http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cct ... 721603.htm

Posted on Sat, Feb. 17, 2007



Council to address immigration raids
SAN PABLO: Agency's deportation efforts are lightning rod in community, so city will study the issue
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

The San Pablo City Council will tackle the recent enforcement actions by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as ICE's chill on the local Latino community has receded somewhat now that the agency apparently has shifted its focus to other areas.

Critics accuse ICE agents of orchestrating a campaign of "terror" by conducting random and indiscriminate sweeps in schools, markets and restaurants in Latino areas, snaring undocumented immigrants as well as some legal residents, who are later released.

The agency denies it is doing anything of the sort. ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley has said agents target people with deportation orders, with special emphasis on criminals. Agents, however, do have discretion to question other people present where ICE seeks its target, Haley said.

Activists counter that ICE profiles Latinos and uses deportation lists as a pretext to enter homes and round up occupants, and often tricks them into waiving their rights and signing deportation agreements later.

Nearly two weeks ago, the Richmond City Council called for humane immigration reform and reaffirmed a 1990 resolution that, in essence, bars Richmond police from cooperating with ICE unless authorized by the police chief or city manager.

Activists have called on San Pablo to act similarly and send a message to the federal government that ICE must stop its raids. People on the other side of the issue say the raids are fiction and that the activists are the ones sowing fear by making up or exaggerating the scope of ICE's actions.

ICE's Operation Return to Sender resulted in 119 arrests in Contra Costa County from Jan. 8 to 19, including 20 fugitives who did not obey deportation orders, Haley said. Nationwide, the effort has produced more than 13,000 arrests since June, she said. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

The San Pablo City Council will hold a study session on the issue Tuesday on the initiative of Councilwoman Genoveva Garcia Calloway, who attended an immigration forum at St. Mark Church in Richmond last month with fellow Councilman Leonard McNeil, Pinole Mayor and League of California Cities President Maria Alegria, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and other officials from Richmond as well as officials of the Richmond Police Department and the West Contra Costa school district.

San Pablo Mayor Paul Morris defends ICE.

"I have heard that certain individuals have been targeted: felons, people who have committed crimes," Morris said, "not these mass sweeps, picking people off the streets and out of their communities in droves."

During his successful campaign for re-election to the San Pablo City Council in November, Morris said San Pablo police should enforce federal immigration laws. Last week, he said that although all illegal immigrants are by definition lawbreakers, the focus should be on ridding the community of people who commit violent crimes, deal drugs and drive drunk. San Pablo police, he said, already "have a ton of work to do."

Morris said he does not want to "put the scare" into the community at large but just a "common-sense scare" into people who he believes ought to be scared. He cited as examples "people who habitually break the law" or people found during sobriety checks with guns or drugs in their cars.

"Come down on them like a ton of bricks," Morris said. "Turn them over to the feds.

"I have no problem with that."

He characterized the talk of mass sweeps and people being picked off the streets as "propaganda."

"Someone's sensationalizing this for their own agenda," Morris said. "I think the people stoking it are the people who are right in the middle of it."

But ICE's defenders, too, speak of the "raids" as fact.

"Maybe the showcase raids by the feds are beginning to work," said an article in a self-described conservative e-newsletter titled "Illegal Aliens Afraid of Raids, Refuse to Work." It advocates indicting people who hire illegal immigrants as well as confiscating the vehicles of illegal immigrants and busting them for loitering.

"These few steps, with NO new laws needed, will go a long way to end the influx of lawbreakers and cause those already here to consider going home," the article continues.

An incident held up as an example of terrorism against immigrants at the St. Mark's forum last month turned out to be more nuanced. A speaker told of five people arrested in their home by San Pablo police Dec. 18. Four, all men, were deported. The speaker said later that the group had merely argued with neighbors and not committed any crime.

San Pablo police later said that the men had attacked neighbors with a baseball bat during an alcohol-fueled altercation.

Calloway agreed the case was not the egregious human rights violation it had been showcased as at the forum.

"They were booked for assault with a deadly weapon and they had an immigration hold on them already," Calloway said. "Three days later they were transferred to ICE."

She said there is much confusion surrounding ICE enforcement and its many facets.

"One, the way it (ICE's Return to Sender) was done terrorized the community," she said. "Two, when there is criminal activity in the city and the PD works with immigration.

"Those are two separate issues."

"The San Pablo case was a very serious case," Calloway said. "Those are the local ones that should involve the immigration (authorities)."

Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or tlochner@cctimes.com.

IF YOU GO

• WHAT: San Pablo City Council

• WHERE: Maple Hall, 1 Alvarado Square

• WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday