Thread: Illegal immigrants draw warning from agents

Last update: April 21, 2007 – 6:01 PM

Illegal immigrants draw warning from agents

The Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) office now has the money to increase searches for wanted illegal immigrants. But immigrant advocates say others who aren't targets are getting caught up as well.

By Jean Hopfensperger, Star Tribune


Immigration agents have a word of warning for Minnesota's illegal immigrants and their employers: You could be next.
Thanks to an increase in this year's budget, immigration agents expect to conduct more door-to-door searches for wanted illegal immigrants, such as this month's sweep in Willmar. And they foresee more workplace raids, such as last year's operation at a Worthington meatpacker.

"You'll definitely see more large-scale [employer] operations," said Claude Arnold, who heads investigations at the regional office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"It's one of our priorities," he said. "We got money and resources for worksite enforcement -- and we will get more."

The new funds will allow the agency's Bloomington office to hire more agents as well as buy vehicles, computers and other tools of the trade, said Scott Baniecke, field officer in charge of enforcement.

"In the past years, we were understaffed," he said. "This is a breath of fresh air."

Last year, Congress approved a 17 percent increase in ICE's overall budget. But some programs, such as funds for detention and removal of illegal immigrants, nearly doubled, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

And after several years of tight focus on counter-terrorism, ICE now is able to pursue its original mission more aggressively than before, Baniecke said. That means searching for and arresting illegal immigrants, in particular those with criminal convictions and orders for deportations; combatting identity fraud; busting employers, and investigating transnational gangs.

The approach hasn't been welcomed by everyone. Immigrant advocates said the ICE searches of immigrant homes in Willmar this month traumatized all immigrants, legal and illegal. In a lawsuit filed in federal court recently, residents charged that ICE agents entered homes without warrants.

The suit also said ICE engaged in racial profiling and conducted "a campaign of terror and intimidation."

ICE officials denied the charges.

All enforcement actions "were fully within the laws," said agency spokesman Tim Counts.

"These are widely accepted law enforcement procedures that have been affirmed repeatedly by the courts," he said.

Immigration watchers thought something new was brewing last summer when agents began knocking on doors in Minnesota to find people who didn't show up for deportation hearings. No one could remember the last time immigration agents did that in a systematic way.

Then in December came the Swift raids, which netted 230 arrests in Worthington and more than 1,000 in five other states. And then came the Willmar raid.

'People are scared'

"There's been a definite shift," said Karen Ellingson, a veteran immigration attorney from St. Paul. "They never had the people to go out and track down people until now."

Immigration attorneys are getting more calls from people whose family or friends have been picked up by ICE, Ellingson said. The dockets at immigration court are packed. "And people are scared."They [agents] are looking for specific people," she said. "But a lot of people are being swept up just because they're there."

Arnold said he intends to crank up employer arrests, too. The fines faced by employers who hired illegal workers have not been a deterrent, he admitted. But "when you see an executive wearing handcuffs," it can have an impact, he said.

ICE will not reveal statistics related to increases in staffing or budget, said Counts. But the American Immigration Lawyers Association reports that national funding for detention and removal of illegal immigrants jumped from $1.6 billion to $3.8 billion. And worksite enforcement funding jumped from $10 million to $30 million.

As a result, the Bloomington ICE office was able to hire enough agents to create "fugitive operations teams" to scout out immigrants with deportation orders. It arrested 690 people in the past six months alone, compared with 455 arrested in fiscal 2006 and 376 in fiscal 2005.

Numbers for deportations and other arrests are less dramatic. For example, ICE deported 1,427 people from October 2006 to March 2007. That compares with 3,015 in fiscal 2006.

It also made 1,846 arrests of immigration violators who weren't criminals from October 2006 until this month. That compares with 2,702 in fiscal 2006.

For Minnesota's top immigration enforcers, the numbers are a source of pride -- and frustration. Arnold and Baniecke view their roles as making communities safer. But immigration agents are usually portrayed as the bad guys, they said.

"I've put a large number of bad people in jail," said Arnold, who worked in Phoenix, Chicago and Washington D.C. before becoming the top investigator in Minnesota last month.

"If you lock up one gang member 10 to 15 years, how many people are spared violence or victimization?"

In his previous job in Washington, Arnold oversaw Operation Community Shield, a national enforcement initiative against violent street gangs. He says he intends to use that expertise in Minnesota.

"My mandate ... is to investigate immigration and customs violations," said Arnold. "And I intend to do it."

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1135339.html

But immigrant advocates say others who aren't targets are getting caught up as well.

That's as it should be. No criminal alien should be safe from the long arm of the law.

The suit also said ICE engaged in racial profiling and conducted "a campaign of terror and intimidation."

Hey, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's most likely an illegal alien.

I read that Bush would beef up the inforcement to make the american people think things were changing , and then sweep in and get an amnesty bill passed, get us all comfortable thinking we aren't being screwed and then let the hammer down, don't be fooled keep calling washington, and your state reps, keep the heat on.

Originally Posted by pjr40

The suit also said ICE engaged in racial profiling and conducted "a campaign of terror and intimidation."

Hey, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's most likely an illegal alien.