Metro Detroit area deportations climb 45% in one year
Customs officials expel record number of illegal immigrants, creating fear in some areas.
By Gregg Krupa
The Detroit News
Thursday, December 4, 2008
DETROIT -- A sharp escalation in enforcement of immigration laws is yielding a spike in deportations of illegal immigrants and rampant fear in some Metro Detroit neighborhoods that are home to longtime, undocumented residents.
The Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Detroit increased deportations about 45 percent -- from 5,057 to more than 7,500 -- in the year ending Sept. 30, establishing a new 12-month record.
Federal officials say they are well ahead of that pace for next year, deporting about one-fourth of that record number in October and November alone.
"It might have been a safe bet for them to be here in the years past, but no longer," said Brian Moskowitz, the agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Detroit. "Not as long as Congress gives us more resources.
"Now, were some of them good people otherwise? Probably yes. But we have the absolute right to control who comes into the country, and just because it wasn't done before doesn't mean it isn't being done now."
Much has changed since the failure of immigration reform in Congress in 2005 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The fault line in the debate on immigration runs directly through Latino and Arab neighborhoods in Metro Detroit. Immigrants who entered the country illegally or who overstayed their work and student visas are now routinely deported.
Two decades ago, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service may have had two or three investigators in Metro Detroit for such cases, officials say. Now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has more than 400.
The vigorous enforcement leaves some neighborhoods fearful. Longtime residents who established southwest Detroit as a stable, active neighborhood suddenly flee, leaving their American-born children with family and friends or taking them to poorer lives in lands the children never have known. Neighbors check with neighbors to determine if federal officials are operating in their area. There is fear of a knock at the door. Amid a surge in crime, residents say they are afraid to report incidents, fearful police will ask them for documentation.
Catholic nuns pray in vigil at a Wayne County jail, where many immigrants are detained. Every Friday, about a dozen demonstrators gather at Clark Park in Detroit to protest the crackdown.
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