Thread: WA: Detained teens choose Mexico; others reported arrested

Detained teens choose Mexico; others reported arrested
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News

FORKS, WA — The fate of a 16-year-old Forks resident who was detained by Border Patrol agents late last month has been decided, while reports of new detentions surface.

Carlos Bernabe, 16, will willingly return to Mexico to be with his family, Forks Mayor Nedra Reed said.

"We have been working on Carlos' issues all week," Reed said late last week.

"All of his remaining family have returned to Mexico.

"I spoke to Immigration, and he is being held in a facility in Seattle, and we are trying to get in touch with his father and uncle so they know where to meet him.

"He will be flown back to Mexico on a voluntary return."

Reed became aware that the boy was in federal detention in the Seattle area about two weeks ago.

He could have been released to a relative, Reed said, but his stepmother would not pick him up because she was an illegal immigrant.

She returned to Mexico, where the teen's father is, "out of fear," Reed said.

Reed said she knew several people who would have taken care of the boy, but that it was decided that he should be with his family.

"Although there are wonderful people in Forks who would take care and raise him, it was determined that he would be best off with his family, and he should be home with his parents by the weekend," Reed said.

Ayala seeking citizenship
The teen's case followed closely on the heels of that of Edgar Ayala, 19, a Forks High School athlete who graduated with honors in June, and who was arrested during a Border Patrol checkpoint near Forks on Aug. 20.

Ayala decided to join his father in Mexico.

Both father and son are seeking legal residency in the United States, said Rebecca Schwartz, Forks High School's registrar.

Ayala's father, she added, has an appointment with a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service on Thursday.

Said Reed: "It has been a difficult time.

"These instances divide the community.

"In the past, all of those taken were here on their own volition — but these recently were brought here by their parents."

Others detained
As the town awaited news of what would happen to the teen last week, four other Forks residents were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

ICE is an arm of the federal Department of Homeland Security, as is the Border Patrol, which is the law enforcement arm of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Two of the people detained — Francisco Martinez and Silvia Villicana — already had been ordered deported, said Lorie Dankers, ICE spokeswoman.

The other two — Octaviano Pablo and Ricardo Geranimo — were taken into custody at the Forks residences where ICE agents were searching for the first two.

"We did visit some homes in Forks looking for immigration fugitives who the judge had ordered deported and they failed to follow through on that," Dankers said.

"The other two hadn't received the final order of deportation, so they will have the opportunity to go before a judge."

A person who is detained can request to voluntarily be deported, seek political asylum in the United States or plead their case before an immigration judge.

ICE is legally allowed to go into homes if they have good reason to believe that a fugitive from deportation is there, Dankers said.

Fear in Forks
The checkpoints and arrests have driven fear into the heart of the Latino community, said Manuela Velasquez, an advocate for Hispanics in Forks, who legally immigrated from Mexico about three decades ago.

The area draws migrant workers to harvest salal for florists, and do other work.

"Little kids — pre-schoolers — will go around and knock on doors to scare their friends saying, 'la migra, la migra,'" Velasquez said, using a common slang term for agents who enforce immigration laws.

"It is so sad, to scare people with that.

"Some kids don't want to go to school.

"I know of one woman who said her son was puking and didn't want to go to school because he is afraid — but they are citizens."

Superintendent of Quillayute Valley School District Diana Reaume said that she knows the schools will lose some students because of the increased enforcement.

The district, which resumed classes on Wednesday, hadn't yet compiled its first day of school numbers when she commented last week.

"I don't yet know the full magnitude," Reaume said.

________

BORDER PATROL AGENTS checked the permanent resident cards — known as "green cards" — of the Port Angeles India Oven workers last Sunday, said co-owner Kelly Sandhu.

None of the workers checked at the restaurant, all of whom were born in India, were detained, she said.

It was the first time such a thing had happened in the eight years that the restaurant on the corner of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue, the only one in Port Angeles offering East Indian cuisine, has served spicy curries and tandoori chicken.

"It was embarrassing," said Sandhu, who, with her husband, Paul Sandhu, and their partner D.J. Virk, also owns the Dairy Queen on Railroad Avenue around the corner from the India Oven, as well as the 24-Hour Mini-Mart on Eighth and Lincoln streets.

Before checking workers' documentation at the India Oven, agents talked to Sandhu at the Dairy Queen, she said.

"They didn't ask anybody [at the Dairy Queen] if anyone was legal or illegal," she said.

"I have no foreign employees here.

"They harassed the employees" at the India Oven, she said, "just because they are foreign."
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/artic ... /809070304

Border Patrol crackdown on West End pleases some, disturbs some in Forks

By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News

FORKS — A trip down Forks Avenue at lunchtime provides a fast tour of this town's tossed salad of cultures.

There's the Tienda Latina grocery store, packed with Boing! fruit drinks from Mexico, sweet Mexican cakes, hot chiles from Los Angeles and a row of rose-colored and royal-blue guitars.

Across the street is J.T. Sweet Stuffs, a popular hangout for Forks High School students and men who work in the woods.

Tucked in between is Cafe Paix and A Work in Progress, an espresso bar and antique-consignment shop run by Richard Chesmore.

"I'm only a pilgrim. Been here just 18 years," Chesmore said.

In his cafe, people are talking about the thing that has reverberated across the Forks area.

The U.S. Border Patrol has intensified its presence around Forks, setting up a checkpoint north on U.S. Highway 101 and deploying larger numbers of agents across the West End.

It's part of increased enforcement of immigration laws on the North Olympic Peninsula.

Border Patrol agents also staffed a checkpoint on state Highway 104 near the Hood Canal Bridge on Aug. 22, and Joseph Giuliano, deputy chief Border Patrol agent, said a third location eyed for a checkpoint is on Highway 101 south of Discovery Bay.

Their mission, Border Patrol spokesman Michael Bermudez said, is to apprehend terrorists, drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.

Late last month, two Forks teenagers were caught by the Border Patrol: 16-year-old Carlos Bernabe and Edgar Ayala, 19. Both have agreed to be voluntarily deported to Mexico.

Others have been detained since.

Chesmore, meanwhile, has heard from men who've gone out of state to work and are afraid to return to Forks, and from a musician who planned dances at the Rainforest Art Center, but canceled because he doesn't think there'll be much of a turnout among Hispanics.

'Afraid to move around'
"People are afraid to move around," Chesmore said.

"It's not just Latinos who are wringing their hands over this. A lot of Anglos are as well."

At JT Sweet Stuffs, other Forks residents weren't shy about sharing their opinions on the Border Patrol presence.

"In some ways I like it — if they take the criminals, the drug dealers. That will make our town better," said Katelynn Kerschner, a Forks High School sophomore.

"But they're taking away the good ones, like Edgar [Ayala]. He was a good kid. He graduated. He had a good job."

Ayala was "like a brother" to Kerschner.

In a nearby booth were two retired loggers who've been in Forks for better than 50 years.

"There's a lot of good people in that bunch, and some bad ones," Carroll Koenke said of the illegal immigrants who've come to Forks after sneaking across the border thousands of miles south.

"A lot of the good ones do work no one else will do," Koenke said.

"They have contributed to the economy," added Ted Spoelstra, who's worked in Forks since 1947.

He agreed that immigrants take on tough work in the woods and mills.

But Koenke wonders how much of the immigrants' earnings leave the country in the form of remittances to families back in Mexico.

And while he acknowledged that everyone pays sales tax, he worries that illegal workers aren't contributing to Social Security, which people like him depend on.

"Should become citizens"
"They're here illegally. If they stay here, they should become citizens," Koenke said.

"I have no problem with these roadblocks," he added, since they may help Border Patrol agents apprehend fugitives.

Chesmore, however, does not consider undocumented immigrants to be criminals.

"In this community, they have found a niche," he said, adding that he's had Mexican friends for many years.

Forks Mayor Nedra Reed looks to the nation's leaders to make a long-needed overhaul of immigration laws.

"Our federal government and our Congress have got to do something," Reed has said.

"We need a federal immigration policy . . . We hired [Congress] to make the tough decisions."

________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/artic ... /809070302

Is there a community in the US that has not been run over illegals? 12 million people do not make this kind of impact. more like 100 million plus would be more accurate. I am so disgusted with our Gov and this worthless traitoris Prea.

We really need a Violin smiley. " Good illegal " NO, JUST ILLEGAL.

But they're taking away the good ones, like Edgar [Ayala]. He was a good kid. He graduated. He had a good job."

Hmmm...even the so called 'good ones' have no respect for the laws of this country! Nice to know that an illegal invader took a 'good job' away from an American citizen!

He could have been released to a relative, Reed said, but his stepmother would not pick him up because she was an illegal immigrant.

FAMILY MEMBERS ARE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, TOO.

He could have been released to a relative, Reed said, but his stepmother would not pick him up because she was an illegal immigrant.

She returned to Mexico, where the teen's father is, "out of fear," Reed said.

Another example of the wonderful "family values" these people reportedly posess. She abandons her step son in detention because she is more concerned with possibly being deported herself because of her illegal status. Ultimately, she went back to mexico anyway!

Leads me to believe this woman has every intention of returning and did not want to risk immigration having an record of her being in this country.