Thread: Nantucket: Raid nets crime suspects, illegal immigrants

Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Raid nets crime suspects, illegal immigrants
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

Thirty immigration agents landed on Nantucket on a Coast Guard ship early Wednesday, met local police, and raided several houses.

By mid-morning, they had arrested 16 immigrants for assault, theft, credit card fraud, drug dealing, and other felonies. Two others were detained for being in the country illegally. All were handcuffed, fitted with orange life preservers, and taken off the island. All face court hearings that could lead to deportation.

The raid, the first such immigration sweep on Nantucket, laid bare the problems facing a growing community, largely hidden from tourists in quaint bed and breakfasts and summer residents in multimillion dollar seaside homes.

According to town officials, 3,000 people -- one third of Nantucket’s year-round residents -- are legal and illegal immigrants, mostly from El Salvador and Brazil but also from Europe and the Caribbean. Those arrested Wednesday came from Jamaica, Brazil, El Salvador, England, Lithuania, Ireland, and Cuba.

The immigrants, who sustain Nantucket’s tourism, have already begun transforming the island’s social and political life. Selectmen now greet voters in Spanish and human services officials pay visits to Masses in Spanish. And in this case, police said they, too, worked closely with immigrants.

"What I heard from the immigrant community, legal and illegal, is they want to be here because there’s a need for work but they don’t want to be here in the midst of criminals, just like I don’t want to be," said Chief William Pittman. "They want to be safe in America and they have just as much right to that as I do."

Nevertheless, the raid sent fear coursing through the immigrant community, said Camila Monteiro, program director at Community Action Committee of Cape Cod & Islands. She said she had received eight calls Wednesday from relatives of Brazilians arrested in the raid, and several told her their relatives had never committed crimes.

"The families are just frustrated," Monteiro said. "The employees didn’t go to work for fear of being picked up, and they are all scared to leave their houses. They’re moving in with relatives who have green cards so immigration wouldn’t look for them, and they don’t even know what’s going on with family members who were taken."

Yvonne Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.

Posted by the Boston Globe City & Region Desk at 09:29 PM

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_r ... ime_1.html

Can you imagine what effect this has on tourism for the island?

The below article really illuminates what is happening to our communities.



Suspects, victims immigrants all
Complaints bring a federal sweep on Nantucket
By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | June 21, 2007

They came to Nantucket to mow lawns, clean hotel rooms, and build houses. But while living and working on the island, they became victims of crime. One was stabbed, another beaten, another robbed -- all by immigrants like them living in the island's shadow economy.

Usually, such victims, afraid of being deported, spurn police. But this time they cooperated with Nantucket police, who spent months interviewing them and then called federal authorities.

Yesterday at 4 a.m., 30 immigration agents landed on Nantucket on a Coast Guard ship, met local police, and raided several houses. By mid morning, they had arrested 16 immigrants on charges of assault, theft, credit card fraud, drug dealing, and other felonies. Two others were detained for being in the country illegally. All were handcuffed, fitted with orange life preservers, and taken off the island. All face court hearings that could lead to deportation.

The raid, the first such immigration sweep on Nantucket, laid bare some problems facing a growing community, largely hidden from tourists who occupy quaint bed and breakfasts, and from summer residents in multimillion-dollar seaside homes.

According to town officials, 3,000 people -- almost one third of Nantucket's year-round residents -- are immigrants, legal and illegal, mostly from El Salvador and Brazil but also from Europe and the Caribbean. Those arrested yesterday came from Jamaica, Brazil, El Salvador, England, Lith uania, Ireland, and Cuba.

The immigrants, who sustain Nantucket's tourism, have already begun transforming the island's social and political life. Selectmen now greet voters using Spanish, and human services officials attend Masses said in Spanish. And in this case, police said they, too, worked closely with immigrants.

"What I heard from the immigrant community, legal and illegal, is they want to be here because there's a need for work but they don't want to be here in the midst of criminals, just like I don't want to be," said Chief William Pittman . "They want to be safe in America and they have just as much right to that as I do."

Nevertheless, the raid sent fear coursing through the immigrant community, said Camila Monteiro , program director at Community Action Committee of Cape Cod & Islands. She said she received eight calls yesterday from relatives of Brazilians arrested in the raid, and several told her their relatives had never committed crimes.

"The families are just frustrated," Monteiro said. "The employees didn't go to work for fear of being picked up and they are all scared to leave their houses. They're moving in with relatives who have green cards so immigration wouldn't look for them, and they don't even know what's going on with family members who were taken."

Maryanne Worth , director of Nantucket's human services department, said the arrests reflect growing tensions within the immigrant community. She said gangs have begun forming on Nantucket, spawned by rivalries between immigrants from different Latin American countries. Mexicans on Nantucket, for example, tell her they distrust the island's Salvadorans. Many from each country live together in inexpensive rental houses and apartments.

"It is a little surprising for me, but it just tells me that the population is growing and there are probably more problems to come," Worth said.

Pittman said the investigation began six months ago after an assault outside The Muse, an island nightclub. In that case, a patron who had been arguing with other patrons inside got into his car and backed over three people on the street, seriously injuring them, Pittman said. The driver and several witnesses were immigrants, Pittman said, and they initially refused to help police. Some feared being deported . Others feared retribution from fellow immigrants if they cooperated with police.

"We ran into the old brick wall," Pittman said. "There was just a hundred people standing around who were witnesses and yet nobody who saw a thing."

Over the next several weeks, detectives visited witnesses and began hearing of other crimes in the immigrant community. Several victims agreed to help police, despite the disdain of fellow immigrants, he said.

"There was certainly some backlash in the community for 'turning in your brothers.' "

Nantucket police contacted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who arrived yesterday aboard the Ida Lewis. Moving from house to house in the predawn hours, they made the 18 arrests. Officials said 16 of those arrested had prior criminal records. Six allegedly had ignored orders to leave the country. And two were arrested after agents crossed paths with them and determined they were in the country illegally. Those immigrants were not the targets of the investigation, officials said.

They can be deported to their native countries if they are in the United States illegally, or if they are not yet citizens and are convicted of felonies.

"First and foremost, my agents prioritize criminal investigations," said Bruce M. Foucart , special agent in charge of the agency's office of investigations in Boston. "So while we need to enforce the immigration laws of the United States, our focus is on criminal investigations and criminal aliens."

Federal immigration officials announced yesterday that the number of illegal immigrants who have failed to show up for immigration hearings or flouted orders to leave the country has dropped for the first time. Between September 2003 and September 2006, that population grew by an average of 5,682 per month, officials said. But it has leveled off over the last eight months and dropped by more than 500 in the last two months, officials said. ICE credited stricter enforcement, a tripling of the number of fugitive operations teams, better intelligence, and more detention space.

In March, federal agents raided Michael Bianco Inc., a leather goods factory in New Bedford, and arrested 361 workers for being in the country illegally. As of early this month, 42 had been deported, 137 remained in custody, and more than half had been released on bail or because they were sick or their children's sole caretakers.

Yvonne Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... ll?mode=PF

Immigration raid targets Natntucket workers
By PATRICK CASSIDY
Cape Cod Times
June 21, 2007 6:00 AM
NANTUCKET — In response to a request from local police, federal immigration agents conducted a series of raids early Wednesday searching for illegal immigrants on a list of about 26 "hard targets," most of whom had committed crimes on the island, Nantucket police said.

"This was not a roundup of people here illegally," Police Chief William Pittman said.

Of the 18 people arrested, 16 had criminal histories and six had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Two others were picked up because they were in the country illegally.

The raids occurred in several neighborhoods across the island and the detainees were taken to Woods Hole on a Coast Guard cutter after being processed at the Nantucket police station.

From Woods Hole, the detainees will be moved to state and county detention centers before removal from the country or an appearance before an immigration judge in Boston, ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said.

In the group were 15 men and three women from seven different countries, Grenier said. Because the detainees were arrested on administrative charges, their names will not be released, she said.

One of the women was released on personal recognizance because she was a mother, Grenier said.

"This is not New Bedford," said Nantucket police Detective Lt. Jerry Adams, referring to a March work site raid there in the city that netted 361 illegal immigrants, many of whom left children behind when they were deported.

Nantucket police contacted ICE officials several months ago after a series of violent incidents involving immigrants, Adams said.

"We were looking for tools to deal with the criminal element in the community that has been victimizing all of us," Pittman said. "This is much the same as if we were doing a sweep on a bunch of drug warrants."

Pittman cited an incident in which police were driven from a home during an arrest attempt of an illegal immigrant and a serious motor vehicle accident where three pedestrians were run over at The Muse on Surfside Road as prompting local police to reach out to federal authorities.

Nantucket selectmen were scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday night to discuss other complaints about the nightclub, Pittman said.

Some of those picked up in Wednesday's raids were convicted or in the midst of court proceedings for drug offenses, assault and battery, and larceny, local and federal officials said. "This is part of our mission: to prioritize and focus on criminal aliens and investigations," said Bruce Foucart, ICE special agent in charge for New England.

Police and federal agents knocked on the doors of several homes on Essex Road, according to residents.

Maria de Fatima Gomes, 28, who came to the United States from Brazil four years ago and cleans homes for a living, was one of four people picked up by federal agents at 49B Essex Road, said her brother, Jose Gomes.

The three men arrested with her were painters and also from Brazil, a neighbor said.

Essex Road is home to a diverse community and residents include immigrants from Bulgaria, Jamaica and Brazil, said the neighbor, whose family hails from the Dominican Republic. Although the neighbor said he was here legally, he declined to be identified for this report.

Jose Gomes, 37, is in the United States illegally but was not arrested despite being questioned by immigration agents, he said. Yesterday afternoon, he collected his sister's valuables and made plans to sell her pickup truck.

At 15 Essex Road, agents entered shortly after 5 a.m. and before anyone opened the door for them, according to Yeseni Ayala, 26, a nurse assistant who lives at the home.

Ayala and her husband are from Puerto Rico, making them U.S. citizens by birth and everyone else in the home is in the country legally, she said.

"Even though we're Puerto Rican, they put us all in the same column," Ayala said.

Ayala said four or five Nantucket police officers and an equal number of immigration agents came into her home telling her that the door had been open a crack.

"It's surreal," she said. "I never expected to go through that."

No doors were kicked down and agents only entered homes when they were let in, according to ICE officials and Nantucket police. Foucart said he would look into Ayala's allegations.

For those on the list who were not picked up, Pittman suggested they should be worried.

"They should keep looking over their shoulder," he said.

ICE agents left the island yesterday, Foucart said.

Patrick Cassidy can be reached at pcassidy@capecodonline.com.


http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbc ... /706210414

WOW in Kennedys back yard, sorta.

i bet hes fit to be tied over this since its so close to home

smoke and mirrors. At least it is a start I guess. They are about 2900 short though.

Ted will give them santurary at the kennedy compound

I've never been there, but always thought it was very expensive to visit there...so how do these illegals live there? One article said they rented a low rent house....how low? And how many people were in those houses...are there rich people living there?