Thread: Immigration Raids in Florida

If these people are waiting for immigration court dates then they would not have been rounded up as the lame excuse states.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16644688.htm

Posted on Wed, Feb. 07, 2007
Immigration raids have `people in a panic'BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
Federal immigration agents picked up 178 immigrants with no papers or who had outstanding deportation orders and criminal warrants in a weeklong series of targeted operations that ended Friday in South Florida, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today.

The actions in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties seemed similar in scope to targeted detentions by the agency in 2006 -- though the tempo of operations may have increased since Homeland Security last summer launched a nationwide arrest drive code-named Operation Return to Sender. Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Miami spokeswoman, said the agency's South Florida detentions were part of the ongoing program.

Reports about the latest targeted operations began to spread in South Florida last week as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers fanned out across the three-county area looking for their targets.

Widespread publicity about operations here and elsewhere have sparked renewed fears of random sweeps among immigrants, who have pending cases with immigration authorities. ''People are in a panic,'' said José Lagos, head of Honduran Unity, a Miami-based immigrant rights organization that represents Hondurans and other Central Americans.

Many of the detentions were carried out early in the morning at homes of immigrants wanted for violations -- standard procedure for agents who want to catch people before they leave for work.

At least 208,521 people were formally removed in fiscal year 2005. Expulsions by the Miami immigration field office amounted to only about 5,613 of the total nationwide removals, according to the 2005 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

In a statement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said 424 ''illegal aliens'' were deported from Miami last month, and that 131 of those had criminal convictions.

Among the 178 people picked up last week were fugitives and ''immigration status violators,'' and some had prior felony convictions for lewd and lascivious assault, domestic abuse, fraud and grand theft, officials said.

Another violator: Hassan Abdulla Hussan Alihussein of Jordan, who had been on the run evading a deportation order that became final in 2004. Alihussein may be criminally prosecuted because during his detention, immigration officers seized a ''concealed unregistered loaded 9mm handgun,'' immigration officials said in the statement.

Those detained came from Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jordan, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Romania and Venezuela.

Good riddance!

Dixie

Isn't it nice to see ICE at work? They should do a whole lot more of it!

This year they have been at it regularly. I have been posting these as I have found them on a regular basis. I'm glad to see it as I don't want us to remain a third world country.