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Tracking down 1 at a time
Illegal immigrants accused of crimes are being swept up in the Midwest and deported

By Oscar Avila
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 5, 2005


Dawn had yet to arrive in Park Ridge, but the sun was setting on Wojiech Wojtulewicz's time in America.

Federal agents surrounded his beige split-level home, knocked firmly on the door and rushed in when it opened, as a woman inside screamed. Ten months after the Polish immigrant--already convicted of burglary and battery--had ignored a deportation order, he was one of about a dozen illegal immigrants arrested in a week of raids throughout the Chicago area this summer.

Even as border states try to stem the flow of illegal immigration, federal officials in the American interior are unleashing a continuing series of sweeps for illegal immigrants, especially gang members, sex offenders and those who ignore deportation orders.

In 2004, deportations from the six-state Chicago district rose to 6,231, a 27 percent increase from the previous year. And U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials expect that fiscal 2005 data will show deportations remain a high priority.

Officials say the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted a push to restore integrity to the immigration system. The first step, they decided, was a targeted approach against immigrants who present the greatest threats to public safety.

But the crackdown also shows the daunting nature of immigration enforcement, which one analyst compared to removing stones from a beach, one by one, even as the tide brings in more.

As part of the operation that netted Wojtulewicz and others in July, agents with a special fugitive-apprehension team staked out the homes and workplaces of immigrants for weeks.

Still, officials estimate that nearly 17,000 immigrants remain at large in the Chicago district after ignoring deportation orders.

`What we need to do'

"I don't view it as overwhelming," insisted Jeffrey Jacoff, a supervisor on the fugitive team, as he awaited the next raid in a darkened car. "I view it as, `Here's what we need to do.'"

Despite Jacoff's determination, lawmakers of all stripes say the U.S. government's current approach will generate only modest gains, without reversing the tide of illegal immigration.

Conservative lawmakers favor stricter controls, including putting soldiers on the U.S.-Mexico border and raiding job sites. Liberal politicians say enforcement alone doesn't work and want to provide legal status for most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Illinois is now home to an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants, a number that swelled during the first part of this decade despite a sluggish economy and stricter security after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mexicans make up about 83 percent of the immigrants deported from the Chicago area in fiscal 2005. Immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, Poland and El Salvador represented the rest of the top five.

Peter Fahey, an investigations supervisor in the Chicago office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, credits the creation of the Department of Homeland Security for increasing deportations by coordinating efforts.

Customs agents investigating a drug smuggler, for example, can also tip off immigration agents who are now under the same departmental umbrella.

Also, Fahey said immigration agents are upgrading their databases so local police running a criminal check on a suspect can turn up deportation orders that might have been ignored.

At the same time, authorities are working with state and county officials to match registered sex offenders to immigration records. Agents in the Chicago district have arrested 300 sex offenders in Illinois since 2003 as part of a project called Operation Predator.

But Fahey said agents simply cannot expend the resources to track down the gardeners, busboys and other undocumented immigrants who haven't committed other violations.

"It would be nice to work every lead we get," he said. "Common sense says you can't."

Because most immigrants aren't jailed while their deportation cases are heard, it was always relatively simple for them to ignore final deportation orders and disappear into the general population.

More teams hunt fugitives

Immigration officials now have dispatched more than a dozen fugitive teams across the country. In fiscal 2005, the teams have arrested nearly 9,000 fugitive immigrants, including about 500 in the Chicago area. And Chicago officials say they have heard that they will receive funding to bolster their teams.

But the Park Ridge raid showed the logistical challenges of the strategy. A team spent about four hours, not to mention weeks of surveillance, to capture Wojtulewicz and a Mexican man in Des Plaines.

Five immigration agents were joined by a U.S. marshal and a Park Ridge police officer who had cruised by to offer assistance.

Behind a strip mall off Northwest Highway, home to a tanning salon and video store, agents put on bulletproof vests in case the raids turned violent.

Back inside the cars, the team supervisor read through the particulars of Wojtulewicz's case. A call on the radio crackled that a car in the driveway corresponded with one registered to his wife.

"That's a good sign," Jacoff muttered, meaning they were likely at the right address. The raid went off without incident.

As the team did a post-raid review, an agent shook his head as he reported back on one wild card--there had been an infant in the house, a fact not uncovered by the surveillance. Had they known, the agents might taken more care to protect the infant from any desperate actions by the suspect.

"This guy," Jacoff said, "knew we were looking for him. Who knows what might have happened?"

Craig Nelsen, executive director of Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement, a Washington-based coalition of attorneys and other activists, said he is encouraged that immigration authorities are pursuing fugitives and other criminals.

But he challenged government officials to take the more politically sensitive step of targeting workplaces and employers, many of whom are generous political donors.

"They are going after the ones who have no constituency," Nelsen said. "It's the safe way. If you are the director of the ICE office in Omaha, you're going to go after the gang members that no one likes. If you take on the Nebraska slaughterhouses, you'll have all these elected officials screaming at you."

Other ideas

Raj Goyle, senior domestic policy analyst for the liberal Center for American Progress, said the nation's reliance on undocumented immigrants in the labor force makes mass deportation an impractical option. Immigrant advocates suggest more comprehensive approaches, including strengthening the Mexican economy and increasing the number of legal visas for foreign workers, in addition to providing legal status for undocumented immigrants currently in the country.

"Everyone should be against illegal immigration. At the same time, it's very clear that deportation as a sole response would be completely unaffordable and ineffective," said Goyle, who recently co-authored a study that reported on the exorbitant costs of a hypothetical mass-enforcement campaign.

Fahey, the immigration supervisor, said he realizes that tracking down every illegal immigrant might not be feasible. But he said the agency can't sit by as their numbers continue to grow.

"The American public and the U.S. government see people who are out there and shouldn't be," Fahey said. "They want to see some type of action brought against these people. That is our mission."