High profile raids leave immigrants living in fear nationwide
Juliana Barbassa
Associated Press
Feb 20, 2007
RICHMOND, Calif. - Fear has gripped immigrant families across the country as federal agents raid neighborhoods, work sites and jails in a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.
Tens of thousands of people have been rounded up over the past several months, and many more are afraid to leave home, answer a knock on the door or leave their children alone in fear they might be next. Churches and community groups are stepping in with legal advice and financial aid for families split up or left without an income because of the sweeps.
“My kids are asking me, 'Why is this happening, mommy? Why did they take uncle away?',” said Dinora Sanchez, whose uncle was taken by immigration officials in January while riding his bike to a construction job in this low-income city northeast of San Francisco. “I'm afraid. There are no explanations I can give them.”
From California to Connecticut, federal officials have launched a full-scale offensive to find and deport illegal immigrants. It's part of a two-pronged approach, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: secure the nation's borders while stepping up enforcement within.
“We're attacking these issues on multiple fronts,” she said. “It's definitely a priority now.”
Documented immigrants like Sanchez, a native of Mexico, have nothing to fear, said Kice. But her uncle, who had been in the U.S. illegally for 10 years and did not have work authorization, was an obvious target.
“People who are in this country complying with our immigration laws have no reason to be concerned,” Kice said.
Groups supporting a reduction in immigration have praised the shift toward more aggressive enforcement. “Enforcement actions like these play an enormous role in deterrence,” said Steven Camarota, of the conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies.
But many immigrants and their advocates say it's splitting families and hurting the legal relatives of immigrants who crossed the border illegally, as well as their co-workers, employers and the businesses that serve them.
“We have to stop this reign of terror,” said Mark Silverman, director of immigration policy at San Francisco's Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Since launching “Operation Return to Sender” last May, ICE has rounded up nearly 14,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally or were ignoring a judge's deportation order.
“They make a mockery of the system,” Kice said, “and send the wrong message to those who follow the orders.”
Some 4,400 others were rounded up in large-scale job site investigations, including immigrants working without proper authorization and those who hired them. More than 700 of those face criminal charges, including hiring illegal immigrants.
Searches of state and local jails over the past seven months identified another 5,500 immigrants who committed crimes, ensuring they'd go into ICE custody when their finished their sentences.
In one of the biggest sweeps so far, Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Nebraska and five other states were raided in December, resulting in the arrests of 1,282 immigrant workers. One of those plants was in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Mexican immigrant Juan Padilla runs a western clothing store. He says he went from selling $5,000 a month worth of cowboy boots, hats and slim-cut jeans last year, to just $600 in January.
His wife, who wasn't authorized to work, lost her job at the meatpacking plant and is awaiting a court hearing. Padilla is wondering how they'll be able to support their five American-born children.
“I want my children to go to school, to have better opportunities, so they don't end up cutting meat 14 hours a day,” he said. “But what can we do? Where do we go from here? I just don't know.”
The enforcement action hit the growing immigrant community in the town of about 26,000 hard. More than 30 children were pulled from the school system, presumably by families who decided to leave the area.
Parents were “frightened that the immigration officials were going to come to school and take their children,” said Thomas Renze, principal of Woodbury Elementary in Marshalltown.
Sister Christine Feagan, director of Hispanic ministry at St. Mary Catholic Church, agreed that the raids have been particularly hard on children, whether they're legal or not.
“You can't explain the difference to a second or third grader,” she said.
As enforcement actions unfurl across the country, churches and other community organizations have been a key source of support and aid to families.
The Colorado faith-based group Congregations Building Community made sure the children of parents detained during local raids didn't go home to empty houses after school, and is helping families who lost jobs pay bills through the winter.
Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, a coalition of 25 congregations in Northern California, protested the enforcement actions and rallied local officials to support immigrants.
Dozens of other organizations are taking donations, giving legal advice, and holding community meetings in response to the large-scale effort by federal officials to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.
“Our folks are really afraid,” said the Rev. Carolyn Krantz of St. Peter Martyr Church in Pittsburg.
The raids have targeted immigrants who have committed crimes or are evading deportation orders. But if in the course of tracking them down agents come across others they suspect of being here illegally, they will question, detain and deport them if warranted, Kice said.
“It's not uncommon for us to go to a location and discover that the target moved out weeks before,” she said. “But we can find other individuals there who are immigration violators.”
That's what happened to two of Maria Ramos' children, who were taken from their beds in San Pablo at dawn in January. The agents had come looking for an in-law, but instead they took Ramos' 17-year-old daughter, Elvira Mendoza, and 22-year-old son Victor Mendoza.
Elvira was released into the custody an older brother who is here legally, but Victor Mendoza was deported back to Mexico, Ramos said.
“My heart is heavy,” said Ramos, 64. “My children are what I have in life. I agree with looking for criminals, but there's no need to cause us so much pain.”
While groups advocating a reduction in immigration are praising the stepped-up enforcement of existing laws, people on both sides of the debate questioned whether the crackdown would have any real effect.
