Thread: ESCONDIDO, CA RESIDENTS REPORT IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

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Escondido residents report immigration enforcement

By: SARAH WILKINS - Staff Writer
March 23, 2007

ESCONDIDO ---- Residents of an Escondido apartment complex said this week that they witnessed what appeared to be immigration enforcement-related activity, and authorities confirmed that a federal operation is being conducted there.

The Department of Homeland Security served warrants at an Escondido apartment complex Wednesday, Escondido police Lt. David Mankin said, adding that he had no other details and the city's police were not involved.

Resident Jane Bradbury also said in a letter to the North County Times that residents of the Malibu Terrace apartments in the 700 block of North Fig Street were "rousted out of their beds" at 5 a.m. Wednesday by agents she believed to be part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Monir Maghroori, the property manager of the apartment complex, said Thursday she had witnessed several law enforcement officers arrive at the complex Wednesday morning. However, the officers didn't give her any details of the operation, she said.

Several residents at the complex said Thursday they had heard a disturbance early Wednesday morning, but they didn't know what had happened. Some residents said they since have heard rumors that immigration agents had been at the apartment complex, but they didn't know of anyone who had been taken away by authorities.

Pedro Rios, a spokesman for the American Friends Service Committee, said the committee's office had received several phone calls from residents Wednesday about immigration officials asking people for documentation as they entered or left two Escondido apartment complexes. The organization was investigating the information, he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack declined to comment Thursday on any specific investigation, but said the agency sometimes steps up the "daily job" of conducting ongoing intelligence-based operations targeting criminal illegal immigrants and fugitives.

Though those with criminal records are targeted, noncriminal immigrants can also be arrested during the course of operations if they are found to be in the country illegally, she said.

The agency employs 52 teams of immigration agents, including a San Diego-area team, as part of Operation Return to Sender, an ongoing nationwide effort whose focus is to locate, arrest and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records and those who refuse orders from immigration court, Mack said. Authorities are hoping to increase the number of teams to 75 by the end of the year, she said.

Operation Return to Sender resulted in the arrests of 18,149 fugitive and nonfugitive illegal immigrants nationwide between May 2006 and last month, Mack said.

Staff writer Paul Eakins contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Sarah Wilkins at (760) 761-4414 or swilkins@nctimes.com.

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