Thread: 761 illegals arrested/Operation "Return to Sender"

SoCal immigration raid one of largest in U.S.
From Associated Press
12:45 PM PST, January 23, 2007

SANTA ANA -- A sleepy-eyed man with a hooded sweat shirt and a plastic lunch pail scurries back inside at the sight of a dozen immigration agents clustered outside his apartment complex. He need not worry: they're after his neighbor.

Three officers creep toward the building and one raps loudly on the door of Apt. A. After a tense minute in the pre-dawn darkness, the door cracks open and they have their first arrest -- a 29-year-old immigration fugitive with a DUI conviction.

It was a scene repeated across Southern California over the past week in a sting that officials say was among the largest in U.S. history targeting illegal immigrants who have criminal records or have ignored deportation orders.

By today, when federal immigration officials announced the results of the sweep, 338 illegal immigrants had been arrested at their homes in Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties. Another 423 were taken into federal custody at county jails, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Associated Press rode along on the first day of the secret sweeps, which began Jan. 17. Those arrested were from 14 countries, including Mexico, Honduras, Ukraine, India, Japan, Poland, and Trinidad. Of the 761 people arrested, more than 450 have already been deported, Kice said today.

The raids were a major push within "Operation Return to Sender," a crackdown that has resulted in 13,000 arrests nationwide since June. Immigration officials have also identified 3,000 inmates in state and local jails who will be deported.

The operation targets those illegal immigrants who hide after skipping their voluntary deportation proceedings and criminals who have re-entered the United States after being previously deported for crimes in the U.S.

It's an uphill battle. Despite ongoing efforts, officials estimate that about 600,000 illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders are still at large, Kice said.

"Foreign nationals who flout our laws and commit crimes against our citizens should be on notice that there are consequences," said Julie L. Myers, an ICE assistant secretary. "ICE will use all of the tools at its disposal to find you and send you home."

For agents in Orange County, that meant gathering at 4 a.m. in a chilly parking lot for a pep talk before fanning out to "target" houses in Santa Ana and Anaheim on the first day of the sweep.

The agents hit paydirt early at Apt. A and sped off to their next stop -- the suspected address of a convicted rapist.

Three officers pounded on the door of a two-story, stucco house in a working-class neighborhood. Another shone his flashlight at a woman wrapped in a blue bathrobe poking her head through an open downstairs window.

"Open the door, please. We're with the immigration police and we have to talk," he said in Spanish.

Soon the woman sat at the kitchen table as officers with flashlights roamed the house and herded seven men into the living room. Because none had an identification, the officers couldn't tell which one was their target.

Jim Hayes, director of ICE's Los Angeles field office, decided to book all the men.

"We're going to make sure they're not wanted for any more serious crimes," he said.

Six of the men were frisked, then escorted in handcuffed pairs to a van. The seventh man was a legal immigrant who owns the house; he told officers he didn't know any of the men -- he just rented to them.

By now, it's 6 a.m., and the chances of surprising suspects are waning with the light. Hayes decides to take the van, loaded with the men from the two stops, back to the ICE processing center in downtown Santa Ana.

There, dozens of immigration officers buzz around a sterile, brightly lit room. They shout names and criminal stats to each other as they sift through piles of paperwork and enter digital fingerprint scans into a computer system.

The two dozen men -- and one woman -- brought in from other raids now sit on wooden benches, clutching paper bags filled with their personal belongings. ICE officers wind through the room interviewing them in Spanish and helping them fill out forms.

One by one, the immigrants are taken for mug shots and fingerprints. Some will be charged with illegal re-entry to the United States after felony deportation -- a federal crime than can carry up to 20 years in prison. Others, first-time illegal immigrants with no other criminal record, will be processed and deported within days.

Adan Garcia, a 29-year-old dishwasher with a wife and two young boys in Honduras, considers himself lucky to be deported and not charged with a crime. He says he won't be back to the United States -- at least not illegally.

"I came to this country to work, not harm anyone, and not expecting what happened this morning at 5 a.m.," said Garcia, who was taken into custody at the second house. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

By Monday, ICE learned that all six men arrested at the second house were illegal immigrants, four with prior criminal records.

The rapist they were after had had moved out a week before and is still at large.

"Just because we didn't get him that day doesn't mean we won't get him," said Kice, the ICE spokeswoman. "This does not mean the search is over."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MORE NEWS
- Ford posts worst loss in firm's history
- Anti-war groups plan Washington rally
- U.S. arsenal adds nonlethal ray guns VIDEO
- Bush campaigns for health care proposals

"Return to Sender"

:P


Catchy title.


They better wake up and understand
We the American people are not looking for mere
Window dressing here..............now.


What part of illegal don't you understand?
Get out!




Neils
7:05 pm
01/25/2007

Great Title...

With this most recent raid , I wonder if they still plan to boycott and march in the streets demanding equal rights, AKA Amnesty?