarily be deported, seek political asylum in the United States or plead their case before an immigration judge.

ICE is legally allowed to go into homes if they have good reason to believe that a fugitive from deportation is there, Dankers said.

Fear in Forks
The checkpoints and arrests have driven fear into the heart of the Latino community, said Manuela Velasquez, an advocate for Hispanics in Forks, who legally immigrated from Mexico about three decades ago.

The area draws migrant workers to harvest salal for florists, and do other work.

"Little kids — pre-schoolers — will go around and knock on doors to scare their friends saying, 'la migra, la migra,'" Velasquez said, using a common slang term for agents who enforce immigration laws.

"It is so sad, to scare people with that.

"Some kids don't want to go to school.

"I know of one woman who said her son was puking and didn't want to go to school because he is afraid — but they are citizens."

Superintendent of Quillayute Valley School District Diana Reaume said that she knows the schools will lose some students because of the increased enforcement.

The district, which resumed classes on Wednesday, hadn't yet compiled its first day of school numbers when she commented last week.

"I don't yet know the full magnitude," Reaume said.

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BORDER PATROL AGENTS checked the permanent resident cards — known as "green cards" — of the Port Angeles India Oven workers last Sunday, said co-owner Kelly Sandhu.

None of the workers checked at the restaurant, all of whom were born in India, were detained, she said.

It was the first time such a thing had happened in the eight years that the restaurant on the corner of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue, the only one in Port Angeles offering East Indian cuisine, has served spicy curries and tandoori chicken.

"It was embarrassing," said Sandhu, who, with her husband, Paul Sandhu, and their partner D.J. Virk, also owns the Dairy Queen on Railroad Avenue around the corner from the India Oven, as well as the 24-Hour Mini-Mart on Eighth and Lincoln streets.

Before checking workers' documentation at the India Oven, agents talked to Sandhu at the Dairy Queen, she said.

"They didn't ask anybody [at the Dairy Queen] if anyone was legal or illegal," she said.

"I have no foreign employees here.

"They harassed the employees" at the India Oven, she said, "just because they are foreign."
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