'Operation Return to Sender' stumbles: PLEASE READ!

[Coexist]

"Questions are being raised about the arrest, detention, and treatment of a long-term Ukrainian legal resident alien in Florida.

Bella Maryanovsky, a thirty-year legal resident of the United States, was arrested last week on Tuesday, September 19, when she entered immigration offices for a routine update of her green card papers. It appears she was arrested under a new immigration program called “Operation Return to Sender.”

According to Michael Chertoff in a June 2006 press release, “Operation Return to Sender is another example of a new and tough interior enforcement strategy that seeks to catch and deport criminal aliens, increase worksite enforcement, and crack down hard on the criminal infrastructure that perpetuates illegal immigration.”

“The fugitives captured in this operation,” claimed Chertoff, “threatened public safety in hundreds of neighborhoods and communities around the country. This department has no tolerance for their criminal behavior.”

more...

A DUer is very close to this story - please read and pass it on.

[lala_rawraw]

1. maybe a change in title might work? i dunno

there is too much sex in the air for this to be important i guess:(

[ellenfl]

2. i feel so much safer now. k&r eom

[nam78_two]

3. kr/nt

[silverweb]

4. I fear this is only the beginning.

The abuses of power and mindlessly parroted "just following orders" excuses are only starting.

History will condemn us as harshly as we ever condemned the Nazis and Stalinists.

[peacebird]

5. are they testing the "disappear people" protocal?

seeing if they can get away with it?

It truly makes no sense.....

Democracy in America is dead,
weeping - Lady Liberty hangs her head

:cry:

[lala_rawraw]

6. Bella is not alone

this is going on all over the country and no one is reporting it... we know nothing about these people or where they are being taken. my cousin is the subject of the story, but how many cousins, brothers, sisters, parents, etc., don't happen to have a reporter in the family and access to the public in such a way?

there are figures floating about, but i cannot get any of them nailed because ICE won't help. Jennifer wrote this story, thank god, but now that I am free of any conflicts of interest, i am taking this whole thing on and we all have to... we simply cannot stand by while people are being taken quietly, without charge, and sent somewhere. i did not even know this was going on until they got her.

[peacebird]

9. i'm so sorry lala -

i do not recognize my country anymore....

i feel like this is a trainwreck that i'm watching in slow motion - seeing every excrutiating detail and unable to stop it.

calls to Warner and Allen surely don't do anything. Nor to Virgil Goode ( a recipient of MZM's largesse).

it is total madness and Congress refuses to do anything except "support" the shrub...

[Jack Rabbit]

7. The Government is Nuts

Some poor woman is going to be deported for something she might have done seventeen years ago and Chertoff just hands out a press release about the program that nabbed her protects the rest of us from "criminlas".

We need to be protected from Michael Chertoff and other Bush appointees.

[pitohui]

10. she "might" have done? she was convicted

they are coy and don't tell us what for so we don't have the information we need to make up our own minds

if i committed a crime in the ukraine i would either be imprisoned or deported no matter how long i had lived there

[lala_rawraw]

12. and we know everyone who is convicted is always guilty, don't we?

let's hope you are never at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

[SPKrazy]

19. No Kidding

always someone who thinks the courts are always right

[il_lilac]

8. k & r

wake up america! They'll come for you next.

[druidity33]

11. way scary...

especially pertinent is the comparison to Luis Possada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, and Virgilio Paz Romero... men who walk free today and who actually DID commit atrocities. I doubt highly that the conviction against Maryanovsky was for any salacious crime... though it does seem slightly odd that the crime she was convicted for is not mentioned.

Is there a National list for families and friends to look at to find out if anyone i've known has been taken?

[Jack Rabbit]

13. TTT

:bounce:

[Gregorian]

14. I'm sickened. This isn't America.

It's enraging.

[DemReadingDU]

15. something is terribly wrong

We really need to vote out Republicans this upcoming election.

[Gregorian]

16. Everyone here has to volunteer for Moveon or DNC work.

It's the only way we're going to be able to live with ourselves in the event that things spiral downward. With the added bonus that perhaps we'll make the big change in November.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. Up!!

:bounce:

[me b zola]

18. k&r

[PaDem]

20. I'm familiar with Operation "Return to Sender"......

a few months ago somewhere in the Northeastern United States dozens of hard working, tax paying Indonesians were rounded up in an Operation Return to Sender sweep. Most of these men had wives and young children in the United States. Some were shipped out of the country, some were detained for weeks or months. None of those rounded up were criminals or threats to their communities. This pile of garbage initiative is one way the federal government is trying to instill confidence in the public. Essentially the idea is to visibly round up brown people under the guise that they are threats to the public well-being, or worse, terrorists. The vast majority of these people are neither, just hard working folks trying to get by and support their families. They have been scapegoated and provide the administration with visible evidence that they are doing "everything in our power" to keep us safe.

This initiative is in large part thanks to John Ashcroft. Sometime after 9/11, every male from Arab/Muslim nations between the ages of 16-55 or so had to "register" with the federal government. The result was a handy national database that could be used to help Bush and his cronies prove that they are keeping those of us that don't know any better safe.