INB 5/21/06: More Raids as Senate Acts on Bill

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 19 - May 21, 2006

1. Raids Protested in Detroit
2. LA Water & Power Raided
3. 34 Arrested in Western NY
4. Construction Raids Continue
5. Senate Moves on Immigration Bill

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*1. RAIDS PROTESTED IN DETROIT

On May 15, about 50 people braved the rain in front of the
federal building in Detroit to protest a May 12 immigration raid.
Agents from the fugitive operations team of US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided three homes in southwestern
Detroit on May 12, looking for three people with oustanding
deportation orders. They ended up arresting one of the people
they were looking for, along with 17 other people who happened to
be at raided homes. Four people--including the person originally
sought--remain detained; the other 14 were allowed to post bail,
said ICE spokesperson Robin Baker. The person officials were
originally looking for was previously convicted of auto theft and
will soon be deported to Mexico.

Children were among those arrested in the raids, according to
activist Elena Herrada. "We have to respond," said Herrada at the
protest. "More and more people can disappear." People "don't feel
safe," said Edith Castillo, executive director for a Detroit-
based group called Latin Americans for Social and Economic
Development (LA SED). [Detroit Free Press 5/13/06, 5/15/06,
5/16/06; Detroit News 5/16/06; AP 5/15/06]

*2. LA WATER & POWER RAIDED

On May 16, ICE agents arrested five immigrant workers at the
headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
(LADWP), culminating a year-long investigation. Three other LADWP
workers were arrested previously as part of the same
investigation. LADWP cooperated fully, and its human resources
department helped arrange the arrests. LADWP General Manager Ron
Deaton said his office worked closely with ICE to examine the
records of more than 7,000 LADWP employees.

The arrested LADWP workers were from Ethiopia, Nigeria, El
Salvador, the Philippines and Mexico; all had entered the country
legally, but several had visas that did not authorize them to
work. One employee was on a student visa, one was on a visitor's
visa, and one had applied for temporary protective status, said
ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice. Three of the workers were lawful
permanent residents with criminal convictions that make them
eligible for deportation, Kice said. The arrested workers held
positions including management analyst, customer service
representative, water sampling technician, maintenance worker and
electrical engineering associate. All of the arrested workers
were processed for administrative immigration violations and will
undergo deportation proceedings, ICE said. The raids were part of
an ICE program targeting critical infrastructure facilities. [ICE
News Release 5/16/06; Los Angeles Times 5/17/06]

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office welcomed the
arrests. "Mayor Villaraigosa has made the safety and security of
the residents of Los Angeles his top priority and thanks the
Department of Homeland Security for this joint effort," said
spokesperson Janelle Erickson. [LAT 5/17/06]

*3. 34 ARRESTED IN WESTERN NY

Early on May 19, some 50 ICE agents and state troopers arrested a
group of 29 undocumented Mexican immigrants who were traveling in
vans to jobs at Schictel's nursery in Springville and West
Valley, New York, just south of Buffalo. ICE was contacted after
a sheriff's deputy pulled five Schictel's workers over on a
traffic stop late on May 18; those five workers were handed over
to ICE after they failed to produce proper documents. Most of the
workers had been living along Route 219 in Springville, in what
used to be a motel and is now owned by Schictel's. According to
Peter J. Smith, the ICE supervising agent who headed the raid,
"different buses...would come and shuttle them from the motel out
to the worksite." The 34 arrested workers will not face charges;
most were expected to be sent back to Mexico on May 20. "This is
right in line with the president's plans to have illegals sent
back immediately," said Smith. [WIVB TV4 Buffalo (Niagara Falls)
5/20/06; AP 5/19/06; Buffalo News 5/20/06]

*4. CONSTRUCTION RAIDS CONTINUE

Ten undocumented workers were arrested in a May 18 raid at a
construction site for a H-E-B grocery store in Beaumont, Texas,
immigration officials said on May 19. ICE personnel received a
tip that dozens of undocumented aliens were working at the site,
Houston-based ICE spokesperson Luisa Deason said. H-E-B Houston
division spokesperson Cyndy Garza-Roberts said on May 19 that the
undocumented immigrants were employed by independent
subcontractors working at the site. H-E-B has asked its
contractor, Dallas-based Aguirre Building Systems, to ban any of
the subcontractors who were involved until they can prove every
worker is documented. [Beaumont Enterprise 5/20/06]

On May 16, ICE arrested five undocumented immigrants from Mexico
who were working for a subcontractor at a Wal-Mart construction
site in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The workers were arrested at a
local hotel and have been charged with possessing fraudulent
documents. Undocumented workers also have been arrested in recent
months at Wal-Mart construction sites in Bismarck and Dickinson.
In October 2005, Wal-Mart temporarily shut down work on seven
stores under construction in North Dakota to check for
unauthorized workers [see INB 11/20/05]. [AP 5/18/06]

On May 16, police in Casper, Wyoming arrested two undocumented
workers of a cement company pouring the foundation on a local
Wal-Mart site. The two men were charged locally with interfering
with an investigation by giving false names to police. ICE
spokesperson Carl Rusnok said on May 17 that ICE had placed
detainers on the two workers and will investigate. Heggem
Construction, based in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, released a
statement on May 17 claiming it does not "knowingly hire
unauthorized workers." The arrest temporarily shut down work at
the site for a second time this year; in March construction
stopped for several days after concerns arose about the
immigration status of some workers. [Casper Star-Tribune 5/18/06]

On May 16, three Mexican immigrants installing drywall on a
school construction site in Belgrade, Montana, were arrested by
local police and jailed in nearby Bozeman at the request of
immigration officials. Belgrade police began investigating the
men on May 16 after a pawn shop employee alleged they stole a
drywall tool worth $100; the tool was later found in the store
but the three men were turned over to ICE because they couldn't
provide proper documentation. As of May 18 they were in ICE
detention in Colorado, and had agreed to be deported without
seeing an immigration judge, Rusnok said on May 19. No criminal
charges have been filed. [AP 5/20/06]

On May 17, ICE arrested at least six suspected out-of-status
immigrants at an apartment complex in Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky, in
the southern suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. The arrests were
fallout from a May 9 raid in the area targeting construction
subcontractors working for Fischer Homes [see INB 5/14/06]. When
US marshals arrived at the Ft. Mitchell apartments to serve a
summons for a man wanted for questioning in the Fischer Homes
case, they found men they believed to be undocumented immigrants
and called ICE to detain them. [WCPO.com (Cincinnati) 5/18/06]

On May 19, local authorities arrested three undocumented
immigrants working on a construction site in Triadelphia, West
Virginia (near Wheeling, in Ohio County), and turned them over to
ICE in nearby Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Two of the men were
subsequently released after agents found they had been previously
processed by ICE. The three men were working for a Virginia
subcontractor installing cable service for Comcast. The arrests
were prompted by a tip from someone who reported that possible
undocumented immigrants were working at the site, said Ohio
County Sheriff Tom Burgoyne. [Wheeling News-Register 5/19/06]

*5. SENATE MOVES ON IMMIGRATION BILL

During the week of May 15, the Senate resumed debate on S. 2611,
an immigration bill introduced by Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and
Mel Martinez (R-FL). On May 17, the US Senate voted 99 to 0 to
approve an amendment by Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Cornyn
(R-TX) which would exclude immigrants who have committed one
felony or three or more misdemeanors from legalizing their
status. In a compromise, senators agreed to let some immigrants
who have ignored deportation orders remain eligible for legal
status if they show their deportation would cause "extreme
hardship" to legal residents or US citizens, or could prove they
did not receive adequate notice of a deportation hearing. The
Senate voted 83-16 to approve an amendment by Sen. Jeff Sessions
(R-AL) which calls for the construction of 370 miles of fencing
along Arizona and California's borders with Mexico. [Bloomberg
News 5/17/06; Border Working Group Press Release 5/17/06; Arizona
Daily Star (Tucson) 5/18/06]

The fencing would replicate the "triple fence" model--three
layers of 15-foot-high solid walls--already used along the border
near San Diego, California. Some worry that walls in Arizona and
California will just push people to cross the border farther
east, through the deserts of New Mexico and Texas. A recent New
York Times/CBS poll published on May 14 showed that 66% of the US
public opposes using fencing to control immigration, while 29%
favor such a strategy. [BWG Press Release 5/17/06]

On May 17, the Senate voted 66-33 to reject an amendment
sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) which would have blocked
immigrants present in the US illegally from gaining legal status.
On May 16 senators voted 69-28 against an amendment that would
have eliminated a guest-worker program. Senators have approved
amendments lowering the number of guest-worker visas to 200,000
per year, setting wage rules for the program and preventing it
from being used where more than 9% of low-skilled US workers are
unemployed. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has said the
Senate will complete work on the bill by the end of May. It will
then have to be reconciled in committee with HR 4437, passed last
Dec. 16, which includes harsh repressive measures and no
legalization program. [Bloomberg News 5/17/06]

On May 18, the Senate voted 50-49 against an amendment proposed
by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) which would have stripped Social
Security earnings from millions of immigrants. [National
Immigration Law Center (NILC) 5/18/06] Also on May 18, the Senate
voted 63-34 for an amendment introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-
OK) stating that the federal government "shall preserve and
enhance the role of English as the national language of the
United States." The Senate also voted 58-39 for an amendment by
Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) declaring English the "common and
unifying language of America." Both amendments are seen as
largely symbolic. [Houston Chronicle 5/19/06]

On May 18, the Senate voted 56 to 43 for an amendment offered by
Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) that would
allow immigrant workers to apply for permanent residence without
the sponsorship of their employers. [NY Times 5/18/06]

On May 18, President George W. Bush wrote to House speaker J.
Dennis Hastert (R-IL), formally asking for an emergency
appropriation of $1.9 billion to pay for the deployment of 6,000
National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol, part of a plan
Bush outlined in a May 15 speech. Bush said he would cut a
similar amount from an emergency request for funds for the
Department of Defense. [NY Times 5/18/06] Bush made a photo op
visit of less than four hours to the Arizona border city of Yuma
on May 18 in an effort to sell his immigration reform plan. Since
the start of the fiscal year last Oct. 1, the Border Patrol's
Yuma station has become the busiest in the nation with more than
84,000 immigrants apprehended, up from about 77,000 a year ago.
[ADS 5/19/06] Immigrant deaths in the Yuma sector hit a record 51
in 2005, up up from 15 two years earlier. [LAT 5/19/06]

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--
Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of
responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be
attained. -- Helen Keller


"Americans have thousands of media outlets to choose from. But they
still have to visit a porn site to see what this war has done to the
bodies of the dead and the souls of the living. One of the pictures...
depicts a woman whose right leg has been torn off by a land mine... a
medical worker is holding the mangled stump up to the camera. The
woman's vagina is visible.. The caption for this picture reads: 'Nice
puss - bad foot.'"

- eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2005-09-21/news/news.html, on site where
soldiers post pics of dead Iraqis to access porn

"There are plenty of women in Fallujah who have testified they were
raped by American soldiers... "
-- dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/newscommentary/000251.php