Dozens arrested in raids at courthouses

[flashl]

PROVIDENCE — Federal immigration agents and state police raided six Rhode Island courthouses yesterday, arresting dozens of people employed by two contractors hired by the state. The detainees are all believed to be maintenance workers.

The raid led to a noisy demonstration by at least 100 people outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 200 Dyer St. last night. Police officers arrived as the crowd grew; at one point the police pushed a line of demonstrators across the parking lot.

Some in the crowd were relatives of the arrestees. Others included clergy and at least one state representative, Grace Diaz, and members of immigrant advocacy groups.

Leonardo Tornes said his sister, Francesca Tornes, an undocumented worker from Mexico, was arrested at the Kent County Courthouse.

“She has two children — one and five years old,” he said through an interpreter. “A friend who worked with her called, and said they have taken everyone,” he said.

Projo

[DebJ]

1. Ok, so did they arrest the employers? Oh no, wait, capitalists are

always right...

[bluestateguy]

2. Arresting the employers should be the higher priority

We have an illegal immigrant problem in large part because of employer exploitation of cheap labor. That drives down wages for all workers and only encourages more illegals to come here in pursuit of more money than they make back home. If there must be these raids then arrest the employers and managers that provide the lifeblood for this system.

[spag68]

3. Wait a minute

since the state of RI hired the contractors, shouldn't he state be arrested.

[flashl]

4. Bingo!

[lepus]

5. In this case no.

I imagine it was likely the state that alerted immigration to the problem.

[flashl]

6. It appears the AG didn't get the memo ...

Woman who cleans AG’s office doesn’t show up after immigration raid

Officials at the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch learned up close the “widespread nature of the problem” of illegal immigration yesterday when one of two custodians who clean the law office of the state’s top prosecutor emerged as a likely illegal immigrant, said a spokesman.

The 32-year-old woman from Guatemala failed to show up for work Wednesday evening, one day after immigration officials arrested 31 suspected illegal immigrants working in the state’s courthouses.

When investigators asked immigration officials to check the documents that the woman provided in April for employment, they learned that her Social Security card and “resident alien card” were “evidently fraudulent,” said spokesman Michael J. Healey.

projo