ICE (INS) raids in the Mission!

ICE raids Mission hotel
Unusual attack on immigrant rights

By Camille T. Taiara

In a highly unusual raid, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the Hotel Sunrise, a residential hotel in the Mission District, about 6:30 a.m. on May 6 and emerged soon after with nine immigrants in shackles. At least seven of those immigrants – all from Mexico – were deported within 48 hours without access to a hearing, according to reports from family members and friends. The other two, both of whom tenants say are natives of India, may still be in ICE's custody.

As of press time, one of the Indian men – who residents say worked at the hotel, and who appeared to be the target of the raid – was being held at an immigration detention center in Arizona, Sunaina Maira, a volunteer with Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, told the Bay Guardian.

She had no details on the second Indian man: "We don't even know his name," she said. "A lot of immigrants from California get shipped out and lost in the system."

If ICE is to be believed, the raid wasn't part of any broader criminal investigation. As such, it represents a particularly brash disregard for San Francisco's five-year-old resolution declaring that the city won't participate in immigration raids.

"Like many of the raids that happen now, the feds just abused the opportunity to sweep up as many people as they could," said Ted Wong, policy director of Chinese for Affirmative Action.

Wong was involved in investigating the last immigration raid in the city, at a restaurant in Chinatown last summer. That sweep involved not only ICE but also agents from several federal and state agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the lead agency in that raid, never divulged the purpose of the operation, said Wong, who speculated it might have been part of an investigation into wage fraud or some sort of trafficking.

In this latest case, "the target was a fugitive alien with final removal orders," said ICE spokesperson Lori Haley, who described the sweep simply as "part of an ongoing enforcement operation." Haley wouldn't disclose whether other agencies were involved but did say the operation wasn't part of any criminal or terrorism-related investigation.

Immigrant Rights Commission executive director Dang Pham said he had put a call into the San Francisco Police Department to ask if local authorities played any role in helping ICE – which would violate the city's sanctuary ordinance directing local authorities not to cooperate with immigration officials. SFPD spokespeople didn't return our call by press time.

The seven Mexicans swept up during the operation were janitors who were either arriving from or on their way to work on the morning of the raid, and they just happened to be on the first-floor landing when the ICE agents arrived.

"We're not street criminals," a soft-spoken Mexican (who asked not to be named), who's been in the United States only eight months and whose son, nephew, and two friends were deported as a result of the raid, told us. "We're just here to work and make a life for ourselves."

E-mail Camille T. Taiara
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Editorial [same issue]

Up against ICE


EARLY IN THE morning May 6, a posse of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on the Hotel Sunrise, at 15th and Valencia Streets. As Camille T. Taiara reports, the agents rounded up seven Mexicans and two Indians they claimed were in the country illegally. The Mexicans have all been deported, and one of the Indians is in ICE detention, and nobody knows where the other one is.

It's impossible to figure out exactly what ICE was doing (or whether there were other government agencies involved) – ICE in 2004 has become as secretive as the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency. It seems likely that the Indians were the target of the raid, since people from the Middle East and Central Asia have been subject to the worst ICE harassment. Perhaps there was some other federal crime involved. Either way, most of the people who wound up being deported were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's conceivable this unusual raid (one of only two in the city in the past year) was simply a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

But the simple fact is, this sort of thing isn't supposed to happen in San Francisco. The city has a formal policy as an ICE raid-free town. It's a sanctuary city for immigrants, and by law, city law-enforcement authorities aren't supposed to cooperate with ICE on any efforts to deport people whose sole crime is living here without the proper paperwork.

The city can't stop federal agents from conducting raids, but the Board of Supervisors needs to conduct a public inquiry to make sure that no city resources were used in the raid – that the local cops didn't participate in any way, and that local law enforcement continues to act with the maximum possible level of noncooperation with ICE.

And the supervisors should ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi to ask a few questions of her own. Why was ICE suddenly doing a sweeping raid in the Mission District? And doesn't the federal agency have some responsibility to tell the public what the raid was about?


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Announcement in English below.


LA MIGRA
en el Vecindario...

El pasado Jueves 6 de Mayo, agentes federales hicieron una redada en un edificio habitacional en el barrio de la mision. Arrestaron a 9 personas, entre ellos 7 mexicanos. Los 7 mexicanos fueron deportados dentro de los 2 dias continuos al arresto sin tener una audencia ante un juez. Este tipo de ?mini-redadas? se han llevado acabo en los ultimos meses en todo California. No podemos permitir que ?la migra? lleve acabo estos ataques en nuestros propios hogares. Somo nosotros los inmigrantes trabajadores que mantenemos la economia de este pais.

CONFERENCIA DE PRENSA
Viernes 14 de Mayo, 2004
10:00 am
447 Valencia st. (entre la 15 y la 16)

Venga para enterarse de sus derechos ante inmigracion.


Organizado por: API legal outreach, ASATA, LA RAZA centro legal, Comite de Paderes Unidos, SRO Families United, Comite de Vivienda San Pedro, Day Labor Program, Heads Up.

¡Es tiempo de unirnos y organizarnos para ponerle un ALTO A LA MIGRA!

GET THE INS OUT OF OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

On Thursday, May 6, federal agents conducted a raid on a residential building in the Mission District. They swept up 9 undocumented immigrants including 7 Mexican nationals and 2 East Indian individuals. The 7 Mexicans were deported within 2 days of the arrest without a hearing. This is just one of many raids that have occurred in the Bay Area and California. We, as working immigrants who maintain this country?s economy, will not permit the INS to attack our homes.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Friday May 14th, 2004
10:00 am
447 Valencia st. (between 15th & 16th)

Organized by: API legal outreach, ASATA, La Raza Centro Legal, Comité de Paderes Unidos, SRO Families United, St. Peter's Housing Committee, Day Labor Program, Heads Up Collective


It's time to unite & organize to STOP the INS attacks!

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Press conference went very well, about 80-100 people. Spanish and Chinese TV and newspapers were there, but mainstream (English-language) media only showed up at the very end (channel 5.) Tenants at the hotel told their stories, and organizers framed the issue in the broader context of the racist war on immigrants-- a key part of the so-called "War on Terrorism", and noted that the recent images of torture by US occupation forces in Iraq aren't so shocking to those familiar with the standard practices of immigration authorities here in the USA.

--Jeff Giaquinto
jeffsotheraddress [at] hotmail.com