Focus on employers heartens immigration activists

The Obama administration has announced a new strategy on immigration, lifting South Florida advocates' hopes for changes.

The Miami Herald
BY TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@MiamiHerald.com

Joubert Pascal recounts how the Bush administration showed little leeway for his fellow countrymen from Haiti but is now holding out hope that the Obama camp may offer some leniency.

''They're trying to stop going into houses and getting people -- you know, the easy targets,'' said Pascal, 55, a North Miami security guard whose son-in-law was deported two years ago on a probation violation.

Pascal and South Florida immigration advocates welcome the Department of Homeland Security's recently announced priority to target employers who hire undocumented workers instead of the actual laborers, but they also view the new focus with caution and concern.

''It's a positive thing if they're reconsidering the raids, but it's not the only thing they can do,'' said Jonathan Fried, executive director of the WeCount! Community Worker Center in Homestead. He noted that the administration doesn't need congressional support to implement policies, such as temporary protected status for Haitians reeling from last year's especially active storm season in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The wait-and-see stance among South Florida immigrants and their allies comes after DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered an overhaul of the federal agency so that it focuses more on prosecuting the employers who hire undocumented workers, rather than on the employees themselves.

WORKPLACE RAIDS

South Florida immigration advocates say workplace raids occur in South Florida, but that they tend to be low profile and fewer than in other parts of the country. Still, some say DHS's shift could signal a new direction.

''It's a step in the right direction . . . but it's no substitution for immigration reform,'' said Erik Camayd-Freixas, who founded a research initiative on immigration reform at Florida International University.

One local immigration attorney fired off an e-mail to a DHS official wanting to know if some ICE operations would continue.

''Can we nonetheless expect that ICE round-ups of immigrants at their homes in the wee hours of the morning will continue?'' Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami, wrote. ``Immigrant neighborhoods have long been targeted in Florida and elsewhere, as a result of federal dragnets with code names like Operation Endgame and Return to Sender.''

`RETURN TO SENDER'

Operation Endgame is the DHS initiative that seeks to expel all undocumented immigrants by 2012. Return to Sender was a 2006 DHS sweep that apprehended more than 2,000 immigrants with criminal records and other status violations.

Since she assumed the helm of DHS as secretary on Jan. 21, Napolitano has ordered new internal guidelines that will be issued to agents of DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Napolitano has also promised to review enforcement programs to see if they violate civil rights. Among them: One that trains local police officers to execute some of the duties of ICE agents.

Napolitano ''is focused on using our limited resources to the greatest effect, targeting criminal aliens and employers that flout our laws and deliberately cultivate an illegal workforce,'' DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said in a written statement. ``Worksite enforcements can address both of these priorities.''

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