Thread: FL: Immigration raids have `people in a panic'

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16646760.htm

Posted on Wed, Feb. 07, 2007
Immigration raids have `people in a panic'
BY ALFONSO CHARDY

Staged under the code name ''Return to Sender,'' federal agents have been rousing some wanted undocumented immigrants from their beds, sparking renewed fears of random raids against those living in South Florida without the proper papers.

''People are in a panic,'' said José Lagos, president of Miami-based Honduran Unity, an immigrant rights group that represents Hondurans and other Central Americans in South Florida. ``People are fearful of sending their kids to school, of going shopping, of going to work, of going to a bus stop -- because they worry that immigration agents are going to pick them up anywhere.''

Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman in Miami, said Wednesday that the 178 people picked up last week were detained during a weeklong series of targeted operations that ended Friday in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. She stressed that the actions were not the result of random raids on streets, shops or work sites.

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

Agents arrested 138 people in Miami-Dade, 20 in Broward and 20 in Palm Beach County, she said. Most of those detained were deemed immigration law violators or ''absconders'' -- fugitives from final deportation orders. Some had felony convictions for lewd and lascivious assault, domestic abuse, fraud and grand theft.

Among deportation-order fugitives, the immigration enforcement agency's statement cited the case of Hassan Abdulla Hussan Alihussein of Jordan who allegedly evaded a deportation order that became final in 2004. Alihussein, 33, may be criminally prosecuted because during his detention immigration officers seized a ``concealed unregistered loaded 9mm handgun.''

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

The arrests seemed similar in scope to targeted detentions by the agency in 2006 -- though the tempo of operations may have increased since Homeland Security in May launched ''Operation Return to Sender'' nationwide. Gonzalez said the agency's South Florida detentions were part of the ongoing program.

Immigrants or their attorneys called the media to report detentions.

Marta Oviedo, a Colombian, told The Miami Herald Wednesday that two immigration officers showed up at her home in Hialeah at 5 a.m. Monday. They told her and her husband Ovidio Crúz that they had ignored a deportation order issued after an immigration judge denied them asylum.

She said officers gave them a choice: immediate voluntary departure by the husband and their three children to Colombia or detention. Crúz agreed to leave and now he's back in Colombia with their 17-year-old son and their 10- and 5-year-old daughters. Oviedo was given 30 days to wrap up family affairs here, she said.

''We had been living here for 10 years,'' she told The Miami Herald tearfully in a telephone interview from the office of her Miami attorney, Jorge Rivera. ``We had fled Colombia because the guerrillas were threatening us, but the judge did not believe our evidence.''

Gonzalez said that case was not part of the latest operation. Last month, 424 undocumented immigrants were deported from Miami -- 131 had criminal convictions.

At least 208,521 people were formally removed from the United States in fiscal year 2005 -- 4,231 more than in fiscal year 2004.

But formal expulsions by the Miami immigration field office in fiscal year 2005 amounted to only about 5,613 of the nationwide total -- 1,276 less than in fiscal year 2004, according to the latest Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

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

`people in a panic'

As long as those people panicing are ILLEGALS............fantastic!

Let them have the heartburn now!!

Good! Get the parasites OUT of my country. One way or another. Either they leave from "panic", or deport them out!

Is it a bad thing for law breakers to fear being caught?

All this "fear and terror" talk is nonsense. Illegals are not afraid to march in our streets and file lawsuits against police for enforcing our laws.