Am I reading this correctly? Of 138 arrested by ICE, 100+ were citizens or legal residents?

[EFerrari]

LOS ANGELES ---- A judge dismissed a deportation case against one of 130 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in a factory raid in Van Nuys, saying federal agents had no right to detain him.

(He seems to have been undocumented but 'way down the column: )

During the Feb. 7, 2008 raid, agents executed the search warrant on Micro Solutions Enterprises and arrested eight workers and charged them with providing fraudulent information to get their jobs. Agents arrested another 130 workers on suspicion of being in the country illegally.

Since then, more than 100 workers who are U.S. citizens and legal residents have filed claims for damages with the federal government alleging they were illegally detained in the raid.

Civil rights lawyers have also sued the government, alleging officials have refused to release information about the operation.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/02/20//news/state//z105db6df7f044a6888257563007c28fa.txt

Janet Napolitano was asked about a case where "mostly American citizens were arrested" in a hearing yesterday. I think this is the case they were discussing. These ICE raids are out of control.

[tekisui]

1. Sounds like racial profiling.

These mass arrests and deportations are wrong, not matter how you slice it.

[EFerrari]

5. So dangerous. Do you remember the story of lala's cousin

who was rounded up and held by ICE without her meds? So dangerous.

[struggle4progress]

15. Juan Crow n/t

[SoCalDem]

2. That;'s what happens when you round up "brown people"..especially in the southwest

Most are LIKELY to BE citizens..even if they speak with an accent, and don;t "look american"..

The "I" in "Ice", must stand for IDIOT..

[EFerrari]

9. I can't believe that number. What the hell.

I thought maybe that was the total number of bad arrests in the country or the state but, no, it was that one raid. :wow:

[gratuitous]

3. It wasn't profiling, so stop saying that!

Sounds like the lessons from the Palmer Raids just keep getting learned over and over again.

[babylonsister]

4. Here's one Napolitano is looking into...

Napolitano orders review of Bellingham immigration raid
JOHN STARK - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD


Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a review of a Tuesday, Feb. 24, raid at Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham that resulted in the arrests of 28 workers believed to be in the country illegally.

Napolitano told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that she did not know about the raid before it happened and was briefed on it early Wednesday. She has asked U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which conducted the raid, for answers.

"I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said, adding that work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

Rosalinda Guillen, an immigrant rights advocate who is executive director of Community to Community Development in Bellingham, said she was encouraged by Napolitano's attitude.

"That's what we would have expected from the Obama administration," Guillen said, adding that the tactics in Tuesday's raid were unnecessarily traumatic for workers, their families and their employer.

"We're concerned that Homeland Security is enforcing immigration law without any respect for local communities and local economies," Guillen said. "They just want to enforce the law regardless of the impact on us here. ...

"We know there's going to have to be some type of enforcement, but this is not it. It's a war on immigrant workers and local economies that we just can't ignore."

more...

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/102/story/808563.html

[EFerrari]

7. Yeah -- that one seems to be the first one on Obama's watch. Yesterday.

Napolitano was NOT happy about it.

[Lost in CT]

10. Janet Napolitano couldn't be more wrong on this.

from the same article.

"Of the 28, agents found 25 Mexican nationals and one person each from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

In a statement Tuesday, ICE officials said many of the people obtained the jobs using fake Social Security numbers and other counterfeit documents."

You want to help local economies maybe you should also jail "Shirin Dhanani Makalai, whose family owns the business" Or at the very least encourage her to hire unemployed Americans.

WE need more raids like this not less.

[EFerrari]

11. She wasn't given adequate notice in time to do anything.

She was pissed when they were talking about it.

[tekisui]

12. We need more racially motivated, illegal detention, family busting raids?

I hear Germany was lovely in in the 1940's.

[Lost in CT]

17. Illegal Aliens commiting identity theft and letter of the law employers

keeping Americans out of jobs here in America.

Deport the Aliens and arrest the business owner.

[EFerrari]

19. The issue here isn't detention and deportation but ILLEGAL detention.

"ICE has to operate under the same rules as everybody else. Just because they're dealing with immigrants doesn't mean they can leave the Constitution at the door of the workplace," Leopold said.

[Lost in CT]

20. I wasn't referring to the detention of legal residents in th OP

But the controversy over the arrest of illegal Aliens in Washington State as linked above.

[EFerrari]

22. Oh, gotcha. Although, it's too soon to know what happened there.

I don't trust ICE with you or me or anyone. They're out of control cowboys.

[Lost in CT]

24. On that we can agree. Still sometimes they make a good bust. nt

[tekisui]

26. If I arrested hundreds of people without cause, I would end making

'a good bust', too. Sun shines on a dog's ass once in a while.

If they detain one person illegally, the abuse is too great to justify deporting a handful.

[Two Americas]

53. I really appreciate what you are doing

I just don't have the stomach for this anymore.

I did such exhaustive research and documentation and posted it here again and again. I told of my direct personal experience. No human response, no compassion, no attempt to understand ever was the result. The anti-immigration people would abandon the thread, and then cone back the next day and post the same thoroughly refuted and discredited talking points.

I think this is what it must have been like in the fascist countries in Europe in the 30's, trying to speak against the persecution of minorities there and hearing all of the quasi-legalisms, the "reasonable" sounding arguments, the justifications and apologies.

"They" are this that and the other, "we" need to "do something" about "them." God it is a moral quagmire and an abomination that we are having these discussions at all.

Thanks for your effort.

[EFerrari]

54. I understand.

:hi:

[pampango]

58. Man, great post.

I was just thinking that a generation ago it was the progressives who wanted to bring the world together and to treat other people who may look different or speak differently as human beings with the same emotions and goals in life that Americans have. Before I joined the Peace Corps, many conservatives, including my parents, thought I was too idealistic and that I hadn't figured out that it was all about jobs and money.

Now I hear progressives here everyday, saying that it is all about the jobs and money that Mexican immigrants, Chinese workers, Indian service workers are taking from us. Attempts to explain the "other side" of the issue bring accusations that one wants to sing "Kumbaya" and not standing up for the interests of Americans first, which is what conservatives would say a generation ago. I know there are plenty of conservatives who share that fear of foreigners, indeed they are the main force behind building the wall and ICE raids, but it strikes me as odd that as the world has gotten "smaller", progressives' fear of foreigners, in many cases, has grown rather than becoming a relic of the past.

Perhaps nationalism has proven to be such a powerful force that we spend most of our time protecting ourselves from those "others" than in finding common ground with them, so that we can work together.

Anyway, thanks for the great post. Don't stop. :)

[LanternWaste]

23. Self-delete why bother...

Self-delete why bother...

[alstephenson]

41. Why do you capitalize the word "Alien"?

Just curious...

[Lost in CT]

44. I really don't know... probably a subconscious typing quirk. nt

[alstephenson]

45. Subconscious, yes.

A typing quirk? Not so much.

[McCamy Taylor]

50. "Illegal alien" is a biased phrase. Try "undocumented worker" instead.

You wouldn't go around talking about "uppity Negroes" would you? The word choices we make can blow our whole arguments.

[KamaAina]

62. Word!

People are not "illegal". Nor, for that matter, are they "aliens", except maybe around Area 51.

[Two Americas]

63. jaywalking

Almost all of the time the only thing "illegal" that immigrants are guilty of are minor paper work offenses that are on the level of criminality that jaywalking is. Given the hostility and inefficiency of the immigration service, paperwork offenses are difficult to avoid.

It is amazing to me how the public has been duped into these legalistic arguments, all to promote a blood thirsty, vicious and racist attitude toward people and to promote a Gestapo-like illegal program of "enforcement" that is destroying the Bill of Rights and fostering a police state mentality and climate.

The goal of the right wingers is to destroy the Bill of Rights - for all of us. It has nothing to do with the "threat" from desperately poor indigenous people trying to feed their families and support themselves.

Calling all "Democrats" and "liberals" and "progressives" - how can you defend the "right" of wealthy American people to cross any border they like, do whatever they like, set up sweat shops, destroy and exploit other countries, all for the purpose of seeking massive fortunes, but deny the victims of that - poor working people - the right to cross borders in order to survive and feed their children, while making real and valuable continuations to this country?

How can you defend bailing out billionaires, and argue for punishment of those trying to bail themselves out?

The problem people really have with the immigrants from the South is not that they are "alien" or "illegal." Quite the opposite. They are less "illegal" or "alien" then almost any other group of people in the country. Their crime is being the wrong color, and being poor.

I will tell you who is "alien" - alien to all decent and fair-minded and compassionate people - the Wall Street sharks and the war mongers. They are nothing like me. They and everything they represent and are doing are alien.

I will tell you who is "illegal" - the cheaters and scammers, the inside traders, the predators and manipulators and exploiters, the war mongers and torturers and destroyers of the Bill of Rights. Those are the people committing the serious crimes, those are the people who are the real threat to all of us.

The immigrants are going home now. But the wall, the paramilitary teams, the erosion of the Bill of Rights, the detention system - all of those remain in place. Soon many of us may be desperate, without jobs, struggling to get food and shelter, and then the apparatus will be in place to be used against us should we try to do what the immigrants are doing - fight for our human rights and try to survive.

[leftstreet]

6. Wow

Racial profiling much?

Unbelievable

[Solly Mack]

8. Hmmm

K&R

[unblock]

13. it's not racial profiling if the raid is against an employer of undocumented workers

especially if there's sufficient probable cause that the employer is assisting in hiring undocumented workers.

that said, it points out that the real criminal here is the employer, not the workers, and the better way to handle all this is to simply require the employer to prove that they have proper documentation rather than hounding the employees.

[EFerrari]

18. This story is largely about an undocumented worker who WON

his case because they had no probably cause.

[Two Americas]

25. have you experienced this?

Paramilitary armed swat teams separate people by color, and hold everyone at gunpoint. They time their raids for maximum disruption of business, communities, and families. Small family farmers and workplaces where there is union organizing going on are targeted.

Almost always the workers - and the employers - are doing everything they can to comply with the law - of course. Common sense should tell people that, and even an ounce of compassion would lead all decent people to think before they start passing judgment.

White immigrants from Eastern Europe are fast-tracked through, often, and are not subject to the suspicion and terror and foot-dragging by immigration that people of color are experiencing.

This "arrest the employers" fanaticism is just an excuse, a justification for "liberals" to contribute to the police state mentality and the racist and inhumane ongoing national shameful and tragic anti-immigrant hysteria.

[alstephenson]

43. Wow. Well said, TA.

I couldn't agree with you more.

[unblock]

46. separating people by color obviously IS racial profiling

and if so is condemnable. so would targeting companies without probable cause simply on the basis of the color of its employees. if that was the case in the o.p., sorry if i missed it. but if there was a legitimate investigation, legitimate probable cause, legitimate reason to believe the employer was knowingly hiring undocumented workers, then the government has a right to enforce the law.

now, if the law itself is stupid, or if there are better ways of controlling one's borders, that's another question. i can't say i'm happy with our immigation policies and laws, not that i know what the ideal answer is. but in and of itself, trying to enforce the law and discourage people from entering without proper documentation or hiring without proper documentation is not necessarily racist, nor is it necessarily inhumane, provided it is done equitably. i will agree that some of the tactics and practices involved in the current way these things are enforced are, but the laws themselves aren't and that does NOT justify a police state mentality or anything else like what you are saying.

note that undocumented workers are not automatically a different "color" from documented workers. a white undocumented worker from canada is in the same legal category as a brown undocumented worker from mexico. if the law sees a difference, then the law is racist and unjust. but i don't think that's the case. it's the enforcement that is a problem to the extent non-white undocumented workers are disproportionately targeted.

[Two Americas]

52. I have to tell you...

I have been arguing this with people for over 5 years and encountering the same arguments.

I literally get physically ill when I think about trying to argue against the same talking points over and over again. I just don't think there is anyway to convince people once they have their minds made up. I also for the life of me cannot understand how there could possibly be any controversy or disagreement about this here.

You don't see it. That is fine. Your mind is made up. You think we need to "control our border." That is the talk of people living in a totalitarian regime. You think that probable cause is being honored. It is not. You think that "the law" is being "enforced." It is not. You think that no racial profiling is happening. It is.

I think we need to spend our time and energy on people who might possibly understand.

Just as with torture, there is something inherently abhorrent about even debating this issue. I just cannot see that there are "two sides" to this, and dragging matters of human rights into some sort of crossfire talking points debate is just wrong.

[unblock]

55. my mind is open.

but after 5 years of encountering the same arguments, it is apparent that your fight is not with me.

[Two Americas]

56. I don't know what you mean

Your post doesn't make any sense to me.

[unblock]

60. you've been through this argument so many times you're talking out of habit, not to me.

for instance, i post an opinion other than yours, so MY mind is closed? nonsense. you've dealt with OTHER people with closed minds. go criticize THEM for having closed minds.

[Two Americas]

61. ah, I see

The old switcheroo. Those objecting to intolerance and actually the intolerant ones. Those objecting to racism are "reverse racists." Those objecting to economic injustice are actually fomenting "class warfare." Those objecting to bigotry toward GLBTQ people are "angry" and "have an agenda" and "hate straight people." This method of reasoning - although it is not rally reasoning but is merely verbal jousting - is all a gift from the right wing propagandists, and it is truly a gift that keeps on giving. It can be applied to every subject.

We are to see that there are "two sides" to every issue, and be "open-minded" to both sides. So there are "different opinions" on global warming, on evolution, on the government's torture and detention programs.

Then we can portray anyone who adheres to principles, who is consistent in the face of tremendous provocation and attack, as merely being "knee jerk" and in the "habit" of arguing the same point of view, and we are to presume that there must be something wrong with them for doing that. They are to be seen as "not open-minded."

This method of verbal combat allows unthinkable ideas to be given credibility and validity. It allows reality to be denied. It silences and marginalizes people who are trying to speak the truth. It dumbs down and coarsens the discussion, and prevents any serious consideration of the subject at hand.

There are thousands of possible opinions on this that do not deny and violate the fundamental principles and ideals of human rights and decency, and then there is one opinion that does. I am "open" to all of those thousands of possible opinions that people may have on this issue, within a context of respect for the principles and ideals of human dignity, human rights, fairness and equality and justice. I am not "open" to that one opinion, the opinion that is not really an honest opinion but is just a way to promote the dismissal of all opinions and all critical thinking, that denies reality and only seeks to :win: some crossfire talking points duel; that one opinion that will not reveal itself fully and truthfully, but instead seeks to confuse and mislead people.

So, no, I am not "open" to the opinion that massive dragnet round ups of people in violation of the Constitution, all legal precedents and traditions, all concepts of human rights, moral decency and compassion are justified under any circumstances.

I am completely close-minded to justifications and rationalizations for persecuting people and for throwing away the achievements from centuries of struggle for human rights.

[alstephenson]

42. "ESPECIALLY if there's sufficient probable cause"???

Hmmm. Oh, and racial profiling and kidnapping are not "hounding"...

[unblock]

47. ??? i'm not advocating racial profiling or kidnapping.

not sure where you got that idea, but apparently i need to make that clear.

[struggle4progress]

14. Citizens sue after detentions, immigration raids (USAT June 08)

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY
Updated 6/25/2008 10:36 AM

LOS ANGELES — Nitin Dhopade, the chief financial officer for Micro Solutions Enterprises, was headed toward the accounting department on the afternoon of Feb. 7 to deliver checks he had just signed. Suddenly, he says, he encountered armed men and women wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms branded with "ICE," which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Dhopade, 47, says he and 30 other administrative workers for the Van Nuys, Calif., company, which recycles used toner and ink cartridges, were marched down a stairwell lined by officers. The workers were ordered against a wall and told not to touch anything or use their cellphones. "There was no way you could leave. You were definitely detained," he says. "None of us were in handcuffs, but there was no way you could say 'I'm leaving.' "

That marked the beginning of a surprise raid that would result in the arrests of 138 suspected illegal immigrants, about one-fifth of MSE's workforce. Also swept up in the same raid were more than 100 U.S. citizens and legal residents, including Dhopade, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India. They say they were illegally detained at the factory for an hour when ICE agents blocked the doors and interrogated them, forbidding them to leave or go to the bathroom without an escort.

Whether their brief detention was a mere inconvenience or a flagrant violation of their constitutional rights is the subject of a growing debate that seems likely to be resolved in federal court. Immigration officials, charged with enforcing the law against the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the USA, are mounting more raids at slaughterhouses, restaurants and factories ...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-24-Immigration-raids_N.htm

[struggle4progress]

16. Immigration Is Snaring U.S. Citizens In Its Raids (WaPo Aug 08)

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2008; Page A03

... More than 100 citizens and legal residents were snared along with nearly 140 illegal immigrants in a raid on a software company in Van Nuys, Calif., early this year ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503208.html

[EFerrari]

21. We read about detentions in Iraq and thought it was just about Iraqis.

And it came home.

Now we read about these dententions and think, it's just about those "illegals".

And that's a mistake, isn't it?

[struggle4progress]

32. The apparatus seems strikingly similar to South African apartheid,

where "race" was used to mystify the creation of an underclass to exploit

When slavery ended in the United States, the ruling class promptly developed an alternative system of exploitation, namely prison labor, together with a legal apparatus (Jim Crow) to control the exploited class -- the old fiction that African Americans were fit only to be slaves, on account on alleged racial differences, was replaced by a system that supposedly merely kept them separate but actually mystified exploitation under the guise that "criminals" were "working to repay their debt to society"

The current "Juan Crow" system has similar elements: the workforce to be exploited lives externally (now in Mexico, rather than an artificial bantustan) and can be deported instantly to disrupt organizing for rights; lynching is no longer the preferred method of terrorizing this population (as it was under Jim Crow) but immigration raids against poor communities serve a similar purpose of creating anxiety and fear

http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/the-book/excerpt/

Juan Crow in Georgia
By Roberto Lovato
May 8, 2008
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/lovato

Meet "Juan Crow"
By J. Richard Cohen, President
The final days of Boubacar Bah's life read like an account of a political prisoner in a gulag. Bah, 52, was shackled to the floor of the prison's medical unit where he was left to moan and vomit until prison officials moved him to a "disciplinary cell." He would stay there for more than 13 hours - alone, unresponsive and foaming at the mouth, the apparent result of a head injury. He would later die in a coma at a hospital ... Bah was a tailor from Guinea who overstayed his tourist visa in the United States. He was an "illegal" ... http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=315

[hootinholler]

27. Anyone who thinks the purpose of ICE is Immigration enforcement is mistaken.

These raids are simply designed to put fear into a vulnerable segment of the population.

-Hoot

[EFerrari]

29. And I have to wonder about payoffs, too.

Not to mention, the graft in the prison industrial complex. :shrug:

[treestar]

28. Reminds me of that Cheech and Chong song

Born in East LA

Sung to the tune of "Born in the USA"

The guy born in East LA winds up in "downtown" TJ.

Immigration violations are just not important enough to do all this. Catch them if we can, but not at the expense of US citizens and giving excuses for racial profiling. US citizens of Asian and Hispanic background don't deserve to put up with this when others don't have to.

And you can bet blacks will come in for it too. Could be an illegal Jamaican! A Haitian!

Meanwhile, no doubt illegal Brits and Canucks are not sufficiently worrisome to suspect white people of being illegal with equal verve. One hardly needs statistics to prove it, it is so likely to be so.

[EFerrari]

30. As Two Americas pointed out up thread, yes, this is about color. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

57. Its already happened to blacks

About a decade ago some dude from Texas in prison somewhere in the south was deported to the Caribbean, he was being released from prison on a drug charge, immigration was waiting for him - he was escorted onto a flight to Barbados where he was treated like an illegal immigrant!

These stupid roundups have been going on in California for 20 years, any vague anonymous tip is enough to bring on a visit from the Jack Booted Thugs, the roadblocks are also annoying – I just tell them to fuck off and find some honest work at the nearest convenient glory hole.

[Azooz]

31. If this doesn't scare the living shit out of you...

If this doesn't scare the living shit out of you...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2762466


FLORENCE, Ariz. — Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia..........

[EFerrari]

33. I remember that case. Who cares what happens to us

as long as someone is making $$$ out of the whole process?

[kas125]

39. They might have deported 5,000 US citizens -

from an article in The Nation -

"ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half. US citizens are a small percentage of ICE detentions for this period, which totaled around 1 million, but in absolute terms the figure is staggering."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080623/stevens

[EFerrari]

40. And that doesn't even take into consideration the kids and old folks

left to fend for themselves after one of these POS operations.

I used to translate these cases here. When I'd go to the Sheriff's Jail, guys would call out to me, "Lady, please tell my family I'm still alive. I've been here two months with no phone call". And that was in the much less abusive early 80s. long before these ICE storm trooper @ssholes.

[MountainLaurel]

34. That's actually fairly typical of raids

People are gathered up and sent back to Mexico with little regard to those niceties like reality. If you left your birth certificate at home that day, brown skin and an accent is all you need for a one-way bus ride to the other side of the border.

[marmar]

35. I guess dem thar illegulz ain't so illegal after all......

Policies based on fear, paranoia, racism and xenophobia always end up in messes like this.

[EFerrari]

38. And now with "fusion centers" that tie in the Feds to local LE,

we can make bigger, faster, more damaging messes! USA!

[Two Americas]

36. of course

When you toss the presumption of innocence, due process, all of the rights that should be granted to the accused, when you place the burden of proof on people to prove to the authorities that they have a right to walk around and exist, or otherwise be illegally rounded up and detained, it is absolutely inevitable that innocent people will be persecuted. Yet we have people here - on every thread about immigrants - promoting what can only be called a police state doctrine, a doctrine that violates and invalidates every principle and ideal we supposedly honor.

Trying to argue with people about this is like trying to argue that water is wet. No amount of documentation, evidence, logic or reason will change their minds. They are absolutely convinced that "there is a problem" and that "something needs to be done" and are willing to overlook or support any sort of abuse of human rights and unlimited power granted to the police and paramilitary units.

This method - convincing people that "there is a terrible problem and something needs to be done" - is the same method that the right wingers have used on issue after issue to whip the public up through fear to support blood thirsty, racist and inhumane and illegal police state and imperialistic war-mongering actions. It is the method that all tyrants have used throughout history. Yet we have many "liberals" and "progressives" who have completely fallen for it.

[EFerrari]

37. You bet. Terror, anthrax, Pat Tillman, leprosy from Mexico.

Maybe we need to develop a thread of Our Favorite Right Wing Memes that are all over the place.

[leftstreet]

48. You know...

...that wouldn't be a bad idea.

I think a lot of people can scrub the brainwashing outta their heads once they have information they trust.

DU has always excelled at exposing RW lies. Not just for members, but also for lurkers.

(And it looks like the lies/memes are really amping up!)

[EFerrari]

49. Once you recognize bs like "reverse discrimination", you can rethink it.

:hi:

[lib2DaBone]

51. ..Like we need another Law Enforcement Agency to replicate...

...DEA, Border Patrol, Homelasnd Security, TSA, County Sherif, Local Police, State Law Enforcement...

[mmonk]

59. Legal residents are being harassed just as after 9/11, legal residents

were swept up and held without charges.

[cannabis_flower]

64. I'm not sure of the details...

but my boyfriend was hassled either by the police or ICE in Victoria, TX. He has a work visa and he's from Colombia (his mom was from Honduras and his dad from Colombia). He told me he was in Victoria for work and someone called immigration on him. He didn't go into details and I didn't press him because I don't always understand his english. Probably was racial profiling because his english is not very good and he really looks very Mayan.

[cannabis_flower]

65. dupe

[cannabis_flower]

66. dupe