Thread: Migrants' stories raise fears over vigilantism

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/48473.html

Migrants' stories raise fears over vigilantism


By BARBARA FERRY | The New Mexican
August 29, 2006

Immigrant laborers who gather each morning in DeVargas Park to wait for job offers said three men in a white Suburban came to the park last week and asked them for their papers.

But an official for the Immigration Customs Enforcement agency in El Paso said the men weren't government-employed agents and cast doubt on the entire story.

"This story about a white van or truck has been circulating from Los Angeles to New York," ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said. Zamarripa said ICE agents weren't involved in any raids in Santa Fe recently, and the story is probably an urban legend.

Samuel Nevares, one of the day laborers, said he was in the park at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when the Suburban drove up.

Nevares said three men who were armed and displaying badges but were not wearing uniforms, got out. Nevares, who told a reporter Monday that he is a U.S. citizen, said he refused to show the men his papers. The strangers told Nevares and other laborers to get into the Suburban, but the laborers refused and took off running. The men also told the laborers they would return the following day with a larger vehicle, but did not.

Another laborer, who gave his name as Lucio, said he told the agents "they didn't have the right to be asking questions."

The mysterious Suburban hasn't been sighted since, he added.

Mara Taub, coordinator of Amigos del Parque, a group of volunteers that provides coffee to the immigrant laborers said she was not in the park on Wednesday, but heard the story.

"As soon as I got out of my car on Thursday, a group of men came running up to me to tell me that the migra had been there," Taub said.

"It's definitely not a legend. It happened," she said. "Why would so many men have the same story and high level of concern?"

Taub said immigration officials came to question men in the park in 2001, but haven't been back since, as far as she knows.

She said some laborers, fearing the return of the truck, stayed away from the park on Thursday.

Marcela Diaz, director of Somos Un Pueblo Unido, an immigrant-advocacy group based in Santa Fe, said she feared t private citizens might have impersonated immigration agents to harass the laborers. "Our concern is that it might be vigilantism," Diaz said.

When asked about the incident, Zamarripa at first said that ICE special agents do not use white vans, and the mention of a white van led her to believe the Santa Fe story had been concocted.

She later amplified that statement, saying other branches of ICE, including fugitive operation teams do sometimes use white vans. But she emphasized that no ICE agents were involved in any raids in Santa Fe last week.

Media accounts of immigration raids on workplaces across the U.S. this spring say immigrants arrested by authorities are driven away from the workplace in unmarked white vans.

ICE has stepped up workplace enforcement against employers who hire undocumented workers, this year, according to an agency news release.

This spring, the agency conducted raids at 40 pallet factories owned by a Houston-based pallet company and arrested 1,817 workers, according to the agency.

But Zamarripa said the agency doesn't conduct random stops. "We don't have the resources," she said.

Contact Barbara Ferry at 995-3817 or bferry@sfnewmexican.com .

Nevares said three men who were armed and displaying badges but were not wearing uniforms, got out. Nevares, who told a reporter Monday that he is a U.S. citizen, said he refused to show the men his papers. The strangers told Nevares and other laborers to get into the Suburban, but the laborers refused and took off running. The men also told the laborers they would return the following day with a larger vehicle, but did not.

Another laborer, who gave his name as Lucio, said he told the agents "they didn't have the right to be asking questions."

Wow, if this story was true, which it probably isn't, the arrogance of these illegal immigrants is disgusting.

I'm sure this story is just another lie, in a bag of many, the illegals are using in an attempt to muddy the waters on the issue.