Thread: Biggest I.C.E. Raid in History

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ICE: Nearly 600 detained in Miss. plant raid
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

By HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writer

LAUREL, Miss. ” Federal officials say nearly 600 suspected illegal immigrants were detained in a raid on a manufacturing plant in southern Mississippi, making it the largest such sweep in the country.

A spokeswoman says more than 100 of those caught up in Monday's raid on Howard Industries were released based on humanitarian concerns, mostly because they have children.

Most of the rest were transferred to a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Jena, La. Nine 17-year-olds were transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The Mississippi raid was one of a series of recent high-profile crackdowns on illegal immigrants. In May, officials swept into the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa and detained 400 workers.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug26/ ... id,00.html

Awesome keep it up ICE !

That's great news....even if they deport 500 of them...that's 500 less illegals on our "welfare rolls". Hooray!

Originally Posted by ELE

That's great news....even if they deport 500 of them...that's 500 less illegals on our "welfare rolls". Hooray!

And 500 more jobs for out of work Americans!

I think that this guy is all wrong about this.

ICE throwing up hands and declaring defeat
August 26, 2008

SAN DIEGO -- Have you ever seen a giant surrender? It's pretty pathetic.

That's the word that comes to mind when a gargantuan government agency with more than 16,000 employees and a $5 billion annual budget suddenly throws up its hands and gives up on one of its major responsibilities. In fact, when that agency is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there is even a name for the act of surrender: Operation Scheduled Departure.

We are at the end of a 17-day pilot self-deportation program that ICE is trying out in San Diego and four other U.S. cities: Chicago, Phoenix, Charlotte, N.C., and Santa Ana, Calif. The program ended Aug. 22.

So far, not so good. There aren't many takers for the government's less-than-generous offer to allow 457,000 illegal immigrants without criminal records and who pose no threat to national security to voluntarily turn themselves in to federal authorities. Anyone who did want to schedule their own departure would be given 90 days to get their affairs in order and -- here's the part ICE doesn't advertise -- be outfitted with an electronic ankle bracelet to keep track of their whereabouts in the meantime.

The offer is being made to "fugitive aliens," people who have appeared before an immigration judge and been ordered to leave the country, but haven't complied with the deportation order.

That part isn't surprising. If the illegal immigrants are from Mexico, and the lion's share of them are, what awaits them at home isn't appealing -- the prospect of having to support their families on $6 per day when they could make 15 or 20 times that on this side of the border. Then there's the fact that, while ICE likes to project this image that it is roaming the countryside and "knocking on doors," I suspect that not that many doors actually get knocked on. In order to want to voluntarily leave the country, illegal immigrants have to have a realistic fear that they'll be picked up and that the process will be messier and perhaps more dangerous than the self-deportation route.

As it stands, most illegal immigrants are probably more likely to be struck by lightning than to ever be paid a visit by ICE. According to an ICE spokesman, last year the agency arrested about 30,000 fugitive aliens in the entire country. At that rate, it would take 400 years for the agency to clear through the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.

Do-nothingism is a reputation the agency has worked hard to build. Just ask any local or state police officer who, having run across an illegal immigrant and done his duty by calling ICE to pick him up, waited and waited only to eventually realize that no one was coming. Or ask any of those who were picked up in the recent series of immigration raids -- deservedly so, I might add -- but who had to watch those who had employed them, and in some cases allegedly abused them, get off without so much as a warning.

Clearly, ICE is suffering a meltdown. It is the result of an overhaul that the Immigration and Naturalization Service got after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and now it desperately needs an overhaul of its own.

Of course, it's the future we're talking about. It's too late for the crew that is there now. Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been a disaster ever since she was nominated in 2005 when she was just 36. She is the niece of Richard Myers, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and she is married to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's former chief of staff. Julie Myers got into trouble even before her Senate confirmation when a Homeland Security employee showed up at a staff Halloween party dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup. Later, digital photos from the party surfaced, despite the fact that Myers had ordered them erased. That was embarrassing. Now, by signing off on this ridiculous self-deport program, Myers has made the agency a laughingstock.

The next president needs to make it clear that he's serious about immigration enforcement by finding a serious person to head what needs to once again be thought of as a serious agency. But who would want the job now? Say, why not take a page from the agency's playbook and ask for volunteers?

Ruben Navarrette Jr., is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune, He is the author of "A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano." He can be reached at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

I think that this guy is all wrong about this.

ICE throwing up hands and declaring defeat
August 26, 2008

SAN DIEGO -- Have you ever seen a giant surrender? It's pretty pathetic.

That's the word that comes to mind when a gargantuan government agency with more than 16,000 employees and a $5 billion annual budget suddenly throws up its hands and gives up on one of its major responsibilities. In fact, when that agency is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there is even a name for the act of surrender: Operation Scheduled Departure.

We are at the end of a 17-day pilot self-deportation program that ICE is trying out in San Diego and four other U.S. cities: Chicago, Phoenix, Charlotte, N.C., and Santa Ana, Calif. The program ended Aug. 22.

So far, not so good. There aren't many takers for the government's less-than-generous offer to allow 457,000 illegal immigrants without criminal records and who pose no threat to national security to voluntarily turn themselves in to federal authorities. Anyone who did want to schedule their own departure would be given 90 days to get their affairs in order and -- here's the part ICE doesn't advertise -- be outfitted with an electronic ankle bracelet to keep track of their whereabouts in the meantime.

The offer is being made to "fugitive aliens," people who have appeared before an immigration judge and been ordered to leave the country, but haven't complied with the deportation order.

That part isn't surprising. If the illegal immigrants are from Mexico, and the lion's share of them are, what awaits them at home isn't appealing -- the prospect of having to support their families on $6 per day when they could make 15 or 20 times that on this side of the border. Then there's the fact that, while ICE likes to project this image that it is roaming the countryside and "knocking on doors," I suspect that not that many doors actually get knocked on. In order to want to voluntarily leave the country, illegal immigrants have to have a realistic fear that they'll be picked up and that the process will be messier and perhaps more dangerous than the self-deportation route.

As it stands, most illegal immigrants are probably more likely to be struck by lightning than to ever be paid a visit by ICE. According to an ICE spokesman, last year the agency arrested about 30,000 fugitive aliens in the entire country. At that rate, it would take 400 years for the agency to clear through the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.

Do-nothingism is a reputation the agency has worked hard to build. Just ask any local or state police officer who, having run across an illegal immigrant and done his duty by calling ICE to pick him up, waited and waited only to eventually realize that no one was coming. Or ask any of those who were picked up in the recent series of immigration raids -- deservedly so, I might add -- but who had to watch those who had employed them, and in some cases allegedly abused them, get off without so much as a warning.

Clearly, ICE is suffering a meltdown. It is the result of an overhaul that the Immigration and Naturalization Service got after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and now it desperately needs an overhaul of its own.

Of course, it's the future we're talking about. It's too late for the crew that is there now. Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been a disaster ever since she was nominated in 2005 when she was just 36. She is the niece of Richard Myers, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and she is married to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's former chief of staff. Julie Myers got into trouble even before her Senate confirmation when a Homeland Security employee showed up at a staff Halloween party dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup. Later, digital photos from the party surfaced, despite the fact that Myers had ordered them erased. That was embarrassing. Now, by signing off on this ridiculous self-deport program, Myers has made the agency a laughingstock.

The next president needs to make it clear that he's serious about immigration enforcement by finding a serious person to head what needs to once again be thought of as a serious agency. But who would want the job now? Say, why not take a page from the agency's playbook and ask for volunteers?

Ruben Navarrette Jr., is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune, He is the author of "A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano." He can be reached at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

I was getting bummed out until I saw Navarrette wrote this!

Originally Posted by ELE

That's great news....even if they deport 500 of them...that's 500 less illegals on our "welfare rolls". Hooray!

Absolutely ELE!! It also keeps the rest of those companies who hire illegal invaders wondering! Wondering if they are going to be next!!

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... miss_N.htm

Nearly 600 detained in Mississippi immigration raid

LAUREL, Miss. (AP) — The largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history has caused panic among Hispanic families in this small southern Mississippi town, where federal agents rounded up nearly 600 plant workers suspected of being in the country illegally.

One worker caught in Monday's sweep at the Howard Industries transformer plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody. Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.

Fabiola Pena, 21, cradled her 2-year-old daughter as she described a chaotic scene at the plant as the raid began, followed by clapping.

"I was crying the whole time. I didn't know what to do," Pena said. "We didn't know what was happening because everyone started running. Some people thought it was a bomb but then we figured out it was immigration."

About 100 of those detained were released for humanitarian reasons, many of them mothers who were fitted with electronic monitoring bracelets and allowed to go home to their children, officials said.

Another 475 workers were transferred to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Jena, La. Nine who were under 18 were transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

John Foxworth, an attorney representing some of the immigrants, said eight appeared in federal court in Hattiesburg on Tuesday because they face criminal charges for allegedly using false Social Security and residency identification.

He said the raid was traumatic for families.

"There was no communication, an immediate loss of any kind of news and a lack of understanding of what's happening to their loved ones," he said. "A complete and utter feeling of helplessness."

The superintendent of the county school district said about half of the district's approximately 160 Hispanic students were absent Tuesday.

Roberto Velez, pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Peniel, where an estimated 30 to 40% the 200 parishioners were caught up in the raid, said that's because parents were afraid immigration officials would take them.

"They didn't send their kids to school today," he said. "How scared is that?"

Those detained were from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman.

Elizabeth Alegria, 26, a Mexican immigrant, was working at the plant Monday when ICE agents stormed in. When they found out she has two sons, ages 4 and 9, she was fitted with a bracelet and told to appear in federal court next month. Her husband, Andres, was not so lucky.

"I'm very traumatized because I don't know if they are going to let my husband go and when I will see him," Elizabeth Alegria said through a translator Tuesday as she returned to the Howard Industries parking lot to retrieve her sport-utility vehicle.

"We have kids without dads and pregnant mothers who got their husbands taken away," said Velez's son, Robert, youth pastor at the church. "It was like a horror story. They got handled like they were criminals."

Howard Industries is in Mississippi's Pine Belt region, known for commercial timber growth and chicken processing plants. The tech company produces dozens of products ranging from electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to its website.

Gonzalez said agents had executed search warrants at both the plant and the company headquarters in nearby Ellisville. She said no company executives had been detained, but this is an "ongoing investigation and yesterday's action was just the first part."

A woman at the Ellisville headquarters told The Associated Press on Tuesday that no one was available to answer questions.

In a statement to the Laurel Leader-Call newspaper, Howard Industries said the company "runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs."

"It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants," the statement said.

The Mississippi raid is one of several nationwide in recent years.

On May 12, federal immigration officials swept into Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, in Iowa. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human resources department, according to court records. In December 2006, 1,297 were arrested at Swift meatpacking plants in Nebraska and five other states

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... -miss_N.ht

"Those detained were from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman."

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

"Those detained were from Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman."

So is the Aryan Nation going to be out protesting on behalf of the detained German illegal aliens?