Thread: CA-A Day of Illegal Immigration Enforcement in the O.C.

A day of illegal immigration enforcement in the O.C.

BY CINDY CARCAMO
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
January 21, 2010

A sprawling two-story San Clemente home with a Porshe Cayenne in the driveway and a Mercedes in the garage isn't exactly where many would think to find a convict suspected of living in the country illegally.

On a recent early morning, those were the sorts of cases that took the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Fugitive Operations Team in Orange County to the back room of a Lake Forest Italian restaurant, a well-heeled community in Tustin and a run-down McMansion in the heart of Santa Ana.

"We follow up on leads and go where the leads take us," said Robert Naranjo, assistant field officer director for the agency's Los Angeles Office of Detention and Removal Operations, as he coursed through the dark streets of south county in a Dodge Durango. "People come from all social strata. We've been to homes before where they have security cameras."

The twilight operation offered a glimpse into the team's day-to-day immigration enforcement actions in the wake of the President Obama's revamped focus on going after the "worst of the worst" in the country illegally.

Last year, ICE head John Morton announced the agency's goals to target those in the country illegally with criminal records and standing deportation orders.

Naranjo, whose teams work to find criminals in the country illegally, looked on as a woman with pink pajamas opened the door to a Mediterranean-style home in a gated San Clemente community about a minute after 6 a.m.

"This is a very nice area... well to do," he said.

Agency officials said the woman didn't look surprised when they arrested her husband -- a 43-year-old man from Pakistan who is suspected of living here illegally, despite a 1998 order for deportation. The unidentified man has two convictions for vehicle theft, larceny and burglary in the early 1980s, officials said.

Later, the man, who asked not to be identified, explained how his misdeeds as a younger man had returned to haunt him. He said he'd come to the U.S. legally at age 7 but never went through the process to gain citizenship. Instead, he said, he got into trouble and consequently lost his legal status.

"I got in front of a judge and he said, 'that's it.' Don't do bad things when you're a kid," the man gave as a warning to others.

He recently exhausted all his legal options -- losing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, clearing the way for immigration agents to arrest him.

Before he was taken away, the man's mother handed him a wad of hundred dollar bills for the trip to Pakistan. The wife asked the agents to quiet their radios and lower their voices as to not alert the neighbors, officials said.

That didn't keep Frank Borjon from standing outside his sister's home across the way.

"That's very strange... in a guarded community like this," said Borjon, who lives in Lancaster but is visiting his sister.

Still, rumors had been flying around the neighborhood for the last week after strange cars showed up and parked along the street, Borjon said.

"They were not very inconspicuous about it," he added, watching as agents escorted the man into a Department of Homeland Security van. "Someone was watching someone."

In an attempt to ensure a safe and clean capture, Naranjo said agents do as much desk-work investigation and surveillance as possible.

ICE BEEFS UP MANPOWER IN COUNTY

In Orange County, two fugitive operation teams were deployed in 2007 – one in Santa Ana and another in Laguna Niguel – dedicated to tracking down people who have ignored deportation orders by an immigration judge. That's a departure from 2003, when there were no teams in the county. Instead, local operations were run out of Los Angeles.

Beefed-up manpower, stronger partnerships with local law enforcement, and a stronger directive from the top to focus on those with criminal backgrounds have led to a higher percentage of arrests of criminals who are in the country illegally, Naranjo said in an interview last year.

Agency officials have long said they have focused on arresting and deporting those with criminal convictions who ignored deportation orders, but immigrant rights activists have disagreed. The issue came to a head after the Migration Policy Institute highlighted the agency's data, which showed that most of those arrested had no criminal records.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement's most recent statistics reflect the shift.

Three years ago, 22 percent of those arrested by fugitive operations agents in the Southern California area had criminal records. During the 2009 fiscal year, more than 50 percent of the 3,039 arrested in the same area had a criminal history.

Naranjo has said the agency has a finite number or resources and can't go after everyone in the country illegally -- but instead prioritizes and goes after the worst criminals who are avoiding deportation orders.

CLICK LINK BELOW TO READ ABOUT 11 IN O.C. ARRESTED IN A DECEMBER IMMIGRATION SWEEP

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/offi ... ested.html

SUCCESSFUL AND DEAD-END ARRESTS

Just north in Lake Forest, Naranjo and his agents met in the back alley of an Italian restaurant on Rockfield Boulevard. The smell of rising yeast hung in the air as Javier Gallardo baked the eatery's daily bread.

"We have a Mexican national," one of the agents explained, briefing the others with details of Gallardo's prior criminal convictions. "Cruelty to a child... petty theft. 1986 was his last illegal entry. In 1997 he was ordered deported."

Minutes later, a couple of agents squeezed past stacks of bread in the back room of the kitchen, escorting the 55-year-old Santa Ana father of seven.

Naranjo explained to one of the head bakers that Gallardo -- a bread-making assistant -- wouldn't be returning to work.

"He won't be able to help you anymore," he said.

Before calling it a day about 10 a.m., agents headed farther north to a gated community in Tustin Ranch to look for a Romanian fugitive convicted of grand theft. They've tried capturing him for about a year, agents said.

A blond woman sporting what seemed to be a Louis Vuitton handbag and high-heeled shoes stared suspiciously as the caravan of cars drove past her home. The team parked about two houses down at a Mediterranean-style home with yet another Cayenne in the driveway and Mercedes in the garage.

No luck. The man's brother claimed he didn't know where the suspect was, officials said.

They found a similar story at a pinkish-colored, two-story house that dwarfed a sea of smaller single-family homes in an old Santa Ana neighborhood. Agents made their way past rusting appliances and an old Volkswagen bus in the front yard only to find that the 20-year-old man, a suspected gang member, was nowhere to be found.

The Mexican national with a tattoo of horns scrawled on his head was convicted of theft and possession of a controlled substance before he was ordered deported in July.

DEPORTATION PROCESS TINGED WITH PLEAS AND REGRETS

Back at the immigration processing center in Santa Ana, Gallardo explained how he wasn't so much angry about being deported but regretful of his past troubles.

All of his children are U.S. citizens, he said. He cried when he talked about his youngest child -- a 9-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy.

"That's what really hurts," he said in Spanish. "How will I pay for his medicine now? If they could just let me stay for my son. He needs me. If I need to pay some money, I will pay it."

Gallardo said his family will likely stay here. Instead, he'll return to his parents and extended family in Mexico City. He doesn't plan on returning to the U.S.

"I'm too old now," Gallardo said about illegally crossing the border. "This is a young man's game."

http://www.ocregister.com/news/agents-2 ... ranjo.html

"That's what really hurts," he said in Spanish. "How will I pay for his medicine now? If they could just let me stay for my son. He needs me. If I need to pay some money, I will pay it."

Then take him and the rest of them with you. Get out and stay out!

Since when has entering this country illegally not been considered a crime? Then lump on top of that all the other things, like document fraud, and each and every one is guilty, IMO.