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Some arrested in sweeps try to immigrate properly
By Fernando Zapata
Originally posted on October 17, 2006


Camila Alzate can’t understand why her father is no longer with her.

All the 4-year-old remembers is that Cape Coral police arrived one morning and took him away.

“First I told her that Dad was arrested for owing traffic tickets, and nothing more,” said Camila’s mother, Maritza Villegas.

Camila’s father, Edinson Alzate, 38, was one of 163 immigrants arrested Sept. 20 and 21 by Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement officers during sweeps in Southwest Florida.

ICE officials said agents targeted undocumented immigrants with criminal pasts or deportation orders against them. They won’t discuss individual cases.

Neither Alzate nor his wife have criminal records, and since 2002, they have received work permits and valid Social Security numbers. The Colombian family was trying to obtain permanent residency based on a political-asylum request.

The couple’s only sin, they say, was being misinformed by their attorney, to whom they paid more than $10,000 in fees.

“We never received any letter or notice that our asylum request had been denied,” said Martiza Villegas. “Our lawyer didn’t know anything. An immigration agent told me that once I signed the request, I was at risk of being deported.”

Fort Myers immigration lawyer Ricardo Skerrett said he wouldn’t trust an attorney who collects money without signing a contract first.

“The lawyer is obliged to accomplish a certain function,” he said, “but if there is no contract signed, it all comes down to ‘he said/she said,’” Skerrett said.

Arrests on the rise

The September raids arrested immigrants from 11 countries, including a man wanted on murder charges, along with 25 others who were wanted or were convicted criminals.

The remaining 137 were charged for overstaying their visas, having fraudulent documents or otherwise being in the country illegally.

Authorities dubbed the sweep “Operation Return to Sender,” the same tag applied to a nationwide roundup in June that netted more than 2,100 illegal immigrants.

About 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, 1 million in Florida, according to federal estimates.

“This is not even the tip of the iceberg to how bad it’s going to get down the road,” said Russ Landry, president of the Southwest Florida-based Citizens against Illegal Immigrants.

Landry said overcrowded schools, busy hospitals and an increase in crime are part of the illegal immigration influx.

“There’s no need for it, except the failure of our government,” he said.

Sweeps questioned

People on both sides of the immigration issue question the ICE sweeps.
People calling for stricter enforcement say ICE raids only highlight the real problem — foreign fugitives slipping into the United States.

Immigrant advocacy groups say ICE frequently sweeps up people who pose no threat.

The Alzates say theirs is a case in point.

“Is this what you get when you try to do things right?” Villegas asked.

Like the Alzates, Gustavo Argondizza and Adriana Alegre said they had applied for political asylum and never received notice that their request had been denied. That’s why they neither hid nor changed their address.

Immigration agents arrested Argondizza on Sept. 20 after pounding on the door at his Estero home at 4:30 a.m.

“This has been the worst nightmare in our lives,” said Alegre, Argondizza’s wife, who must leave the country with her daughters by Oct. 30 or risk deportation.

“All of this is unfair. When we told the immigration agent that we never received any deportation letter, he said, ‘I am the letter.’”

Alegre and Argondizza, who had legal documents while waiting for their permanent residency, had invested five years of savings into buying an auto shop in Naples.

Now, Alegre is trying to sell the business, along with the couple’s home and belongings, to try to scrape together enough money to return to their native Argentina.

Life in jail

Inside the privately run Otero County Prison north of Chaparral, N.M., where Edinson Alzate is being held, the biggest struggles are about separation.

“Here, the worst illness is that of the spirit,” Alzate said from a phone inside the lockup.

He said that a group of immigrant inmates get together every night to read the Bible.

“This comforts us,” Alzate said, “because we understand God has a purpose for everything, like the storm we are going through now.”

Alzate and his family plan to return to Colombia.

“I have to find out what to do with our house. If I’ll have to sell it, or rent it,” said his wife, Villegas, referring to the three-bedroom home the family bought two years ago.

Despite the uncertain life she and her family face in Colombia, Villegas is not bitter about her experience in the United States.

“I am very grateful to this country for everything it gave to us,” she said, “but I will not separate my family.”