Hunts for ‘Fugitive Aliens’ Lead to Collateral Arrests

By NINA BERNSTEIN

When teams of federal agents unexpectedly show up in an immigrant neighborhood early in the morning, bang on doors, search through bedrooms and leave with a busload of people they have arrested as illegal immigrants, residents and city officials call it a raid.

But in a four-page letter defending such an operation in New Haven last month, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, rejected the term.

“It is not our policy,â€