Thread: Napolitano orders review of Wash. immigration raid

By MANUEL VALDES
Associated Press Writer
Feb 25, 8:16 PM EST


SEATTLE (AP) -- Immigration agents this week conducted their first work-site raid since President Barack Obama took office, but it was news to their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who on Wednesday ordered a review of the action.

Workplace raids involving the arrests of hundreds of illegal immigrants at a time became almost routine in the last years of the Bush administration, but Napolitano's response to Tuesday's raid at a Bellingham, Wash., manufacturing plant highlighted the Obama administration's much different approach to a hot-button issue.

Napolitano told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that she did not know about the raid before it happened and was briefed on it early Wednesday morning. She has asked U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested 28 illegal immigrants in the raid, for answers.

"I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said. She said work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

The raid at the Yamato Engine Specialists was the first work-site action ICE has taken since Obama took office, said Sean Smith, a spokesman at Homeland Security in Washington, D.C.

In a statement, an ICE official said the agency conducted the raid after information from two "gang members" led agents to start an investigation at the company.

"Follow-up investigation uncovered a potentially large number of illegally employed workers. ICE conducted the operation in order to identify and, if appropriate, apprehend any unauthorized workers and to further determine potential criminal activity," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in an e-mail from Washington, D.C.

Obama, who appointed Napolitano, has signaled a shift in immigration policy that would rely less on work-site enforcement, focusing instead on employers who hire illegal immigrants and overall immigration reform.

ICE agents rounded up 25 men and three women at the engine shop, all Mexicans except for a Honduran, a Salvadoran and a Guatemalan. Except for three people freed on humanitarian grounds, those arrested are at a detention center in Tacoma, awaiting deportation proceedings.

In a statement Tuesday, ICE officials said many of the people obtained the jobs using fake Social Security numbers and other counterfeit documents.

Shirin Dhanani Makalai, whose family owns the business, said the raid came after months of cooperating with ICE on an audit, which included providing employee rosters to federal authorities. She said the business does not advocate hiring illegal immigrants.

"We try to stay within the guidelines, within the law," Makalai said Tuesday.

Makalai added that the company did not knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and that employers have no clear way of checking an employee's legal status.

Marissa Graciosa of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, said it was deeply disappointing that ICE has executed a raid since Obama took office. She called the raids destructive and ineffective.

"We urge President Obama to deliver on his promise of change by stopping the raids, and signing just and humane immigration reform into law," Graciosa said.

Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws, said Napolitano's call to review the raid goes along with an expectation that Obama will slash work-site raids. Camarota said such raids should be part of an overall immigration policy.

"I think that the expectation is that (Obama) will do a whole lot less enforcement, period," Camarota said.

---

Associated Press Writer Eileen Sullivan in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/storie ... 5-20-16-29

she wants to get to the bottom of this because what, because law and order was being enforced and because some socio ethno centric group hs spanked her into submission? No wonder tensions are rising!

And why is "gang members" placed in quotations in this story? Why is it that law enforcement must always explain and defend themselves against the law breakers?

Makalai added that the company did not knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and that employers have no clear way of checking an employee's legal status




THIS is exactly why obama's plans to, allegedly, deal with the issue of illegal immigration by targeting employers, is just another mound of horsesh*t.

Every last employer ever caught with illegal aliens working in their facilities claims they didn't KNOWINGLY hire them.

What's the effectiveness of targeting employers who consistently didn't "know" they had hired illegal aliens? Zero......that's the effectiveness of such a plan.

Even E Verify isn't going to stop it........not when for a few hundred bucks the illegal alien can have a complete matching set of documents which, unless there is an alert of that identity, is going to raise absolutely no red flags at all.

Until any. and all. excuses and outs available to employers, are taken out of the mix, obama's promise to combat illegal immigration by focuing on the employers is as just as empty as all of his other promises.

We can't rely on the government. The Democrats aka Communists favor the illegals over us. But we can do some things that would help to turn the tide in our favor.

1.The American people can also do some damage to employers that hire illegals. Don't give them your business!

My family had been going out to eat weekly at an establishment until we found out that they had illegals working in their kitchen. I live in a "Sanctuary City" so it does no good to report them. But my family doesn't eat at the restaurant and neither do any of my friends and their friends.

2. Even If you have a small business, and are not bringing in much money, hire American workers only. You might have to hire them part- time if your resources are low, but it is well worth the practice. Employers must realize that they may be saving on one front by hiring illegals, but, in the bigger scheme of things, hiring illegals cost employers and everyone in our country several times over what employers save by hiring illegals. Remember 383.3 Billion was taken from our tax dollars last year to accomodate health care, education and incarceration for illegals. And the cost is dramatically increasing as their "Anchor Babies" have taken root. Employers that hire illegals are assisting those that wish to destroy us. Employers that hire illegals are helping to put the nails in the coffin of American workers.

Anyone have Janet's fax number? I want to send her a note of thanks for protecting American jobs. I've already sent one to the president.

Napolitano told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that she did not know about the raid before it happened and was briefed on it early Wednesday morning. She has asked U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested 28 illegal immigrants in the raid, for answers.

"I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said. She said work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

Get to the" botton of what?" These guys did their jobs! Are you suggesting they just ignore 28 illegal invaders who used stolen/fradulent identifications to steal jobs from Americans, on top of being in this country illegally!

Not only do you arrest the employers, but you arrest and deport the illegals as well!

I think we need to "get to the bottom" of why the Chief immigration officer is afraid to arrest illegals? This just after a closed door meeting with the hispanic caucus! If Napolitano does not have the heart to arrest illegals then she needs to resign!

"Follow-up investigation uncovered a potentially large number of illegally employed workers. ICE conducted the operation in order to identify and, if appropriate, apprehend any unauthorized workers and to further determine potential criminal activity," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in an e-mail from Washington, D.C. "

Secretary Napolitano should pay more attention to what her people in the field are finding----instead of what Gutierrez and the CHC want.

hey Nappy, if you dont like ICE doing their job. you are going to be in for a long tenure as DHS secretary.
Americans want this because it opens jobs for americans in a down economy. what we dont want is a loser like you saying your going to look into it, or only go after employers....

I got a novel idea..... go after the employers AND the illegals that are working there

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

DOBBS: Immigration agents this week conducted the first worksite raid since President Obama took office. But the raid was news to the agents' boss, apparently, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The secretary is now demanding a review of that operation. That's raising serious questions about this administration's commitment to enforcement of immigration laws. Casey Wian with our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Immigration and customs enforcement agents raided this Bellingham, Washington, factory Tuesday, acting on a tip from two gang members. Twenty-eight suspected illegal aliens were arrested. Instead of applauding a job well done, one California lawmaker is demanding answers from the Obama administration about why some American workers allegedly were temporarily detained.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D), CALIFORNIA: Seventy-five ICE agents in riot gear at 9 a.m. raided the plant and detaineed 126 workers -- most of them were United States citizens -- and held them for a number of hours.

JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I did not know about it beforehand. So, I've asked a number of questions about what was the predicate for this. Now, there's a lot of different allegations going around: Was it 70, was it 40, was it 30, what were they wearing? There were earlier allegations that helicopters were used. They were not.

But I want to get to the bottom of this as well. So, I've already issued those directives to ICE to get me some answers.

WIAN: Some within ICE and Congress are concerned that Napolitano's response could have a chilling effect on future workplace raids. The Obama administration has stated it wants to focus those raids on employers, not workers. REP. LAMAR SMITH (R), TEXAS: What I'm really concerned about is that they want to stop the worksite enforcement actions that have been increasing and are one of the real highlights of our efforts to try to save American jobs for American workers.

WIAN: From 2006 through 2008, ICE made more than 15,000 criminal and administrative arrests at workplaces in the United States, nearly six times as many as during the previous three years. But advocates of legalizing the status of illegal aliens are trying to stop those raids. Friday, a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed the deportation case against one of 130 illegal aliens apprehended last year at the Microsolutions printer cartridge factory, ruling ICE had no grounds to make the arrest.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIAN (on camera): The ACLU, which represents the illegal alien, says as many as 50 others are making the same claim. ICE is appealing the ruling and said it abided by the terms of a search warrant. Now, to be clear, there has been no official change in policy governing how ICE conducts those worksite raids, but there are signs change could be coming -- Lou.

DOBBS: I wonder how many people are paying attention to what is happening here. Left-wing groups are taking over. I mean, literally, they are taking over the government, interfering with the direction of government, the enforcement of existing law, because of an ideological agenda. And it's that straightforward.

WIAN: Lou, I've got to tell you, I spoke to a lot of former ICE officials today. Very concerned about this. They're talking to their colleagues still within ICE. They're very concerned about what kind of a signal this is going to send and whether the Obama administration is basically going to throw up its hands and stop enforcing immigration laws at workplaces.

Because they point out that it's fine to go after the employers, but you need to make those cases. You need to go after the illegal aliens as well to prove that the employers are hiring them.

DOBBS: And when the boss, in this case Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is flailing her arms around in obvious solidarity with the questioner there, Zoe Lofgren, the Congresswoman from California, I mean, if that isn't a chilling influence on every ICE agent, I don't know what would be. Talk about conduct unbecoming, that certainly would be it.

Thank you very much, Casey Wian. We appreciate it.