Thread: 26 arrested in immigration sweep back home -- on bail!

TODAY's SOB STORY -- anybody want to bet on how soon they will be back?

26 arrested in immigration sweep back home after posting bail

July 8, 2007, 5:03 PM EDT

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - Twenty-six of the 32 people arrested in controversial raids on illegal immigrants in the city last month are back home after their families and the community raised enough money to post their bails.

The immigrants said they lost their jobs, left behind their families and suffered humiliation while they were detained, the New Haven Register reported Sunday.

One of those arrested, a 32-year-old woman identified only as Teresa in the newspaper report, said she wants to stay in New Haven because she needs to take care of her mother and ill father, and she has a 14-year-old daughter. She lost two restaurant jobs after her arrest, but has gotten a job at another eatery.

"When I got detained, my world fell apart, because I thought I wouldn't be able to support them any more," she said. "They treated us like criminals, and we aren't criminals."

New Haven officials and lawyers for the immigrants have criticized federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement authorities for the raids on June 6 and 11, saying constitutional rights and government policies were violated. They also said the raids appeared to be in retaliation for the city's new identification card program for illegal immigrants.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials responded that the raids were planned weeks in advance and had nothing to do with the ID program, and all agents were allowed into homes by the people who were there.

Lawyers for the immigrants are challenging their arrests. If they lose, they can appeal first to the Board of Immigration Appeals, a federal administrative court, and then to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

All 32 people were arrested as ICE authorities tried to serve illegal immigrants with deportation orders. Such orders were served to five people, and the remaining immigrant is expected to be released from detention on Monday or Tuesday. Authorities said all the people arrested were here illegally.

The five people served deportation orders are not eligible for bail unless their cases are reopened. One of them has already been deported, and lawyers are seeking to reopen the other four cases.

The raids were welcomed by supporters of immigration law enforcement, but advocates of immigrants said the detainees were victims of federal lawmakers' refusal to deal with a complicated issue.

Most of those arrested last month could not afford the original bails, which totaled $425,000, set by ICE officials. Three judges later reduced the total bails to $185,000.

Most of the bail money was put up by relatives. But they also got help. St. Rose of Lima Church helped collect money, Junta for Progressive Action oversaw the distribution of food and other goods and the Grand Avenue Village Association recruited help from local businesses. Several downtown restaurants also gave up a percentage of their sales one night to help the immigrants.

Some families reportedly sold cars and other items, or took out loans. Efforts to raise money are continuing to help the arrestees with rent, food and other bills.

"It is remarkable," Yale law professor Michael Wishnie said about the fundraising. "It is a story of a community surviving."

Wishnie is leading a volunteer team of lawyers and Yale students that is representing the illegal immigrants for free.

"This cataclysmic, traumatic event occurred and almost everyone is either back home with their families or has a judge's orders saying they can't be removed," Wishnie said. "People are picking up the pieces, they are rejoining their families and their church and their community."
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Link and Comment Section here:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ ... onnecticut

Unbelievable!!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

Unbelievable!!

I AGREE

Must we commit suicide? I feel sorry for these folks, but the bottom line is, they have no business in America.

You know, we scream for enforcement....then this is what happens! It's totally outrageous!

When was the last time you read a statement in a news article from an illegal where they said they wanted to stay in the greatest nation on earth with the greatest people on earth and become an American?

Instead it is always my poor mother , my poor kids , my poor this , my poor that.

I to have a my poor book.

In my book pity me don't pack it.

They want what we have but many of them sure as explicative do not want to be like us or with us as one. Rather a separate nation inside our nation.

We already have created that deal with the first peoples. They do not like it , we do not like it and fact is that feeling is here for many generations to come if it ever goes away!

Why should we do it again but instead of taking away from a people thereby manifesting it we invite them in to recreate it?

It is the stupidest thing I have ever seen this nation do on the domestic level.

Originally Posted by buffalododger

When was the last time you read a statement in a news article from an illegal where they said they wanted to stay in the greatest nation on earth with the greatest people on earth and become an American?.

Here's one from Los Angeles....

I thought Michael Chertoff said catch and release was over???? I don't think he would lie to us... Yea Right.. Now bush/chertoff/snow will blame us........

If you are illegal you are allowed to post bail?

I have a friend that works in a county jail. Just the other day he was saying that the same illegal alien felons and others keep coming back over and over again to the jail for offenses , serve their time and then are just released to go break the law again.

He does not understand why it is happening when some of them are committing violent crimes and grand larceny. It is the same old same old catch and release.

Now it is called on probation via ICE.

If I ever decide to become a career criminal I am going to denounce my US citizenship first and pay Mexico to become one of their second class citizens cause in Mexico that is what a legal immigrant is.

Still , I figure if I make second class Mexican citizen then I will be just that more highly prized here in America by the powers that jerk the chains. The lawyers.