By Rebekah L. Cowell
Indy Week
May 25, 2011
Six undocumented immigrants who had served six months in federal prison on immigration charges were released yesterday. They were released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcements officers after posting immigration bonds in Charlotte. The bond amounts ranged from $5,000—$6,000.
The men—Rafael Garcia-Tiscareno, Jose Guadalupe Rodriguez, Lucio Huerta-Ponce, Luis Humberto Huerta-Ponce, Luis Raul Huerta-Ponce, Juan Manuel Martinez, Rodriguez, Jorge Alberto Ruiz-Ponce—were employees of Durham-based J&A Framers and had been arrested during several workplace raids in the Triangle last November.
A seventh man, Victorino Gutierrez-Licona, is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing next month; he received a seven-month sentence. Two of the former employees were not eligible for an immigration bond.
All of the men pled guilty in March to entering the United States illegally.
In January, eight other employees pled guilty to misdemeanor immigration charges. They served 30 days in jail and were later released on immigration bonds.
“What happened to these men and their families is really sad, and yet another example of how the Obama administration is saying one thing about what their immigration policy is and doing the opposite,” said Marty Rosenbluth, executive director of the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project. “We hear over and over ICE officials saying that they are doing work place raids anymore. These guys were caught up in an investigation targeted at their employer. But instead of offering them the option of just returning voluntarily, or even just putting them into deportation proceedings, Obama’s Justice Department charged them with felony re-entry and they ended up in jail for six months. The only crime they committed was trying to feed their families”
Rosenbluth argued for the former workers' immigration bonds. He said that the next step is to get the men hearings in immigration court where they will try to show that they have the right to stay in the United States.
The men's employers, J&A Framing owners Jose Alfredo Lopez Ponce and Juan Antonio Lopez Ponce, were indicted Dec. 15 on charges including smuggling and harboring and recruiting immigrants to work.
On April 6, the men, who are brothers, pled guilty to illegal alien harboring and conspiracy; they are awaiting sentencing by Chief United States District Court Judge Louise Flanagan in New Bern. Each man could receive a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and at $500,000 in fines.
http://www.indyweek.com/triangulator/archives/2011/05/25/undocumented-immigrants-released-from-prison-after-workplace-raid
Showing posts with label Expulsions in NC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in NC. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Downtown Asheville march to protest treatment of immigrant families
Written by Sandra V. Rodriguez
Citizen Times
April 30, 2011
ASHEVILLE — Immigration reform activists are hoping to put a human face to one of the nation's most contentious issues — illegal immigration — during a march Sunday.
Of particular concern to activists are the local deportations that are tearing families apart.
A coalition of community, workers' rights and immigration rights activists are marching on May Day, a traditional day of protest and celebration of workers rights, to call for an end to the arrests and deportations separating immigrant families in Western North Carolina.
“Mothers Against Family Separation” will be 2:30-5 p.m. in Pritchard Park and will make its way through the downtown streets and end at Aston Park, where there will be a picnicand participants can tell their stories.
“Anti-immigrant policies that exist in Western North Carolina impact women and their families almost disproportionately than other people,” said Michelle Bedard, organizer with the nonprofit Western North Carolina Workers Center.
“Not only are their labor rights being abused, at home they are worried because their children and their husbands are being racially profiled, pulled over by police and being deported without any criminal charges.”
That hurts the family economically and emotionally, she said.
The inability of the federal government to reform the immigration system has many activists concerned as more states and communities are enacting stricter laws in the meantime.
Activists believe Henderson County's 287(g) law has had a detrimental effect on the overall safety of the community as a whole. The law allows local police to check the citizenship status of anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally and deport them if necessary.
Loida Ginocchio-Silva hopes that by putting a human face to the issue, people and legislators will be able to talk about the issue calmly. The debate in recent years has resulted in many myths about illegal immigration being pushed into the mainstream, she said.
“People have these ideas, ‘Oh, the illegal immigrant, that person lives off welfare,'” said Ginocchio-Silva, with Defensa Comunitaria, a local group made up of immigrant youth, parents, advocates and non-immigrant allies.
She said that is not true. Immigrants cannot apply for welfare and they do pay taxes, she said. The IRS issues illegal immigrants a nine-digit number with the sole purpose of submitting taxes.
“The government knows that we are working here,” she said. “And they want our cheap labor, but they are not giving us any benefits except this number so we can pay into this system.”
Immigrant women workers have a strong showing in the local economy as they make up the basic staff in the hospitality industry yet women are paid the least, according to Bedard. She said she has seen too many women, being cheated out of wages, denied rights or harassed into dangerous work conditions even if they are pregnant.
“We want to be part of the march because we want to support women and fight discrimination alongside these women that are suffering at this time,” she said.
And because women are afraid of losing their livelihood, Bedard said they won't speak up about overtime or unsafe working conditions.
“That is not fair at all,” she said. “We want laws that are fair to everybody and that are also humane, that see everybody as human beings.”
Ginocchio-Silva knows that legislators can come up with humane immigration reform. She hopes that marches like this Sunday's help spur legislators to act sooner rather than later.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110430/NEWS/304300022/Immigration-reform-advocates-plan-Sunday-rally?odyssey=nav|head
Citizen Times
April 30, 2011
ASHEVILLE — Immigration reform activists are hoping to put a human face to one of the nation's most contentious issues — illegal immigration — during a march Sunday.
Of particular concern to activists are the local deportations that are tearing families apart.
A coalition of community, workers' rights and immigration rights activists are marching on May Day, a traditional day of protest and celebration of workers rights, to call for an end to the arrests and deportations separating immigrant families in Western North Carolina.
“Mothers Against Family Separation” will be 2:30-5 p.m. in Pritchard Park and will make its way through the downtown streets and end at Aston Park, where there will be a picnicand participants can tell their stories.
“Anti-immigrant policies that exist in Western North Carolina impact women and their families almost disproportionately than other people,” said Michelle Bedard, organizer with the nonprofit Western North Carolina Workers Center.
“Not only are their labor rights being abused, at home they are worried because their children and their husbands are being racially profiled, pulled over by police and being deported without any criminal charges.”
That hurts the family economically and emotionally, she said.
The inability of the federal government to reform the immigration system has many activists concerned as more states and communities are enacting stricter laws in the meantime.
Activists believe Henderson County's 287(g) law has had a detrimental effect on the overall safety of the community as a whole. The law allows local police to check the citizenship status of anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally and deport them if necessary.
Loida Ginocchio-Silva hopes that by putting a human face to the issue, people and legislators will be able to talk about the issue calmly. The debate in recent years has resulted in many myths about illegal immigration being pushed into the mainstream, she said.
“People have these ideas, ‘Oh, the illegal immigrant, that person lives off welfare,'” said Ginocchio-Silva, with Defensa Comunitaria, a local group made up of immigrant youth, parents, advocates and non-immigrant allies.
She said that is not true. Immigrants cannot apply for welfare and they do pay taxes, she said. The IRS issues illegal immigrants a nine-digit number with the sole purpose of submitting taxes.
“The government knows that we are working here,” she said. “And they want our cheap labor, but they are not giving us any benefits except this number so we can pay into this system.”
Immigrant women workers have a strong showing in the local economy as they make up the basic staff in the hospitality industry yet women are paid the least, according to Bedard. She said she has seen too many women, being cheated out of wages, denied rights or harassed into dangerous work conditions even if they are pregnant.
“We want to be part of the march because we want to support women and fight discrimination alongside these women that are suffering at this time,” she said.
And because women are afraid of losing their livelihood, Bedard said they won't speak up about overtime or unsafe working conditions.
“That is not fair at all,” she said. “We want laws that are fair to everybody and that are also humane, that see everybody as human beings.”
Ginocchio-Silva knows that legislators can come up with humane immigration reform. She hopes that marches like this Sunday's help spur legislators to act sooner rather than later.
http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110430/NEWS/304300022/Immigration-reform-advocates-plan-Sunday-rally?odyssey=nav|head
Saturday, December 18, 2010
UPDATE: Durham brothers face human smuggling charges after raid
By Sarah Ovaska
The Progressive Pulse
December 16, 2010
Two brothers who run J&A Framers Carpentry Inc., a local home framing company, were indicted this week and charged with underpaying workers they hired by working with smugglers to bring the men to Durham.
The brothers, who are originally from Mexico but got their U.S. citizenships in the 1980s through marriages to American women, are accused of paying the 100 workers they used for their prospering construction business less than the minimum wage, even taking out money from paychecks to pay off coyotes, or smugglers, that brought the laborers from Mexico to U.S.
Last week, NC Policy Watch wrote about an immigration raid that resulted in the arrests of 18 J&A workers, eight of whom have since plead guilty to charges of evading immigration inspection at the border and are facing deportation proceedings . The coordinated arrests last month prompted some fears in Latino communities that immigration agents might be returning to the workplace raids seen more often under the Bush administration.
At that time, federal prosecutors and immigration officials had little to say about the Lopez-Ponce brothers.
But Tuesday’s indictments reveal that the Lopez-Ponce brothers were the larger targets for federal officials. The two men are facing felony charges of “conspiring to bring in and harbor illegal aliens,” “bringing an illegal alien into the U.S.” and “engaging in an pattern of practice of unlawful hiring and recruiting unauthorized aliens,” according to federal court documents.
The brothers are accused of taking in $2.3 million in business revenue from contractors from 2005 to 2010, but not taking out the proper payroll taxes of their employees . They’re also accused of withholding money from paychecks to pay off coyotes and taking out rent money for trailers that some of their workers lived in that the Lopez-Ponce brothers owned, according to the federal indictment.
The brothers are expected to be in front of a judge at 10 a.m. Monday for a hearing in the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh.
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2010/12/16/update-durham-brothers-face-human-smuggling-charges-after-raid/
The Progressive Pulse
December 16, 2010
Two brothers who run J&A Framers Carpentry Inc., a local home framing company, were indicted this week and charged with underpaying workers they hired by working with smugglers to bring the men to Durham.
The brothers, who are originally from Mexico but got their U.S. citizenships in the 1980s through marriages to American women, are accused of paying the 100 workers they used for their prospering construction business less than the minimum wage, even taking out money from paychecks to pay off coyotes, or smugglers, that brought the laborers from Mexico to U.S.
Last week, NC Policy Watch wrote about an immigration raid that resulted in the arrests of 18 J&A workers, eight of whom have since plead guilty to charges of evading immigration inspection at the border and are facing deportation proceedings . The coordinated arrests last month prompted some fears in Latino communities that immigration agents might be returning to the workplace raids seen more often under the Bush administration.
At that time, federal prosecutors and immigration officials had little to say about the Lopez-Ponce brothers.
But Tuesday’s indictments reveal that the Lopez-Ponce brothers were the larger targets for federal officials. The two men are facing felony charges of “conspiring to bring in and harbor illegal aliens,” “bringing an illegal alien into the U.S.” and “engaging in an pattern of practice of unlawful hiring and recruiting unauthorized aliens,” according to federal court documents.
The brothers are accused of taking in $2.3 million in business revenue from contractors from 2005 to 2010, but not taking out the proper payroll taxes of their employees . They’re also accused of withholding money from paychecks to pay off coyotes and taking out rent money for trailers that some of their workers lived in that the Lopez-Ponce brothers owned, according to the federal indictment.
The brothers are expected to be in front of a judge at 10 a.m. Monday for a hearing in the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh.
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2010/12/16/update-durham-brothers-face-human-smuggling-charges-after-raid/
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
More illegal immigrants deported
Worst criminals are top priority, but majority of deportees are guilty of lesser offenses, if any.
By Barbara Barrett
The Charlotte Observer
Aug. 15, 2010
Ricardo Velasquez walked into the Mecklenburg County jail on Tuesday night charged with raping children ages 7 and 8.
After a fingerprint scan and a few taps of the computer, the accused assailant was further identified: as an illegal immigrant from South America.
Velasquez, 40, still must be tried on his criminal charges in the United States, but more than likely, he won't leave custody until he boards a plane for his native Ecuador.
The Obama administration has said it is on track to remove a record number of illegal immigrants this year, buoyed by an increased emphasis on finding and deporting aliens who, like Velasquez, pass through the nation's jail system after having been convicted or accused of crimes.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement now lists its top deportation priority as those undocumented immigrants convicted of the most dangerous crimes - murder, rape, assault and major drug offenses.
And a local-federal partnership in place in Mecklenburg and other N.C. counties, and making strong inroads in states such as Virginia, Texas and Florida, could eventually affect how the federal government deports illegal immigrants across the country.
"We're seeing success," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Richard Rocha. "The numbers show that."
The administration has said given its current resources, it could deport up to 400,000 illegal immigrants this fiscal year, including an estimated 150,000 convicted criminals.
Last year, nearly 390,000 illegal immigrants were removed. Critics of the ongoing deportation program say the numbers tell only part of the story. Despite the focus on violent criminals, the majority of the removals handled by ICE still are noncriminals or immigrants accused of lesser infractions such as traffic violations and misdemeanors.
Just 16 percent of immigrants removed this fiscal year are the top-priority, violent criminals known as "Level 1" immigrants, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
More than 50 percent of those removed this fiscal year are considered noncriminal.
Secure Communities
The recent focus on criminal removals stems in part from the push of U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat who took charge three years ago of the Homeland Security spending subcommittee. Price has said repeatedly he wants the administration to go after illegal immigrants who already have shown they will do harm.
The latest data show that the emphasis on the most dangerous criminals isn't everything it could be, Price said.
"I'm not satisfied with those numbers," he said, adding: "I think they're moving in the right direction."
The new focus pushed by Price and others in Congress depends on an increasingly intense relationship between local law enforcement and the federal government - helped by advances in technology.
The government program, called Secure Communities, now is in 494 jails and prisons in parts of 27 states. It is expected to go nationwide by 2013.
It links fingerprints of those in jail with federal immigration databases - a step that once took repeated phone calls can now take just a few minutes.
Some N.C. counties have had the program since November 2008. Mecklenburg joined in October 2009. Eight more counties were added last month, bringing the state's total to 29.
John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote in a June 30 memo that the agency's highest priority would be removing aliens who pose a risk to public safety. That didn't preclude, though, removing other undocumented immigrants as well, he wrote.
The federal government has increased audits of employers who hire illegal immigrants.
This emphasis on deporting criminal immigrants is nothing new, says Mark Reed, a consultant in Arizona who once served as the highest-ranking government official in the Immigration and Nationalization Service.
"Every administration ... has targeted criminal aliens as their highest priority," he said. "We were doing that 20 years ago. If you say you're going to go after criminal aliens, there are not many people who are going to push back."
Technology links agencies
What's changed, he said, is the technology to link local and federal resources. Even then, Reed cautioned, the numbers of criminal aliens are simply too high for an administration to tackle.
"They're making an appearance that they can do something they can't really do," Reed said.
As of June 30, N.C. counties had submitted 168,550 fingerprint sets to the federal government since October 2008, according to government figures.
Of those, 15,171 matched illegal immigrants.
But most matches don't lead to deportation.
Once a criminal or suspect is released from local law enforcement, ICE makes the decision to keep them in custody or release them, often with a future immigration court date.
Just 707 - less than 5 percent - of those illegal immigrants found through N.C. jails were identified as top-priority, violent offenders.
Nonetheless, 3,164 people were booked into ICE custody, and 1,736 were eventually deported, data show.
Critics of the program
Elena Lacayo, immigration field coordinator at the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C., said the approach being touted by the administration casts too wide a net.
"This is not an efficient program," Lacayo said of Secure Communities. "It is taking in so many people that are not the priority that ICE has stated."
Nationally, the Secure Communities program and related federal-local partnerships have found 39,054 Level 1 offenders; 9,831 have been removed, according to federal data. All told, federal authorities have removed 48,190 Level I offenders so far this year.
"They're only deporting a small number of people who come to their attention," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which supports a reduction in immigration.
He said the focus on criminal aliens doesn't remove enough illegal immigrants because the government doesn't have enough detention space and hasn't asked for more.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/15/1623709/more-illegal-immigrants-deported.html
By Barbara Barrett
The Charlotte Observer
Aug. 15, 2010
Ricardo Velasquez walked into the Mecklenburg County jail on Tuesday night charged with raping children ages 7 and 8.
After a fingerprint scan and a few taps of the computer, the accused assailant was further identified: as an illegal immigrant from South America.
Velasquez, 40, still must be tried on his criminal charges in the United States, but more than likely, he won't leave custody until he boards a plane for his native Ecuador.
The Obama administration has said it is on track to remove a record number of illegal immigrants this year, buoyed by an increased emphasis on finding and deporting aliens who, like Velasquez, pass through the nation's jail system after having been convicted or accused of crimes.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement now lists its top deportation priority as those undocumented immigrants convicted of the most dangerous crimes - murder, rape, assault and major drug offenses.
And a local-federal partnership in place in Mecklenburg and other N.C. counties, and making strong inroads in states such as Virginia, Texas and Florida, could eventually affect how the federal government deports illegal immigrants across the country.
"We're seeing success," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Richard Rocha. "The numbers show that."
The administration has said given its current resources, it could deport up to 400,000 illegal immigrants this fiscal year, including an estimated 150,000 convicted criminals.
Last year, nearly 390,000 illegal immigrants were removed. Critics of the ongoing deportation program say the numbers tell only part of the story. Despite the focus on violent criminals, the majority of the removals handled by ICE still are noncriminals or immigrants accused of lesser infractions such as traffic violations and misdemeanors.
Just 16 percent of immigrants removed this fiscal year are the top-priority, violent criminals known as "Level 1" immigrants, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
More than 50 percent of those removed this fiscal year are considered noncriminal.
Secure Communities
The recent focus on criminal removals stems in part from the push of U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat who took charge three years ago of the Homeland Security spending subcommittee. Price has said repeatedly he wants the administration to go after illegal immigrants who already have shown they will do harm.
The latest data show that the emphasis on the most dangerous criminals isn't everything it could be, Price said.
"I'm not satisfied with those numbers," he said, adding: "I think they're moving in the right direction."
The new focus pushed by Price and others in Congress depends on an increasingly intense relationship between local law enforcement and the federal government - helped by advances in technology.
The government program, called Secure Communities, now is in 494 jails and prisons in parts of 27 states. It is expected to go nationwide by 2013.
It links fingerprints of those in jail with federal immigration databases - a step that once took repeated phone calls can now take just a few minutes.
Some N.C. counties have had the program since November 2008. Mecklenburg joined in October 2009. Eight more counties were added last month, bringing the state's total to 29.
John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote in a June 30 memo that the agency's highest priority would be removing aliens who pose a risk to public safety. That didn't preclude, though, removing other undocumented immigrants as well, he wrote.
The federal government has increased audits of employers who hire illegal immigrants.
This emphasis on deporting criminal immigrants is nothing new, says Mark Reed, a consultant in Arizona who once served as the highest-ranking government official in the Immigration and Nationalization Service.
"Every administration ... has targeted criminal aliens as their highest priority," he said. "We were doing that 20 years ago. If you say you're going to go after criminal aliens, there are not many people who are going to push back."
Technology links agencies
What's changed, he said, is the technology to link local and federal resources. Even then, Reed cautioned, the numbers of criminal aliens are simply too high for an administration to tackle.
"They're making an appearance that they can do something they can't really do," Reed said.
As of June 30, N.C. counties had submitted 168,550 fingerprint sets to the federal government since October 2008, according to government figures.
Of those, 15,171 matched illegal immigrants.
But most matches don't lead to deportation.
Once a criminal or suspect is released from local law enforcement, ICE makes the decision to keep them in custody or release them, often with a future immigration court date.
Just 707 - less than 5 percent - of those illegal immigrants found through N.C. jails were identified as top-priority, violent offenders.
Nonetheless, 3,164 people were booked into ICE custody, and 1,736 were eventually deported, data show.
Critics of the program
Elena Lacayo, immigration field coordinator at the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C., said the approach being touted by the administration casts too wide a net.
"This is not an efficient program," Lacayo said of Secure Communities. "It is taking in so many people that are not the priority that ICE has stated."
Nationally, the Secure Communities program and related federal-local partnerships have found 39,054 Level 1 offenders; 9,831 have been removed, according to federal data. All told, federal authorities have removed 48,190 Level I offenders so far this year.
"They're only deporting a small number of people who come to their attention," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which supports a reduction in immigration.
He said the focus on criminal aliens doesn't remove enough illegal immigrants because the government doesn't have enough detention space and hasn't asked for more.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/15/1623709/more-illegal-immigrants-deported.html
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Crime-stopper now faces deportation
Local police enforce immigration laws, leave many in limbo
By Alex Johnson and Glenn Counts
MSNBC
May 26, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Just like the police tell you to do, Abel Moreno called 911 when a man
began assaulting his girlfriend. Before the end of the year, he could be deported to Mexico for his trouble.
Moreno, 29, of Charlotte made the call Dec. 29 because, he alleged, a Charlotte police officer was trying to fondle his girlfriend after a traffic stop. The officer ordered Moreno to drop the call and arrested him and his girlfriend for resisting arrest.
Several things then happened. Five other women came forward to allege that the officer, identified as Marcus Jackson, now 26, had tried to molest them, too. Moreno was released after investigators debunked the resisting arrest charge. So was his girlfriend.
Jackson was fired and faces 11 counts of sexual battery, extortion and interfering with emergency communication. Police Chief Rodney Monroe admitted that Jackson should never have been hired in the first place because of previous charges related to a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend. The local 911 system is under review because Moreno’s call wasn’t acted upon.
And Abel Moreno now has a six-month deadline to show why he shouldn’t be deported, even though police acknowledge that his 911 call was crucial to their uncovering a dirty cop, and even though they agree that he shouldn’t have been arrested.
That’s because the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jail where Moreno was held, is one of 67 local law enforcement agencies in 24 states that have signed up under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows some local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws during the course of their normal duties. While he was still in jail, Moreno was found to have been in the United States illegally for the past six years, working at a restaurant so he could send money back home to his mother and his five brothers and sisters in Acapulco.
A judge granted Moreno a six-month deferment on his deportation because he is a witness in the criminal investigation. But that reprieve runs out in November.
Moreno’s attorney, Rob Heroy, said he was confident Moreno would eventually be granted a so-called U visa, which allows illegal immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal investigations to stay in the country for up to four years. But only 10,000 such visas are available in any year, and while that process works its way through the system, Moreno remains in limbo.
“Now I’m unemployed,” Moreno said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I don’t have any money, not even for rent, not even for my phone — anything. ... The truth is I’m scared.”
Section meant to target threats to security
In many respects, Section 287(g), which has been around for 15 years, is similar to the law Arizona enacted last month obligating police to question people about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally.
The federal law, however, has a crucial difference, according to U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement. While the Arizona law targets anyone without acceptable registration documents, Section 287(g) is meant to identify “foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety,” the agency says.
Nationwide, about 120,000 people have been deported under the provision in the last three years, said John Morton, the deputy secretary of homeland security for immigration.
“The fact is, the 287(g) program works,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, author of the original 287(g) legislation 14 years ago. “Thousands of illegal immigrants apprehended for other crimes are being identified and deported.”
But because it could lead to the deportation of someone like Abel Moreno, who came to the attention of police only because he did the right thing, the provision is intensely controversial among not only immigrants’ activists but also police agencies themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union and immigrants’ rights groups have denounced Section 287(g) as an open invitation for local police to try to cleanse their communities of illegal immigrants under the pretext of enforcing minor infractions, like traffic violations. They claim that is what is happening to Abel Moreno, and they say it is also what is happening to Jessica Colotl.
Colotl, 21, a senior political science major at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Ga., has lived in the United States since her family moved to Georgia from Mexico when she was 11. After she was stopped on campus in March for driving without a license, she was turned over to federal immigration authorities and held in a detention center in Alabama for 35 days because the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, which participates in the 287(g) program, determined that she was in the country illegally.
After ICE released Colotl and deferred her case for a year so she could finish her studies, the Cobb County sheriff charged her with providing a false statement to law enforcement when she was arrested, which is a felony.
The “false statement” was giving an old address that matched the one on her car registration. Colotl’s attorneys said she provided it in addition to her current address. But Sheriff Neil Warren maintained that Colotl had behaved with “blatant disregard for Georgia law.”
“Often individuals have different perceptions or personal definitions of criminal activity,” Warren said. “I follow the Georgia Code and enforce those statutes.”
Charles Kuck, one of Colotl’s attorneys, said Warren’s pursuit of charges “has nothing to do with public safety or upholding the law,” a view echoed by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, which accused him in a statement of having “embarked on a witch-hunt, wasting money and county resources for political gain.”
In an interview with msnbc television, Kuck asked, “Are we going to deport all ... 300,000 children like this who have been brought here as young kids, who are engaged in our education system, who are graduating, who are wanting to go to college?”
“We have a national crisis in immigration, and Jessica is a symbol of that,” he said.
John N. Shofi, the acting head of ICE’s state and local outreach programs, called the federal-local partnership “a force multiplier to help combat crime in local communities.” But many police agencies disagree and have declined to join the program.
“The reality is that undocumented immigrants are a significant part of the local populations that major police agencies must protect, serve and police,” Montgomery County, Md., Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said, testifying before Congress last year on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents the 56 largest police departments in the United States.
Local police agencies “have worked very hard to build trust and a spirit of cooperation” with immigrant groups because their cooperation is vital “when an immigrant — whether documented or undocumented — is the victim of or witness to a crime,” Manger said.
But if an illegal immigrant can be turned over to immigration authorities for doing what most Americans would see as his or her civic duty — aiding the police in solving a crime — then “the hard-won trust, communication and cooperation from the immigrant community would disappear,” he said.
‘Class of silent victims’
That kind of divide between police and immigrant groups would lead to more crime, not less, Manger said, creating “a class of silent victims” not only in immigrant communities but in the broader community, as well.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, acknowledged those concerns in March, when its inspector general’s office released a report concluding that the program had not been “focused on aliens who pose the greatest risk to the public.”
Of particular concern, the report said, is the opportunity for “racial profiling and intimidation by law enforcement officials.” It disclosed that ICE had entered into 287(g) agreements with an unspecified number of local agencies “that have checkered civil rights records,” at least two of which were defendants in past racial profiling lawsuits. Two others, which were not identified, are defending against lawsuits brought against them for actions while working under 287(g) jurisdiction.
Most striking is the inspector general’s disclosure that ICE had approved 16 local agencies for participation in the 287(g) program “despite objections from the [ICE] field units responsible for providing direct program supervision.”
The report called on ICE to enact 33 reforms to “ensure that its 287(g) efforts achieve a balance among immigration enforcement, local public safety priorities, and civil liberties.” To date, ICE has accepted 32 of the recommendations — it balked at collecting “objective data” on 287(g) activities “and their effect on civil liberties.”
Fostering fear of the police
Rob Heroy, the attorney for Abel Moreno, specializes in immigration law. He does not endorse calls by immigration activists to repeal 287(g) entirely, saying it “does go a long way toward identifying dangerous repeat offenders and people who have been deported before.”
But he said the law can be and has been abused “when it’s used to pick up people for minor things.” That was what made Moreno’s 911 call such an act of courage, he said.
Generally, “Hispanics who are present in the United States are afraid to call the police in the event of a crime for fear of ending up in an immigration proceeding,” Heroy said. And if a criminal case proceeds to trial, “witnesses have a fear [that] they would show up in court and someone from immigration would be there with handcuffs for them.”
“It does create a chilling effect,” he said.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37263917/ns/us_news-immigration_a_nation_divided/
By Alex Johnson and Glenn Counts
MSNBC
May 26, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Just like the police tell you to do, Abel Moreno called 911 when a man
began assaulting his girlfriend. Before the end of the year, he could be deported to Mexico for his trouble.
Moreno, 29, of Charlotte made the call Dec. 29 because, he alleged, a Charlotte police officer was trying to fondle his girlfriend after a traffic stop. The officer ordered Moreno to drop the call and arrested him and his girlfriend for resisting arrest.
Several things then happened. Five other women came forward to allege that the officer, identified as Marcus Jackson, now 26, had tried to molest them, too. Moreno was released after investigators debunked the resisting arrest charge. So was his girlfriend.
Jackson was fired and faces 11 counts of sexual battery, extortion and interfering with emergency communication. Police Chief Rodney Monroe admitted that Jackson should never have been hired in the first place because of previous charges related to a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend. The local 911 system is under review because Moreno’s call wasn’t acted upon.
And Abel Moreno now has a six-month deadline to show why he shouldn’t be deported, even though police acknowledge that his 911 call was crucial to their uncovering a dirty cop, and even though they agree that he shouldn’t have been arrested.
That’s because the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jail where Moreno was held, is one of 67 local law enforcement agencies in 24 states that have signed up under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows some local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws during the course of their normal duties. While he was still in jail, Moreno was found to have been in the United States illegally for the past six years, working at a restaurant so he could send money back home to his mother and his five brothers and sisters in Acapulco.
A judge granted Moreno a six-month deferment on his deportation because he is a witness in the criminal investigation. But that reprieve runs out in November.
Moreno’s attorney, Rob Heroy, said he was confident Moreno would eventually be granted a so-called U visa, which allows illegal immigrants who are victims or witnesses in criminal investigations to stay in the country for up to four years. But only 10,000 such visas are available in any year, and while that process works its way through the system, Moreno remains in limbo.
“Now I’m unemployed,” Moreno said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I don’t have any money, not even for rent, not even for my phone — anything. ... The truth is I’m scared.”
Section meant to target threats to security
In many respects, Section 287(g), which has been around for 15 years, is similar to the law Arizona enacted last month obligating police to question people about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally.
The federal law, however, has a crucial difference, according to U.S. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement. While the Arizona law targets anyone without acceptable registration documents, Section 287(g) is meant to identify “foreign-born criminals and immigration violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety,” the agency says.
Nationwide, about 120,000 people have been deported under the provision in the last three years, said John Morton, the deputy secretary of homeland security for immigration.
“The fact is, the 287(g) program works,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, author of the original 287(g) legislation 14 years ago. “Thousands of illegal immigrants apprehended for other crimes are being identified and deported.”
But because it could lead to the deportation of someone like Abel Moreno, who came to the attention of police only because he did the right thing, the provision is intensely controversial among not only immigrants’ activists but also police agencies themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union and immigrants’ rights groups have denounced Section 287(g) as an open invitation for local police to try to cleanse their communities of illegal immigrants under the pretext of enforcing minor infractions, like traffic violations. They claim that is what is happening to Abel Moreno, and they say it is also what is happening to Jessica Colotl.
Colotl, 21, a senior political science major at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Ga., has lived in the United States since her family moved to Georgia from Mexico when she was 11. After she was stopped on campus in March for driving without a license, she was turned over to federal immigration authorities and held in a detention center in Alabama for 35 days because the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, which participates in the 287(g) program, determined that she was in the country illegally.
After ICE released Colotl and deferred her case for a year so she could finish her studies, the Cobb County sheriff charged her with providing a false statement to law enforcement when she was arrested, which is a felony.
The “false statement” was giving an old address that matched the one on her car registration. Colotl’s attorneys said she provided it in addition to her current address. But Sheriff Neil Warren maintained that Colotl had behaved with “blatant disregard for Georgia law.”
“Often individuals have different perceptions or personal definitions of criminal activity,” Warren said. “I follow the Georgia Code and enforce those statutes.”
Charles Kuck, one of Colotl’s attorneys, said Warren’s pursuit of charges “has nothing to do with public safety or upholding the law,” a view echoed by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, which accused him in a statement of having “embarked on a witch-hunt, wasting money and county resources for political gain.”
In an interview with msnbc television, Kuck asked, “Are we going to deport all ... 300,000 children like this who have been brought here as young kids, who are engaged in our education system, who are graduating, who are wanting to go to college?”
“We have a national crisis in immigration, and Jessica is a symbol of that,” he said.
John N. Shofi, the acting head of ICE’s state and local outreach programs, called the federal-local partnership “a force multiplier to help combat crime in local communities.” But many police agencies disagree and have declined to join the program.
“The reality is that undocumented immigrants are a significant part of the local populations that major police agencies must protect, serve and police,” Montgomery County, Md., Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said, testifying before Congress last year on behalf of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents the 56 largest police departments in the United States.
Local police agencies “have worked very hard to build trust and a spirit of cooperation” with immigrant groups because their cooperation is vital “when an immigrant — whether documented or undocumented — is the victim of or witness to a crime,” Manger said.
But if an illegal immigrant can be turned over to immigration authorities for doing what most Americans would see as his or her civic duty — aiding the police in solving a crime — then “the hard-won trust, communication and cooperation from the immigrant community would disappear,” he said.
‘Class of silent victims’
That kind of divide between police and immigrant groups would lead to more crime, not less, Manger said, creating “a class of silent victims” not only in immigrant communities but in the broader community, as well.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, acknowledged those concerns in March, when its inspector general’s office released a report concluding that the program had not been “focused on aliens who pose the greatest risk to the public.”
Of particular concern, the report said, is the opportunity for “racial profiling and intimidation by law enforcement officials.” It disclosed that ICE had entered into 287(g) agreements with an unspecified number of local agencies “that have checkered civil rights records,” at least two of which were defendants in past racial profiling lawsuits. Two others, which were not identified, are defending against lawsuits brought against them for actions while working under 287(g) jurisdiction.
Most striking is the inspector general’s disclosure that ICE had approved 16 local agencies for participation in the 287(g) program “despite objections from the [ICE] field units responsible for providing direct program supervision.”
The report called on ICE to enact 33 reforms to “ensure that its 287(g) efforts achieve a balance among immigration enforcement, local public safety priorities, and civil liberties.” To date, ICE has accepted 32 of the recommendations — it balked at collecting “objective data” on 287(g) activities “and their effect on civil liberties.”
Fostering fear of the police
Rob Heroy, the attorney for Abel Moreno, specializes in immigration law. He does not endorse calls by immigration activists to repeal 287(g) entirely, saying it “does go a long way toward identifying dangerous repeat offenders and people who have been deported before.”
But he said the law can be and has been abused “when it’s used to pick up people for minor things.” That was what made Moreno’s 911 call such an act of courage, he said.
Generally, “Hispanics who are present in the United States are afraid to call the police in the event of a crime for fear of ending up in an immigration proceeding,” Heroy said. And if a criminal case proceeds to trial, “witnesses have a fear [that] they would show up in court and someone from immigration would be there with handcuffs for them.”
“It does create a chilling effect,” he said.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37263917/ns/us_news-immigration_a_nation_divided/
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Residents say program too harsh
Despite study, sheriff says 287(g) rids community of most serious offenders
By John Harbin Times-News Staff Writer
BlueRidgeNow.Com
March 28, 2010
A recent study found that most people deported through the 287(g) program were arrested for driving offenses, and some local residents are criticizing the effort as being too harsh.
Despite these concerns, Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis said 287(g) has been effective in protecting the community. He has plans to continue the federal program and even ramp it up.
The program has also been questioned by the Henderson County Latino Coalition and discussed in Chapel Hill at a public conference.
A new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studied arrest data in five North Carolina counties but not Henderson, said the program is intended to prioritize policing serious and violent crimes. The study said it has not done so, and researchers asked whether the money might be better spent on other crime-fighting efforts.
They also said their findings debunk the myth that increased immigration means higher crime rates.
"The study found that the majority of unauthorized immigrants are deported for driving-related offenses, not serious or violent crimes," wrote researchers Hannah Gill, Ph.D., assistant director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and Mai Nguyen, Ph.D., assistant professor in the city and regional planning department.
The study was based on a review of data from 2007 to 2009 provided by sheriff's offices in Alamance, Cabarrus, Gaston, Mecklenburg and Wake counties. Those counties made data available for the study.
The 287(g) program is carried out through partnerships between local law enforcement agencies nationwide and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
The name refers to the section in federal law that authorizes it, which originated with amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act Congress passed in 1996. Local deputies are trained to screen arrested people to determine their residency status and allows participating counties to begin deportation procedures.
When someone is arrested, one screening question is whether they were born in the United States. If the answer is no, deputies send their fingerprints through an ICE database. In moments, deputies can learn whether the arrested person is in the country illegally.
Gill and Nguyen found that of everyone booked through 287(g) from 2007-2009 in the study counties, 86.7 percent were charged with misdemeanors and 13.3 percent with felonies.
'The program will continue'
Davis rebuts the study's findings. In Henderson County in January and February, deputies arrested 31 people who were placed in ICE custody. Of those 31 people, only five had traffic violations with no other criminal history or interaction with ICE.
Davis referenced a recent case where a Hispanic male was arrested for indecent liberties with a minor.
Guillermo Mendez-Florez, 36, was arrested at his home at 519 East Blue Ridge St. without incident, according to Henderson County Sheriff's Office Spokesman Capt. Charlie McDonald.
"He was taken into custody by deputies after an investigation by the sheriff's Special Victims Unit and transported to the Henderson county Detention Center," McDonald said. After it was determined that Mendez-Flores was in the U.S. illegally, authorities jailed him without bond.
"This man has a criminal history of 14 various misdemeanors," Davis said. "If he had been arrested and taken through the 287(g) program, he wouldn't have been here to commit the indecent liberties."
The five individuals picked up on traffic violations most likely will not be deported, he said.
As far as the money, Davis said the Sheriff's Office is breaking even with 287(g).
"Last year we were reimbursed $566,448," he said. "That money is going to pay for every aspect of the program."
Davis said the bottom line is 84 percent of the people jailed in January and February under 287(g) were charged with a felony, were wanted for a felony or had a history with ICE.
"This program works in preventing crime," he said. "The program will continue. We will also be adding a 287(g) detective in the future."
The program has its supporters and critics.
"I have a sympathetic heart for people," said Jasper Hopper of Clear Creek. "I have talked to Davis and he gave me an understanding of his job. With illegal immigrants, we don't know who is coming across the border. Sheriff Davis explained that drugs are coming from across the border and I believe it is drugs that causes the crime."
Janet Murray of Horse Shoe disagrees that the program is a threat.
"I think it should continue," she said. "It is removing the lawbreakers. They shouldn't be here in the first place."
Deputies stop Latinos
State figures show Henderson County deputies make traffic stops for Latino drivers at a disproportionately high rate, said Carolina McCready, co-director of El Centro in Hendersonville.
"Since the inception of the 287(g) program by the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, accusations of racial profiling and civil rights violations are on the rise," she said in an e-mail responding to questions from the Times-News.
"The Sheriff's Department of Henderson County has reported to the N.C. Department of Justice that between January 2007 and December 2009, over 18 percent of the traffic stops made have involved Latinos. That translates to 1 in 5 traffic stops (compared) to a population that numbers 1 in 20."
McCready said the program has stoked fears in the Latino community.
"Since its inception, you may have noticed that the national spotlight is on North Carolina for how to deal with the immigration issue," she said. "This concentrated effort is illustrated over the last five years by the denial of access to driver's licenses or identification cards without a Social Security number, banning of undocumented students who have graduated from the public school system to attend community colleges, out-of-state tuition fees with no access to financial aid for these students even if they reside in North Carolina, and the adoption of anti-immigrant laws such as 287(g).
"As a resident of Western North Carolina, you may be shocked to realize that what happens in Henderson County could affect immigration reform across the country."
Agencies serving Latino immigrants in Henderson County have seen a dramatic drop in participation in programs and services following the implementation of 287(g), according to McCready.
"Many community-building functions, including a youth forum, have been canceled when license check points outside Latino neighborhoods keep people from leaving their homes and rumors of immigration raids spread through the community," she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20100328/SERVICES03/3281083?Title=Residents-say-program-too-harsh
By John Harbin Times-News Staff Writer
BlueRidgeNow.Com
March 28, 2010
A recent study found that most people deported through the 287(g) program were arrested for driving offenses, and some local residents are criticizing the effort as being too harsh.
Despite these concerns, Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis said 287(g) has been effective in protecting the community. He has plans to continue the federal program and even ramp it up.
The program has also been questioned by the Henderson County Latino Coalition and discussed in Chapel Hill at a public conference.
A new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studied arrest data in five North Carolina counties but not Henderson, said the program is intended to prioritize policing serious and violent crimes. The study said it has not done so, and researchers asked whether the money might be better spent on other crime-fighting efforts.
They also said their findings debunk the myth that increased immigration means higher crime rates.
"The study found that the majority of unauthorized immigrants are deported for driving-related offenses, not serious or violent crimes," wrote researchers Hannah Gill, Ph.D., assistant director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and Mai Nguyen, Ph.D., assistant professor in the city and regional planning department.
The study was based on a review of data from 2007 to 2009 provided by sheriff's offices in Alamance, Cabarrus, Gaston, Mecklenburg and Wake counties. Those counties made data available for the study.
The 287(g) program is carried out through partnerships between local law enforcement agencies nationwide and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
The name refers to the section in federal law that authorizes it, which originated with amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act Congress passed in 1996. Local deputies are trained to screen arrested people to determine their residency status and allows participating counties to begin deportation procedures.
When someone is arrested, one screening question is whether they were born in the United States. If the answer is no, deputies send their fingerprints through an ICE database. In moments, deputies can learn whether the arrested person is in the country illegally.
Gill and Nguyen found that of everyone booked through 287(g) from 2007-2009 in the study counties, 86.7 percent were charged with misdemeanors and 13.3 percent with felonies.
'The program will continue'
Davis rebuts the study's findings. In Henderson County in January and February, deputies arrested 31 people who were placed in ICE custody. Of those 31 people, only five had traffic violations with no other criminal history or interaction with ICE.
Davis referenced a recent case where a Hispanic male was arrested for indecent liberties with a minor.
Guillermo Mendez-Florez, 36, was arrested at his home at 519 East Blue Ridge St. without incident, according to Henderson County Sheriff's Office Spokesman Capt. Charlie McDonald.
"He was taken into custody by deputies after an investigation by the sheriff's Special Victims Unit and transported to the Henderson county Detention Center," McDonald said. After it was determined that Mendez-Flores was in the U.S. illegally, authorities jailed him without bond.
"This man has a criminal history of 14 various misdemeanors," Davis said. "If he had been arrested and taken through the 287(g) program, he wouldn't have been here to commit the indecent liberties."
The five individuals picked up on traffic violations most likely will not be deported, he said.
As far as the money, Davis said the Sheriff's Office is breaking even with 287(g).
"Last year we were reimbursed $566,448," he said. "That money is going to pay for every aspect of the program."
Davis said the bottom line is 84 percent of the people jailed in January and February under 287(g) were charged with a felony, were wanted for a felony or had a history with ICE.
"This program works in preventing crime," he said. "The program will continue. We will also be adding a 287(g) detective in the future."
The program has its supporters and critics.
"I have a sympathetic heart for people," said Jasper Hopper of Clear Creek. "I have talked to Davis and he gave me an understanding of his job. With illegal immigrants, we don't know who is coming across the border. Sheriff Davis explained that drugs are coming from across the border and I believe it is drugs that causes the crime."
Janet Murray of Horse Shoe disagrees that the program is a threat.
"I think it should continue," she said. "It is removing the lawbreakers. They shouldn't be here in the first place."
Deputies stop Latinos
State figures show Henderson County deputies make traffic stops for Latino drivers at a disproportionately high rate, said Carolina McCready, co-director of El Centro in Hendersonville.
"Since the inception of the 287(g) program by the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, accusations of racial profiling and civil rights violations are on the rise," she said in an e-mail responding to questions from the Times-News.
"The Sheriff's Department of Henderson County has reported to the N.C. Department of Justice that between January 2007 and December 2009, over 18 percent of the traffic stops made have involved Latinos. That translates to 1 in 5 traffic stops (compared) to a population that numbers 1 in 20."
McCready said the program has stoked fears in the Latino community.
"Since its inception, you may have noticed that the national spotlight is on North Carolina for how to deal with the immigration issue," she said. "This concentrated effort is illustrated over the last five years by the denial of access to driver's licenses or identification cards without a Social Security number, banning of undocumented students who have graduated from the public school system to attend community colleges, out-of-state tuition fees with no access to financial aid for these students even if they reside in North Carolina, and the adoption of anti-immigrant laws such as 287(g).
"As a resident of Western North Carolina, you may be shocked to realize that what happens in Henderson County could affect immigration reform across the country."
Agencies serving Latino immigrants in Henderson County have seen a dramatic drop in participation in programs and services following the implementation of 287(g), according to McCready.
"Many community-building functions, including a youth forum, have been canceled when license check points outside Latino neighborhoods keep people from leaving their homes and rumors of immigration raids spread through the community," she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20100328/SERVICES03/3281083?Title=Residents-say-program-too-harsh
Friday, October 23, 2009
NC firm says defense witnesses in SC raid deported
Oct. 20, 2009
The Associated Press
A North Carolina poultry company charged with employing illegal immigrants at a South Carolina plant has argued that the government deported workers needed by defense attorneys.
The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday that Columbia Farms argued in court motions that the government didn't give the company's lawyers a chance to interview workers arrested in last October's raid. The paper said it is unclear what information the workers would have provided the defense, but defense attorneys said they wouldn't have been deported if they could have helped the government's case.
More than 330 people were arrested in the massive raid on the Greenville, S.C., processing plant. Prosecutors say most of the workers have been deported. Several dozen others pleaded guilty and are serving prison time for using illegal documents and false Social Security numbers or for re-entering the country illegally.
The plant manager, Barry Cronic, was indicted earlier this year. Prosecutors said Cronic began hiring illegal immigrants at the Columbia Farms plant in 2000 and kept hiring them until the raid last October. Personnel manager Elaine Crump was charged with lying on employment forms.
Both have plead not guilty.
Columbia Farms' parent company, House of Raeford, processes chickens and turkeys in eight plants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan. Prosecutors have said the North Carolina-based company is cooperating and has not been charged.
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/breaking_news/story/1124973.html
The Associated Press
A North Carolina poultry company charged with employing illegal immigrants at a South Carolina plant has argued that the government deported workers needed by defense attorneys.
The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday that Columbia Farms argued in court motions that the government didn't give the company's lawyers a chance to interview workers arrested in last October's raid. The paper said it is unclear what information the workers would have provided the defense, but defense attorneys said they wouldn't have been deported if they could have helped the government's case.
More than 330 people were arrested in the massive raid on the Greenville, S.C., processing plant. Prosecutors say most of the workers have been deported. Several dozen others pleaded guilty and are serving prison time for using illegal documents and false Social Security numbers or for re-entering the country illegally.
The plant manager, Barry Cronic, was indicted earlier this year. Prosecutors said Cronic began hiring illegal immigrants at the Columbia Farms plant in 2000 and kept hiring them until the raid last October. Personnel manager Elaine Crump was charged with lying on employment forms.
Both have plead not guilty.
Columbia Farms' parent company, House of Raeford, processes chickens and turkeys in eight plants in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan. Prosecutors have said the North Carolina-based company is cooperating and has not been charged.
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/breaking_news/story/1124973.html
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers
By Alan Gomez
USA TODAY
When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.
But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: "They were very beneficial to American workers," according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.
"Whenever there's an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do," said Swain, who teaches law and political science.
Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:
• Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.
• In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.
• Throughout the Great Plains, a new wave of legal immigrants is filling the void, according to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia.
Recession plays a factor in shift
Steven Camarota of CIS said native-born Americans are not only willing to take on those jobs, but currently fill a majority of them.
Native-born workers outnumber immigrants 3-to-1 in construction jobs and 2-to-1 in farming, fishing and forestry jobs, according to Camarota.
T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said it has taken the greatest recession in a generation for poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.
"We'll take anything now," Fair said. "We're willing to be exploited for a while."
After ICE agents descend on poultry-processing plants, pork factories and meatpacking facilities across the USA, in some cases plant owners are forced to raise wages to get Americans to sign up, Swain said.
Catherine Singley, a policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, said the post-raid increases in salaries were also necessary for Americans to accept the harsh, dangerous working environments.
She said wages did not plummet in recent decades because of immigrants undercutting Americans, but because employers took advantage of the immigrant population fearful of seeking help from authorities.
"If you've got a segment of the workforce that's afraid to speak out against violations of their labor rights, then that drags down wages and working conditions for all workers," Singley said.
A report released last week by the NCLR found that the occupational fatality rate for Latinos remained the highest among ethnic groups in the country for the 15th straight year in 2007, when 937 Latinos died on the job.
"That's something that native-born Americans and native-born Latino workers are dealing with for the first time," she said, referring to the general working conditions faced by workers in factories, plants and fields.
New leverage for workers
As the face of factory workers changes, so do the issues that workers and employers must tackle.
Cashen said her union had to negotiate with plant managers in Nebraska and Colorado to allow employees to properly observe the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.
This month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the Colorado plant was wrong to fire more than 100 Muslim workers who walked out during Ramadan last year in a dispute over prayer breaks.
"Ten years ago, we were negotiating to provide for Cinco de Mayo," Cashen said, referring to the Mexican holiday. "If you walk in the doors of a plant, you're going to see … the United Nations."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm
An ICE agent searches a man at a meat plant in Greeley, Colo., during a 2006 raid.
File photo by Richard M. Hackett, AP
USA TODAY
When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.
But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: "They were very beneficial to American workers," according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.
"Whenever there's an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do," said Swain, who teaches law and political science.
Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:
• Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.
• In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.
• Throughout the Great Plains, a new wave of legal immigrants is filling the void, according to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia.
Recession plays a factor in shift
Steven Camarota of CIS said native-born Americans are not only willing to take on those jobs, but currently fill a majority of them.
Native-born workers outnumber immigrants 3-to-1 in construction jobs and 2-to-1 in farming, fishing and forestry jobs, according to Camarota.
T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said it has taken the greatest recession in a generation for poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.
"We'll take anything now," Fair said. "We're willing to be exploited for a while."
After ICE agents descend on poultry-processing plants, pork factories and meatpacking facilities across the USA, in some cases plant owners are forced to raise wages to get Americans to sign up, Swain said.
Catherine Singley, a policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, said the post-raid increases in salaries were also necessary for Americans to accept the harsh, dangerous working environments.
She said wages did not plummet in recent decades because of immigrants undercutting Americans, but because employers took advantage of the immigrant population fearful of seeking help from authorities.
"If you've got a segment of the workforce that's afraid to speak out against violations of their labor rights, then that drags down wages and working conditions for all workers," Singley said.
A report released last week by the NCLR found that the occupational fatality rate for Latinos remained the highest among ethnic groups in the country for the 15th straight year in 2007, when 937 Latinos died on the job.
"That's something that native-born Americans and native-born Latino workers are dealing with for the first time," she said, referring to the general working conditions faced by workers in factories, plants and fields.
New leverage for workers
As the face of factory workers changes, so do the issues that workers and employers must tackle.
Cashen said her union had to negotiate with plant managers in Nebraska and Colorado to allow employees to properly observe the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.
This month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the Colorado plant was wrong to fire more than 100 Muslim workers who walked out during Ramadan last year in a dispute over prayer breaks.
"Ten years ago, we were negotiating to provide for Cinco de Mayo," Cashen said, referring to the Mexican holiday. "If you walk in the doors of a plant, you're going to see … the United Nations."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm
An ICE agent searches a man at a meat plant in Greeley, Colo., during a 2006 raid.
File photo by Richard M. Hackett, AP
Monday, August 31, 2009
N.C. native wrongly deported to Mexico - CharlotteObserver.com
Federal investigators ignored evidence the man is a U.S. citizen, documents show.
By Kristin Collins
Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009
The U.S. government admitted in April that it had wrongly deported an N.C. native, but newly released documents show that federal investigators ignored FBI records and other evidence showing that the man was a United States citizen.
At the time of Mark Lyttle's deportation, immigration officials had criminal record checks that said he was a U.S. citizen. They had his Social Security number and the names of his parents. They had Lyttle's own sworn statement that he had been born in Rowan County.
None of this stopped them from leaving Lyttle, a mentally ill American who speaks no Spanish, alone and penniless in Mexico, where he has no ties.
Lyttle's 350-page Department of Homeland Security file, released to The (Raleigh) News & Observer, shows that the government deported him based entirely on some of his own conflicting statements, even though agents knew that Lyttle is bipolar and has a learning disability.
“I tried to tell them I was a U.S. citizen born right here in Rowan County,” Lyttle says now. “But no one believed me.”
Lyttle is one of a growing number of people who have been swept up in the federal immigration detention system since 2001, when terrorist attacks prompted an unprecedented effort to find and deport illegal immigrants. The U.S. government deported 350,000 people in the fiscal year that ended in October 2008.
When The N&O first reported on Lyttle's case in April, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said that Lyttle had caused the mistake by declaring that he was from Mexico. They maintain that position now.
“Individuals who misrepresent their true identity and make false statements to ICE officers create problems both for law enforcement and themselves,” ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said in a written statement.
Lyttle swore to immigration agents on two occasions that he was Mexican, but he also swore that he was a U.S. citizen born in Rowan County. His Homeland Security file does not reflect any attempt by ICE officials to confirm Lyttle's citizenship claims.
The agent who took Lyttle's statement that he was born in North Carolina dismissed it, saying in a report that Lyttle “does not possess any documentation to support his claim.”
A few dozen pages were withheld from the file released by ICE. But the file provided to The N&O shows no search for a Rowan County birth certificate and no attempts to reach the family members Lyttle named before his initial deportation.
The ICE file states that Lyttle's Mexican citizenship “was established based on interview results and numerous background system checks.” But repeated background checks, from an FBI fingerprint database and the National Crime Information Center, showed he was an American citizen.
Asked by The N&O why they had not accepted the findings in these background checks, ICE officials said they were reviewing their information and could not provide a response after a week.
The inconsistencies in his case were not discussed when Lyttle appeared before an Atlanta immigration judge and was ordered deported on Dec.9. On Dec. 18, he was loaded onto a plane and left at an airport just across the border from Hidalgo, Texas.
On Dec. 29, he returned to the U.S. border threatening to hurt himself and the border patrol agents. “Subject appears to be mentally unstable,” the report notes.
Lyttle, who now lives with his mother in Georgia, says that during his travels he didn't take medications that treat his mental illness and was subject to cycles of manic activity and depression.
Lyttle again told immigration agents he had been born in Rowan County. This time the file shows that they checked for his birth certificate there. They didn't find it because Lyttle is adopted. In cases of adoption, birth certificates are stored in Raleigh, said Shirley Stiller, the deputy register of deeds in Rowan County.
Lyttle was deported a second time, within hours. With no documents to prove legal residency in any country, he soon found himself on an international odyssey.
Mexican authorities sent him to Honduras, where he was imprisoned before being sent to Guatemala.
In late April, he found the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City. Within a day, officials there contacted Lyttle's brother at the military base where Lyttle told them he was serving, got copies of his adoption papers and issued him a U.S. passport.
Three days after his arrival in Guatemala City, his brother had wired him money and Lyttle was on a flight to Atlanta.
U.S. Immigration officials worked Lyttle's case for 31/2 months and held him in immigration detention for more than six weeks.
“This is not rocket science,” said Jacqueline Stevens, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who brought Lyttle's case to light on her blog and is now writing a book about it. “It took someone in Guatemala one day to prove he was a citizen.”
Lyttle, 32, has spent much of his adulthood bouncing among mental institutions, halfway houses and prisons. He has been convicted of more than a dozen crimes, including assault and sexual battery.
He also lost touch with his mother, who had moved during his time in prison, and did not have phone numbers for his two brothers, who are in the military. His father is deceased.
When he entered prison, his country of birth was listed as Mexico. Prison officials say Lyttle made that claim, but in an interview with The N&O, Lyttle said he never invented such a story. Regardless, he was flagged for a federal immigration check.
In September and November 2008, he met with immigration agents three times, each time signing a different sworn statement.
Lyttle says he claimed to be Mexican at the first interview because he thought it was pointless to argue with the agent, who was convinced that he was an illegal immigrant. His birth father was Puerto Rican, and Lyttle says he is often mistaken for Mexican.
He says he figured he would take a free trip to Mexico.
N.C. native wrongly deported to Mexico - CharlotteObserver.com
By Kristin Collins
Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009
The U.S. government admitted in April that it had wrongly deported an N.C. native, but newly released documents show that federal investigators ignored FBI records and other evidence showing that the man was a United States citizen.
At the time of Mark Lyttle's deportation, immigration officials had criminal record checks that said he was a U.S. citizen. They had his Social Security number and the names of his parents. They had Lyttle's own sworn statement that he had been born in Rowan County.
None of this stopped them from leaving Lyttle, a mentally ill American who speaks no Spanish, alone and penniless in Mexico, where he has no ties.
Lyttle's 350-page Department of Homeland Security file, released to The (Raleigh) News & Observer, shows that the government deported him based entirely on some of his own conflicting statements, even though agents knew that Lyttle is bipolar and has a learning disability.
“I tried to tell them I was a U.S. citizen born right here in Rowan County,” Lyttle says now. “But no one believed me.”
Lyttle is one of a growing number of people who have been swept up in the federal immigration detention system since 2001, when terrorist attacks prompted an unprecedented effort to find and deport illegal immigrants. The U.S. government deported 350,000 people in the fiscal year that ended in October 2008.
When The N&O first reported on Lyttle's case in April, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said that Lyttle had caused the mistake by declaring that he was from Mexico. They maintain that position now.
“Individuals who misrepresent their true identity and make false statements to ICE officers create problems both for law enforcement and themselves,” ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said in a written statement.
Lyttle swore to immigration agents on two occasions that he was Mexican, but he also swore that he was a U.S. citizen born in Rowan County. His Homeland Security file does not reflect any attempt by ICE officials to confirm Lyttle's citizenship claims.
The agent who took Lyttle's statement that he was born in North Carolina dismissed it, saying in a report that Lyttle “does not possess any documentation to support his claim.”
A few dozen pages were withheld from the file released by ICE. But the file provided to The N&O shows no search for a Rowan County birth certificate and no attempts to reach the family members Lyttle named before his initial deportation.
The ICE file states that Lyttle's Mexican citizenship “was established based on interview results and numerous background system checks.” But repeated background checks, from an FBI fingerprint database and the National Crime Information Center, showed he was an American citizen.
Asked by The N&O why they had not accepted the findings in these background checks, ICE officials said they were reviewing their information and could not provide a response after a week.
The inconsistencies in his case were not discussed when Lyttle appeared before an Atlanta immigration judge and was ordered deported on Dec.9. On Dec. 18, he was loaded onto a plane and left at an airport just across the border from Hidalgo, Texas.
On Dec. 29, he returned to the U.S. border threatening to hurt himself and the border patrol agents. “Subject appears to be mentally unstable,” the report notes.
Lyttle, who now lives with his mother in Georgia, says that during his travels he didn't take medications that treat his mental illness and was subject to cycles of manic activity and depression.
Lyttle again told immigration agents he had been born in Rowan County. This time the file shows that they checked for his birth certificate there. They didn't find it because Lyttle is adopted. In cases of adoption, birth certificates are stored in Raleigh, said Shirley Stiller, the deputy register of deeds in Rowan County.
Lyttle was deported a second time, within hours. With no documents to prove legal residency in any country, he soon found himself on an international odyssey.
Mexican authorities sent him to Honduras, where he was imprisoned before being sent to Guatemala.
In late April, he found the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City. Within a day, officials there contacted Lyttle's brother at the military base where Lyttle told them he was serving, got copies of his adoption papers and issued him a U.S. passport.
Three days after his arrival in Guatemala City, his brother had wired him money and Lyttle was on a flight to Atlanta.
U.S. Immigration officials worked Lyttle's case for 31/2 months and held him in immigration detention for more than six weeks.
“This is not rocket science,” said Jacqueline Stevens, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara who brought Lyttle's case to light on her blog and is now writing a book about it. “It took someone in Guatemala one day to prove he was a citizen.”
Lyttle, 32, has spent much of his adulthood bouncing among mental institutions, halfway houses and prisons. He has been convicted of more than a dozen crimes, including assault and sexual battery.
He also lost touch with his mother, who had moved during his time in prison, and did not have phone numbers for his two brothers, who are in the military. His father is deceased.
When he entered prison, his country of birth was listed as Mexico. Prison officials say Lyttle made that claim, but in an interview with The N&O, Lyttle said he never invented such a story. Regardless, he was flagged for a federal immigration check.
In September and November 2008, he met with immigration agents three times, each time signing a different sworn statement.
Lyttle says he claimed to be Mexican at the first interview because he thought it was pointless to argue with the agent, who was convinced that he was an illegal immigrant. His birth father was Puerto Rican, and Lyttle says he is often mistaken for Mexican.
He says he figured he would take a free trip to Mexico.
N.C. native wrongly deported to Mexico - CharlotteObserver.com
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Feds indict S.C. chicken plant
House of Raeford-owned company is accused of deliberately hiring undocumented workers
By Franco Ordoñez
The Charlotte Observer
July 17, 2009
A federal grand jury this week charged that a company owned by N.C.-based House of Raeford Farms knowingly hired illegal immigrants at a plant in South Carolina.
The government's 50-count indictment against Columbia Farms charges that it hired undocumented workers from 2000 until October 2008, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Greenville, S.C., plant.
The latest indictment illustrates how federal prosecutors have moved up the corporate ladder, charging workers, managers and now the company.
“These were not acts that occurred outside of the knowledge of the corporation,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald of Columbia.
House of Raeford, a family-run business, is one of the nation's top chicken and turkey producers, with operations in the Carolinas and Louisiana, nearly $600 million in annual sales, and 6,000 employees.
“For nearly a year Columbia Farms, Inc. has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the federal government in every step of their investigation,” House of Raeford said in a statement. “Columbia Farms contends that it has followed all state and federal employment laws and looks forward to vindicating the company's position in a court of law.”
Marvin Johnson, 82, who launched the private company, is the chairman. His son, Bob, is the chief executive officer. They live in Eastern North Carolina.
In a February 2008 series on workplace safety in the poultry industry, the Observer reported that some House of Raeford managers knowingly employed illegal immigrants. Current and former supervisors said the plants preferred undocumented workers because those workers feared losing their jobs or being deported.
Investigation could widen
The yearlong investigation has already resulted in charges against Greenville plant manager Barry Cronic, human resources manager Elaine Crump and about a dozen supervisors.
In October, federal authorities raided the plant, detaining more than 300 workers. Most have been deported.
Peter Anderson, a Charlotte attorney and former federal prosecutor, said indicting the company now could mean the case is nearing its completion. But he said investigators may also continue to press others indicted for additional information on what their bosses knew. “Sometimes a bad actor in the immigration context might think the investigation is over,” said Anderson, who is a candidate for U.S. attorney in western North Carolina. “And then all of a sudden the debriefing of the cooperating executives reveals a whole other slew of additional types of violations – fraud, kickbacks, bribery, environmental, OSHA.”
Lisa Griffin, a law professor at Duke University, said indicting a company is generally a sign the government has found widespread problems.
If found guilty, the company could face stiff fines, mandatory audits and a loss of licenses and government contracts.
Crump, Cronic and the company itself are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Greenville this month. A trial for Crump and Cronic was previously set for November.
Since the initial arrests, dozens of workers have left their jobs. The company has been hiring fewer Latinos and has turned to state prisons to fill production lines.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/business/story/838052.html
By Franco Ordoñez
The Charlotte Observer
July 17, 2009
A federal grand jury this week charged that a company owned by N.C.-based House of Raeford Farms knowingly hired illegal immigrants at a plant in South Carolina.
The government's 50-count indictment against Columbia Farms charges that it hired undocumented workers from 2000 until October 2008, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Greenville, S.C., plant.
The latest indictment illustrates how federal prosecutors have moved up the corporate ladder, charging workers, managers and now the company.
“These were not acts that occurred outside of the knowledge of the corporation,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald of Columbia.
House of Raeford, a family-run business, is one of the nation's top chicken and turkey producers, with operations in the Carolinas and Louisiana, nearly $600 million in annual sales, and 6,000 employees.
“For nearly a year Columbia Farms, Inc. has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the federal government in every step of their investigation,” House of Raeford said in a statement. “Columbia Farms contends that it has followed all state and federal employment laws and looks forward to vindicating the company's position in a court of law.”
Marvin Johnson, 82, who launched the private company, is the chairman. His son, Bob, is the chief executive officer. They live in Eastern North Carolina.
In a February 2008 series on workplace safety in the poultry industry, the Observer reported that some House of Raeford managers knowingly employed illegal immigrants. Current and former supervisors said the plants preferred undocumented workers because those workers feared losing their jobs or being deported.
Investigation could widen
The yearlong investigation has already resulted in charges against Greenville plant manager Barry Cronic, human resources manager Elaine Crump and about a dozen supervisors.
In October, federal authorities raided the plant, detaining more than 300 workers. Most have been deported.
Peter Anderson, a Charlotte attorney and former federal prosecutor, said indicting the company now could mean the case is nearing its completion. But he said investigators may also continue to press others indicted for additional information on what their bosses knew. “Sometimes a bad actor in the immigration context might think the investigation is over,” said Anderson, who is a candidate for U.S. attorney in western North Carolina. “And then all of a sudden the debriefing of the cooperating executives reveals a whole other slew of additional types of violations – fraud, kickbacks, bribery, environmental, OSHA.”
Lisa Griffin, a law professor at Duke University, said indicting a company is generally a sign the government has found widespread problems.
If found guilty, the company could face stiff fines, mandatory audits and a loss of licenses and government contracts.
Crump, Cronic and the company itself are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Greenville this month. A trial for Crump and Cronic was previously set for November.
Since the initial arrests, dozens of workers have left their jobs. The company has been hiring fewer Latinos and has turned to state prisons to fill production lines.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/business/story/838052.html
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Immigration raids help union organize at NC pork plant
WFAE.COM 90.7 FM
By Julie Rose
Friday July 17, 2009
After a 15 year fight, employees at the world's largest pork plant are now working under a union contract for the first time. Two weeks ago, the majority of 5,000 workers at the Smithfield slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina approved a four-year contract that guarantees basics like sick leave and holiday pay. The plant is about 80 miles south of Raleigh.
And the labor contract is even more significant considering North Carolina has one of the lowest rates of union workers in the country.
But a new report out today suggests the labor victory in Smithfield had more to do with an immigration raid at the plant than the hard work of union organizers.
WFAE's Julie Rose spoke with Jerry Kammer, a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and author of the new report.
http://www.wfae.org/wfae/1_87_316.cfm?action=display&id=5255
By Julie Rose
Friday July 17, 2009
After a 15 year fight, employees at the world's largest pork plant are now working under a union contract for the first time. Two weeks ago, the majority of 5,000 workers at the Smithfield slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina approved a four-year contract that guarantees basics like sick leave and holiday pay. The plant is about 80 miles south of Raleigh.
And the labor contract is even more significant considering North Carolina has one of the lowest rates of union workers in the country.
But a new report out today suggests the labor victory in Smithfield had more to do with an immigration raid at the plant than the hard work of union organizers.
WFAE's Julie Rose spoke with Jerry Kammer, a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and author of the new report.
http://www.wfae.org/wfae/1_87_316.cfm?action=display&id=5255
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Immigration inquiries at N.C. jails lead to more deportations
Immigration inquiries at N.C. jails lead to more deportations
By Veronica Gonzalez
Staff Writer, Star News Online
January 29, 2009
In North Carolina, a trip to jail could end up in deportation.
More than 2,000 people arrested for violating state laws in the past year were flagged for deportation once they went to jail.
Jailers started checking inmates’ immigration status after a state law took effect last year requiring them to check identities of foreign-born people charged with felonies or driving while impaired.
In addition to the 2,099 destined to be deported last year, another 2,733 illegal immigrant inmates were identified through a partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association.
From October 2007 to the end of 2008, 7,000 people in the Atlanta region faced removal proceedings because they were found to be here illegally through local jail and prison checks, according to ICE. The Atlanta region is made up of North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Overall, the number of identity queries run by jails nearly tripled between 2007 and 2008 to 16,996.
State jails ran nearly 17,000 queries, but immigration officials only interviewed a total of 6,884 of those inmates, the sheriffs’ association reported.
The inmate immigration checks became a requirement after a law sponsored by state Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover took effect last year. She had sponsored the legislation in response to voters’ demands for a crackdown on unlawful immigration after the federal government failed to reform the law.
Locally, New Hanover County jailers ran queries on 439 inmates last year; Brunswick County jail ran 85 and Pender County checked 58. Pender County flagged three inmates last year. One was released, one was taken by immigration and one is waiting to be picked up, said jail Capt. Samenthia Jones. The first two jails didn’t track those placed under deportation proceedings.
The New Hanover County jail beefed up its inquiries even more this year when it began tapping into a federal immigration fingerprint database.
Immigration officials are immediately notified if a murder suspect or an inmate who has snuck in and out of the country repeatedly is arrested, said New Hanover County Lt. J.L. Simmons.
“If we get terrorists or anyone who’s not supposed to be here, this is a way for us to say, ‘You need to come get him,’ ” Simmons said.
A local immigration attorney, Helen Jugovic, said her biggest problems with the identity checks had to do with inmates being led to a telephone to speak with ICE officials, basically outing themselves without any legal representation. She also was unhappy with the amount of time inmates sometimes have to wait before immigration officials pick them up. Immigration has 48 hours from the time they are notified to pick up an inmate, but weekends don’t count, so inmates will end up staying longer than they should, she said.
“ICE is a 24-hour operation,” Jugovic said. “This is an issue statewide where jails are not making their best efforts to notify ICE on time and ... it’s taking away their liberty.”
Earlier this year, New Hanover County joined six other state counties that also have the capability to check the immigration fingerprint database. And the Department of Homeland Security plans to equip most counties in the country with the new technology during the next three years or so.
For those worried that New Hanover Sheriff’s deputies are going to become immigration agents, Simmons said “we will never have contact with people who are illegal unless they get arrested.”
Veronica Gonzalez: 343-2008, veronica.gonzalez@starnewsonline.com
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20090129/ARTICLES/901290280/-1/LIVING?Title=Immigration_inquiries_at_N_C__jails_lead_to_more_deportations
By Veronica Gonzalez
Staff Writer, Star News Online
January 29, 2009
In North Carolina, a trip to jail could end up in deportation.
More than 2,000 people arrested for violating state laws in the past year were flagged for deportation once they went to jail.
Jailers started checking inmates’ immigration status after a state law took effect last year requiring them to check identities of foreign-born people charged with felonies or driving while impaired.
In addition to the 2,099 destined to be deported last year, another 2,733 illegal immigrant inmates were identified through a partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association.
From October 2007 to the end of 2008, 7,000 people in the Atlanta region faced removal proceedings because they were found to be here illegally through local jail and prison checks, according to ICE. The Atlanta region is made up of North and South Carolina and Georgia.
Overall, the number of identity queries run by jails nearly tripled between 2007 and 2008 to 16,996.
State jails ran nearly 17,000 queries, but immigration officials only interviewed a total of 6,884 of those inmates, the sheriffs’ association reported.
The inmate immigration checks became a requirement after a law sponsored by state Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover took effect last year. She had sponsored the legislation in response to voters’ demands for a crackdown on unlawful immigration after the federal government failed to reform the law.
Locally, New Hanover County jailers ran queries on 439 inmates last year; Brunswick County jail ran 85 and Pender County checked 58. Pender County flagged three inmates last year. One was released, one was taken by immigration and one is waiting to be picked up, said jail Capt. Samenthia Jones. The first two jails didn’t track those placed under deportation proceedings.
The New Hanover County jail beefed up its inquiries even more this year when it began tapping into a federal immigration fingerprint database.
Immigration officials are immediately notified if a murder suspect or an inmate who has snuck in and out of the country repeatedly is arrested, said New Hanover County Lt. J.L. Simmons.
“If we get terrorists or anyone who’s not supposed to be here, this is a way for us to say, ‘You need to come get him,’ ” Simmons said.
A local immigration attorney, Helen Jugovic, said her biggest problems with the identity checks had to do with inmates being led to a telephone to speak with ICE officials, basically outing themselves without any legal representation. She also was unhappy with the amount of time inmates sometimes have to wait before immigration officials pick them up. Immigration has 48 hours from the time they are notified to pick up an inmate, but weekends don’t count, so inmates will end up staying longer than they should, she said.
“ICE is a 24-hour operation,” Jugovic said. “This is an issue statewide where jails are not making their best efforts to notify ICE on time and ... it’s taking away their liberty.”
Earlier this year, New Hanover County joined six other state counties that also have the capability to check the immigration fingerprint database. And the Department of Homeland Security plans to equip most counties in the country with the new technology during the next three years or so.
For those worried that New Hanover Sheriff’s deputies are going to become immigration agents, Simmons said “we will never have contact with people who are illegal unless they get arrested.”
Veronica Gonzalez: 343-2008, veronica.gonzalez@starnewsonline.com
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20090129/ARTICLES/901290280/-1/LIVING?Title=Immigration_inquiries_at_N_C__jails_lead_to_more_deportations
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Undocumented Illegal Aliens in North Carolina Face Deportation
Undocumented Illegal Aliens in North Carolina Face Deportation
By Alexandra Vilchez
Latin American Herald Tribune (Caracas)
December 31, 2008
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA -- More than 50,000 Hispanics in North Carolina will not be able to renew their driver's licenses in 2009 and could face deportation thanks to the state's eight separate programs aimed at detecting undocumented immigrants.
From Jan. 1, 2002, to Aug. 28, 2006, North Carolina permitted the use of a taxpayer identification number, an ITIN or W-7, so that residents lacking a Social Security number could apply for a driver's license.
During that period, the Division of Motor Vehicles issued 220,983 licenses valid for five years to applicants presenting the ITIN as identification, the majority of them undocumented immigrants of Hispanic origin.
But under political pressure from anti-immigrant groups reporting that "illegals" from other states were flooding into North Carolina to take out licenses fraudulently, the state legislature approved a restrictive law on July 2006.
The law now bars anybody without legal status in the United States from having a driver's license or a government-issued ID.
According to DMV figures, for the year 2009 around 50,555 drivers - mostly undocumented Hispanics - that obtained licenses with the ITIN must present a Social Security number to get a new one.
Without a license, undocumented Hispanics can neither register a vehicle nor get insurance.
That situation, according to Tony Asion, director of the El Pueblo group in the North Carolina capital of Raleigh, is keeping the state from "collecting a large amount of money from taxes on these services."
"People don't want to drive without licenses but they don't have any other choice than to take a chance and drive, since they can't get to distant places on a bike, and some rural towns don't have good transportation systems," Asion told Efe.
An analysis by The News and Observer newspaper using figures from the court system showed in June that Hispanics are fined for not having a license more than any other ethnic group although they make up only 7 percent of the state's total population.
From April 2006 until now, eight North Carolina counties have activated the 287g program that allows verification of the immigration status of foreign detainees in local jails.
That means that if an undocumented alien is arrested in any of those counties for not having a driver's license, he or she could face deportation.
A report by the North Carolina sheriffs' association revealed last month that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 4,511 foreigners were investigated under the 287g program, of which 3,359 were undocumented.
Of that total, approximately 3,182 were deported and another 177 had previous orders to leave the country.
Some 829, or 23 percent, were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and 1,215, or 33 percent, for minor traffic infractions.
Eleanor Kinnaird, a Democratic state senator from Carrboro north of Raleigh, told Efe that the 287g is a program that encourages racial profiling.
"They take Hispanics to jail for not having a license and to citizens they just issue a summons to appear in court. That is simple discrimination," the senator said.
Asion predicts that in 2009 the arrests of undocumented aliens for not having a license will continue, and for that reason the organization he directs will begin talks this year with lawmakers and will pressure them to restore the privilege of driving to the undocumented.
"It's better for the state in these times of financial crisis. And the streets are safer if people know the laws and can respond in case of an accident," he said.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=324460&CategoryId=13003
By Alexandra Vilchez
Latin American Herald Tribune (Caracas)
December 31, 2008
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA -- More than 50,000 Hispanics in North Carolina will not be able to renew their driver's licenses in 2009 and could face deportation thanks to the state's eight separate programs aimed at detecting undocumented immigrants.
From Jan. 1, 2002, to Aug. 28, 2006, North Carolina permitted the use of a taxpayer identification number, an ITIN or W-7, so that residents lacking a Social Security number could apply for a driver's license.
During that period, the Division of Motor Vehicles issued 220,983 licenses valid for five years to applicants presenting the ITIN as identification, the majority of them undocumented immigrants of Hispanic origin.
But under political pressure from anti-immigrant groups reporting that "illegals" from other states were flooding into North Carolina to take out licenses fraudulently, the state legislature approved a restrictive law on July 2006.
The law now bars anybody without legal status in the United States from having a driver's license or a government-issued ID.
According to DMV figures, for the year 2009 around 50,555 drivers - mostly undocumented Hispanics - that obtained licenses with the ITIN must present a Social Security number to get a new one.
Without a license, undocumented Hispanics can neither register a vehicle nor get insurance.
That situation, according to Tony Asion, director of the El Pueblo group in the North Carolina capital of Raleigh, is keeping the state from "collecting a large amount of money from taxes on these services."
"People don't want to drive without licenses but they don't have any other choice than to take a chance and drive, since they can't get to distant places on a bike, and some rural towns don't have good transportation systems," Asion told Efe.
An analysis by The News and Observer newspaper using figures from the court system showed in June that Hispanics are fined for not having a license more than any other ethnic group although they make up only 7 percent of the state's total population.
From April 2006 until now, eight North Carolina counties have activated the 287g program that allows verification of the immigration status of foreign detainees in local jails.
That means that if an undocumented alien is arrested in any of those counties for not having a driver's license, he or she could face deportation.
A report by the North Carolina sheriffs' association revealed last month that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 4,511 foreigners were investigated under the 287g program, of which 3,359 were undocumented.
Of that total, approximately 3,182 were deported and another 177 had previous orders to leave the country.
Some 829, or 23 percent, were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and 1,215, or 33 percent, for minor traffic infractions.
Eleanor Kinnaird, a Democratic state senator from Carrboro north of Raleigh, told Efe that the 287g is a program that encourages racial profiling.
"They take Hispanics to jail for not having a license and to citizens they just issue a summons to appear in court. That is simple discrimination," the senator said.
Asion predicts that in 2009 the arrests of undocumented aliens for not having a license will continue, and for that reason the organization he directs will begin talks this year with lawmakers and will pressure them to restore the privilege of driving to the undocumented.
"It's better for the state in these times of financial crisis. And the streets are safer if people know the laws and can respond in case of an accident," he said.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=324460&CategoryId=13003
Monday, December 22, 2008
Smithfield: Race and the union
Smithfield: Race and the union
By John Ramsey and Sarah A. Reid
Staff writers
Published on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Smithfield: Union vote leaves others unfazed
TAR HEEL — For two years, Harold Simmons watched the changing faces from his job as crew chief on the kill floor.
As much as Simmons hated to acknowledge it, he knew what those new faces meant: The union would finally gain a foothold at the world’s largest slaughterhouse — Smithfield Packing Co.
In just two years, the racial makeup of Smithfield workers has gone from mostly Hispanic to mostly black.
The change started in 2006, when Smithfield notified more than 500 workers that their names and Social Security numbers didn’t match. Months later, federal immigration officials raided the plant, arresting 21 Hispanic workers with the intent of deporting them.
Analysts say the raid, coupled with others in the area, created fear among Hispanic workers and led to an exodus — at the plant and throughout the community.
In 2006, more than half of Smithfield’s 5,000 workers were Hispanic. Today, Hispanics make up just 26 percent of the work force, a decline of about 1,000 workers.
Most of the workers who took their place were black people, many of whom were eager to join a union on the promise of improved working conditions and better pay.
On Dec. 11, workers approved the union by a vote of 2,041-1,879.
Although there is no way of knowing the racial breakdown of the vote, analysts and workers such as Simmons say the new black majority proved to be the difference.
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=313759
By John Ramsey and Sarah A. Reid
Staff writers
Published on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Smithfield: Union vote leaves others unfazed
TAR HEEL — For two years, Harold Simmons watched the changing faces from his job as crew chief on the kill floor.
As much as Simmons hated to acknowledge it, he knew what those new faces meant: The union would finally gain a foothold at the world’s largest slaughterhouse — Smithfield Packing Co.
In just two years, the racial makeup of Smithfield workers has gone from mostly Hispanic to mostly black.
The change started in 2006, when Smithfield notified more than 500 workers that their names and Social Security numbers didn’t match. Months later, federal immigration officials raided the plant, arresting 21 Hispanic workers with the intent of deporting them.
Analysts say the raid, coupled with others in the area, created fear among Hispanic workers and led to an exodus — at the plant and throughout the community.
In 2006, more than half of Smithfield’s 5,000 workers were Hispanic. Today, Hispanics make up just 26 percent of the work force, a decline of about 1,000 workers.
Most of the workers who took their place were black people, many of whom were eager to join a union on the promise of improved working conditions and better pay.
On Dec. 11, workers approved the union by a vote of 2,041-1,879.
Although there is no way of knowing the racial breakdown of the vote, analysts and workers such as Simmons say the new black majority proved to be the difference.
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=313759
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Why the Union Won at Smithfield
Why the Union Won at Smithfield
By David Bacon
Original source: The American Prospect
December 20, 2008
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless.
Yet on December 11, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, Santa Paula, and all the tiny working class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.
Relief and happiness are understandable in North Carolina, where union membership is the lowest in the country. But Smithfield workers were not just celebrating a vote count. They'd just defeated one of the longest, most bitter anti-union campaigns in modern U.S. labor history. Their victory was the product of an organizing strategy that accomplished what many have said that U.S. unions can no longer do – organize huge, privately-owned factories.
In 1994 and 1997, Smithfield workers voted in two union representation elections, both lost by the UFCW. In 1997 the head of plant security, Danny Priest, told local sheriffs he expected violence on election day. Police in riot gear then lined the walkway into the slaughterhouse, and workers had to file past them to cast their ballots. At the end of the vote count union activist Ray Shawn was beaten up inside the plant. Three years later Priest, while still head of plant security, became an auxiliary deputy sheriff, and plant security officers were given the power to arrest and detain people at work. The company maintained a holding area for detainees in a trailer on the property, which workers called the company jail. (Smithfield gave up its deputized force and detention center in 2005.)
Management used such extensive intimidation tactics that both elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board. In 2006 the NLRB forced Smithfield to rehire workers fired in 1994 for union activity, and pay them $1.1 million. That was a victory for the union, but workers on the line could also easily see that Smithfield lawyers kept union supporters out of work for over a decade, in violation of the law.
In 2003 contract workers for QSI, a company that cleans the machinery at night, finally challenged that atmosphere of fear. According to Julio Vargas, a QSI employee, "the wages were very low and we had no medical insurance. When people got hurt, after being taken to the office they made them go back to work and wear pink helmets [to humiliate them]. We were fed up." Led by Vargas, the cleaning crew refused to go in to work. The company negotiated, and workers won concessions. The following week, however, those identified as ringleaders, like Vargas, lost their jobs.
Nevertheless, a new group of UFCW organizers understood the importance of that work stoppage. "We're not going to give the company a chance to use union busters anymore," said Peña. "We're asking workers to take direct action on the plant floor to improve their own conditions." So the union set up a workers' center in nearby Red Springs, holding classes in English and labor rights. Vargas and other fired workers went to work for the UFCW, organizing discontent over high line speed and its human cost in injuries. Workers began to stop production lines to get the company to talk with them about health and safety problems.
In April, 2006, as immigrant protests spread across the country, 300 Smithfield workers stayed out of work and marched through the streets of nearby Wilmington. On May 1 they paraded again, this time by the thousands.
Those heady days, however, were followed by a series of immigration enforcement actions orchestrated between the company and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. On October 30, 2006, the plant's human resources department sent letters to hundreds of immigrant workers, saying the Social Security numbers they'd provided when they were hired didn't match the government's database. Managers gave them two weeks to come up with new ones.
"On November 13 over 30 were escorted out of the plant," recalled Peña. "Many felt they had nothing to lose." That Thursday over 300 workers walked out. They met at a local hotel, came up with a list of demands, and got church leaders to intercede with the company. Smithfield agreed to a 60-day extension, and to rehire those already terminated. "It's hard to imagine how empowered people felt," Peña recalled.
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7889/
By David Bacon
Original source: The American Prospect
December 20, 2008
When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless.
Yet on December 11, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, Santa Paula, and all the tiny working class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border.
Relief and happiness are understandable in North Carolina, where union membership is the lowest in the country. But Smithfield workers were not just celebrating a vote count. They'd just defeated one of the longest, most bitter anti-union campaigns in modern U.S. labor history. Their victory was the product of an organizing strategy that accomplished what many have said that U.S. unions can no longer do – organize huge, privately-owned factories.
In 1994 and 1997, Smithfield workers voted in two union representation elections, both lost by the UFCW. In 1997 the head of plant security, Danny Priest, told local sheriffs he expected violence on election day. Police in riot gear then lined the walkway into the slaughterhouse, and workers had to file past them to cast their ballots. At the end of the vote count union activist Ray Shawn was beaten up inside the plant. Three years later Priest, while still head of plant security, became an auxiliary deputy sheriff, and plant security officers were given the power to arrest and detain people at work. The company maintained a holding area for detainees in a trailer on the property, which workers called the company jail. (Smithfield gave up its deputized force and detention center in 2005.)
Management used such extensive intimidation tactics that both elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board. In 2006 the NLRB forced Smithfield to rehire workers fired in 1994 for union activity, and pay them $1.1 million. That was a victory for the union, but workers on the line could also easily see that Smithfield lawyers kept union supporters out of work for over a decade, in violation of the law.
In 2003 contract workers for QSI, a company that cleans the machinery at night, finally challenged that atmosphere of fear. According to Julio Vargas, a QSI employee, "the wages were very low and we had no medical insurance. When people got hurt, after being taken to the office they made them go back to work and wear pink helmets [to humiliate them]. We were fed up." Led by Vargas, the cleaning crew refused to go in to work. The company negotiated, and workers won concessions. The following week, however, those identified as ringleaders, like Vargas, lost their jobs.
Nevertheless, a new group of UFCW organizers understood the importance of that work stoppage. "We're not going to give the company a chance to use union busters anymore," said Peña. "We're asking workers to take direct action on the plant floor to improve their own conditions." So the union set up a workers' center in nearby Red Springs, holding classes in English and labor rights. Vargas and other fired workers went to work for the UFCW, organizing discontent over high line speed and its human cost in injuries. Workers began to stop production lines to get the company to talk with them about health and safety problems.
In April, 2006, as immigrant protests spread across the country, 300 Smithfield workers stayed out of work and marched through the streets of nearby Wilmington. On May 1 they paraded again, this time by the thousands.
Those heady days, however, were followed by a series of immigration enforcement actions orchestrated between the company and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. On October 30, 2006, the plant's human resources department sent letters to hundreds of immigrant workers, saying the Social Security numbers they'd provided when they were hired didn't match the government's database. Managers gave them two weeks to come up with new ones.
"On November 13 over 30 were escorted out of the plant," recalled Peña. "Many felt they had nothing to lose." That Thursday over 300 workers walked out. They met at a local hotel, came up with a list of demands, and got church leaders to intercede with the company. Smithfield agreed to a 60-day extension, and to rehire those already terminated. "It's hard to imagine how empowered people felt," Peña recalled.
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7889/
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Immigration raids impact local families
Immigration raids impact local families
Activists say ICE knocking on doors with deportation orders
by: Chiara Canzi
Charlotsville News and Arts
October 14, 2008
Maria’s husband worked two jobs to help pay rent, to buy food and other necessities. Maria, who prefers not to have her last name printed, says he was working one day in late September, when police approached him. Now, he’s being held at Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville. Maria and their 8-year-old-daughter have not seen him since.
Maria’s husband, like many other undocumented workers, was a target of recent efforts by the federal government to cut down on illegal immigration. Raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have increased in the Charlottesville area, says Linda Hemby, member of Creciendo Juntos, an inter-agency network focused on the Latino community in Charlottesville, Albemarle and surrounding counties.
Those targeted by the federal government are undocumented immigrants who either have already been ordered deported but are still in the country or have a deportation letter waiting for them. Some attribute the increase in deportations to local law enforcement checking workers’ immigration status during routine traffic stops. According to Weldon Cooper Center estimates, 3.3 percent of Charlottesville’s population is Hispanic.
On October 9, Hemby moderated a panel on the impact of immigration raids on Latino children, saying that there has been evidence that ICE agents are going into Southwood trailer park “knocking on doors with deportation orders,” she said.
Calls to ICE were not returned by press time. According to the 2007 ICE annual report, 276,912 illegal aliens were deported, including 40,534 who have done so voluntarily.
http://c-ville.com/index.php?cat=141404064431134&ShowArticle_ID=11801310084647942
Activists say ICE knocking on doors with deportation orders
by: Chiara Canzi
Charlotsville News and Arts
October 14, 2008
Maria’s husband worked two jobs to help pay rent, to buy food and other necessities. Maria, who prefers not to have her last name printed, says he was working one day in late September, when police approached him. Now, he’s being held at Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville. Maria and their 8-year-old-daughter have not seen him since.
Maria’s husband, like many other undocumented workers, was a target of recent efforts by the federal government to cut down on illegal immigration. Raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have increased in the Charlottesville area, says Linda Hemby, member of Creciendo Juntos, an inter-agency network focused on the Latino community in Charlottesville, Albemarle and surrounding counties.
Those targeted by the federal government are undocumented immigrants who either have already been ordered deported but are still in the country or have a deportation letter waiting for them. Some attribute the increase in deportations to local law enforcement checking workers’ immigration status during routine traffic stops. According to Weldon Cooper Center estimates, 3.3 percent of Charlottesville’s population is Hispanic.
On October 9, Hemby moderated a panel on the impact of immigration raids on Latino children, saying that there has been evidence that ICE agents are going into Southwood trailer park “knocking on doors with deportation orders,” she said.
Calls to ICE were not returned by press time. According to the 2007 ICE annual report, 276,912 illegal aliens were deported, including 40,534 who have done so voluntarily.
http://c-ville.com/index.php?cat=141404064431134&ShowArticle_ID=11801310084647942
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Community Colleges in North Carolina Close Doors to Illegal Immigrants
Community Colleges in North Carolina Close Doors to Illegal Immigrants
By KATHERINE MANGAN
Monday, August 18, 2008
Chronicle of Higher Education
North Carolina's State Board of Community Colleges voted on Friday to barillegal immigrants from enrolling in the state's 58 community colleges while itcommissions a study on the politically charged issue. The decision surprisedand angered some Hispanic-rights advocates and disregarded the boardpresident's recommendation that a more lenient policy be restored.
The vote ratified a motion by Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, a former schoolteacherand current Democratic candidate for governor, who sits on the community-colleges board. She drew sharp fire from critics of the decision.
"I was shocked that a person who is running for office stating that she will bethe education governor would propose denying education to these kids," saidTony Asion, executive director of
El Pueblo Inc., a public-policy group, basedin Raleigh, N.C., that advocates for Latinos. "And I was shocked that they aregoing forward with this policy even though there is no federal or state lawprohibiting the colleges from admitting these students."
North Carolina is one of only a few states that deny illegal immigrants accessto community colleges.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/08/4262n.htm
By KATHERINE MANGAN
Monday, August 18, 2008
Chronicle of Higher Education
North Carolina's State Board of Community Colleges voted on Friday to barillegal immigrants from enrolling in the state's 58 community colleges while itcommissions a study on the politically charged issue. The decision surprisedand angered some Hispanic-rights advocates and disregarded the boardpresident's recommendation that a more lenient policy be restored.
The vote ratified a motion by Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, a former schoolteacherand current Democratic candidate for governor, who sits on the community-colleges board. She drew sharp fire from critics of the decision.
"I was shocked that a person who is running for office stating that she will bethe education governor would propose denying education to these kids," saidTony Asion, executive director of
El Pueblo Inc., a public-policy group, basedin Raleigh, N.C., that advocates for Latinos. "And I was shocked that they aregoing forward with this policy even though there is no federal or state lawprohibiting the colleges from admitting these students."
North Carolina is one of only a few states that deny illegal immigrants accessto community colleges.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/08/4262n.htm
Monday, August 18, 2008
Communities of faith rally behind arrested workers
August 18, 2008
Communities of faith rally behind arrested workers
Carol Motsinger
Citizen Times, Asheville, NC
ASHEVILLE - Inocencia Chacon sang hymns with a strong, proud voice in the sanctuary of First Congregational United Church of Christ on Sunday afternoon.
But her voice cracked and wavered when she shared the plight of a good friend from Honduras who faces deportation after being arrested during an illegal immigrant raid Tuesday at Mills Manufacturing Corp.
"They were not criminals," she said during a vigil for those affected by the raid. "They deserve a chance to have a better life."
An estimated 300 people packed the pews of the church to show support and express concern for the 57 workers arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The faith community felt we needed a voice of comfort and healing for the people who were affected by the raid," said Tyrone Greenlee, who read a poem during the vigil. Several congregations with ties to the area's Hispanic community participated in the service held in the church on Oak Street.
Some wiped away tears during the hymns of hope and prayers asking for strength. Chacon cried as she spoke about her friend, whom she said has two small children and a husband in Honduras who threatened to kill her if she returned.
"The question is now, what is she going to do?" Chacon said.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808180301
Communities of faith rally behind arrested workers
Carol Motsinger
Citizen Times, Asheville, NC
ASHEVILLE - Inocencia Chacon sang hymns with a strong, proud voice in the sanctuary of First Congregational United Church of Christ on Sunday afternoon.
But her voice cracked and wavered when she shared the plight of a good friend from Honduras who faces deportation after being arrested during an illegal immigrant raid Tuesday at Mills Manufacturing Corp.
"They were not criminals," she said during a vigil for those affected by the raid. "They deserve a chance to have a better life."
An estimated 300 people packed the pews of the church to show support and express concern for the 57 workers arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The faith community felt we needed a voice of comfort and healing for the people who were affected by the raid," said Tyrone Greenlee, who read a poem during the vigil. Several congregations with ties to the area's Hispanic community participated in the service held in the church on Oak Street.
Some wiped away tears during the hymns of hope and prayers asking for strength. Chacon cried as she spoke about her friend, whom she said has two small children and a husband in Honduras who threatened to kill her if she returned.
"The question is now, what is she going to do?" Chacon said.
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808180301
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