Operation nets 10 arrests in Santa Fe

SANTA FE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have arrested 10 people in Santa Fe during a weeklong operation.

ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said eight of the arrestees are Mexican nationals and two are from Belize. Two were sex offenders and the others were immigration-law violators.

The operation, which ended Friday, left some residents here scared and others renewing their calls for immigration reform.

Marcela Diaz, director of the immigrant-rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, said her group had reports this week of an ICE van spotted at a Santa Fe hotel and of two people arrested at their homes by immigration officials.

Another immigrant told Somos that police pounded on her door at 6 a.m. Thursday, asking her to open up.

The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported Thursday that a chef at the Inn of the Governors on Tuesday was arrested by federal immigration officials.

Congress has yet to pass a sweeping bill that would include several homeland and border security measures as well as a path to legal status for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

The ongoing operation isn't the first by immigration enforcement officials this year. Twenty-nine people were arrested in a Santa Fe immigration operation in March. The agency has an office in Albuquerque and a contract to lease beds at the Regional Correctional Center in Downtown.

Diaz said Thursday groups like hers are anxious for Congress to approve some type of immigration plan soon.

"We are hoping something will get through the Senate that will provide relief," Diaz said. "Families need relief."

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/jun/23 ... -santa-fe/