By Dwayne Parker
WFMZ
October 20, 2011
READING, PA.-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) reported it deported almost 400,000 undocumented immigrants for the fiscal year 2011.
Officials report it's the largest number of deportations since the agency's creation.
"I'm not shocked about it," said Anthony Maturano, immigration attorney. "For the last few years it's been about enforcement."
Maturano, who works out of his office on 5th Street in Reading, indicated that, in some cases, I.C.E. agents who conduct raids find more than just the targets of their investigations.
"My experience with my clients has been that immigration will come into a home looking for one person and they find lots of people and they take them all," said Maturano.
Maturano added that the numbers may also be on the rise because local law enforcement may be sounding the alarm.
"I think that there are more people coming to immigration's attention because there may be a traffic stop and the police call because there's no driver's license. So immigration comes in for that," said Maturano.
According to I.C.E., for the Pennsylvania region, 6,746 people overall were deported. Of that number, 4,159 were convicted criminals, and 2,587 were non-criminals.
The agency has even created priority categories to aggressively deal with the issue.
"We're very clear. We want to prioritize those who are convicted criminals, we want to prioritize those who are egregious and repeat violators, we want to prioritize those who are security threats, those who have existing warrants," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "What you see happening now, particularly over the last year, fiscal year 2011, is that while the number, around 400,000 remains about the same, the composition of those within that number who are being removed is now shifting to reflect the priorities we've set."
http://www.wfmz.com/news/Record-number-of-deportations/-/121458/3975110/-/i33uuyz/-/
Showing posts with label Expulsions in PA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in PA. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
ICE freezes mistrust
Phila. police have a special relationship with immigration crackdown.
By Tom Ferrick Jr.
METROPOLIS
Sep. 13, 2011
Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey has a smart new plan to combat crime that puts Philadelphia police in closer contact with their communities - walking the beat, getting familiar with the neighborhood. It makes sense, except in heavily Latino areas of town.
In those neighborhoods, especially in the Mexican community in South Philadelphia, people cringe when they see the police, and they fear contact with them. Any attempt by the police to gain their trust is doomed.
Why? Because the Police Department has chosen to have a special relationship with the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency - ICE, for short - has been on a tear here and nationally in rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them. Under the Secure Communities program, the number of deportations has risen dramatically during the Obama administration.
On paper, Secure Communities makes sense. ICE is supposed to target undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Who can disagree with that? Why let Dominican drug dealers or Mexican gang members stay in the country?
In reality, there is a major gap between the stated goals of Secure Communities and its practice. In Philadelphia particularly, the program - which says it targets sharks - has ended up mostly capturing minnows.
Only one out of five illegal immigrants rounded up by ICE agents in Philadelphia in the last two years had been convicted of so-called Level 1 crimes, the most serious offenses (such as murder, kidnapping, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and national security violations). The majority were people who had not been convicted of any crime.
How could this be? Because in Philadelphia, the Police Department allows ICE access to its computer system, which records information about arrests in real time. Officially, it is called the Preliminary Arraignment System (PARS).
To use one example, if a Mexican kid is arrested for being drunk and disorderly, ICE agents know it immediately - often before his parents. We've heard tales of young men arrested on suspicion of theft, with no official charges leveled, being whisked away by ICE and deported to Mexico.
In this particular case, the young man was 25 and had lived in the United States since he was 2. To him, Mexico was a foreign country.
We revealed what was happening with ICE, PARS, and the police in a Metropolis story in June called "The Deportation Machine." (To read it, go to: http://bit.ly/n5bj8L)
Immigrant activists had hoped that the city would end its special relationship with ICE. Most other police jurisdictions do not give ICE agents access to their real-time data. In fact, a number of police departments and local and state officials are unhappy with the whole Secure Communities program, saying it puts them at odds with their local immigrant communities and makes policing more difficult.
Recently, in response to these complaints - and with one eye on reelection - the Obama administration has pulled the throttle back on Secure Communities.
Not in Philadelphia. In this city, as the Spanish-language weekly Al Día has reported, the local officials renewed their contract with ICE to continue to use PARS.
Let's be clear here. This issue is not about where you stand on immigration. ICE has a job to do and if it does capture sharks - people with serious convictions either here or in their home country - they should be deported.
But it shouldn't be the job of the Philadelphia police to de facto become surrogate ICE agents - any more than we should ask ICE agents to combat crime on the streets. Both are enforcement agencies, but each has a different mission.
So far, the Nutter administration has given lip service to critics of the relationship between ICE and the police. The mayor says soothing things about the need for broad immigration reform. Still, he approved renewal of the contract.
That makes him, along with Ramsey, part of the problem.
So, if you are a police officer, don't be surprised if Latinos walk the other way when you walk your beat. Instead of seeing you as a protector of their community, they see you as an arm of ICE.
They fear and distrust you - and the city has earned that distrust.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/129698323.html
By Tom Ferrick Jr.
METROPOLIS
Sep. 13, 2011
Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey has a smart new plan to combat crime that puts Philadelphia police in closer contact with their communities - walking the beat, getting familiar with the neighborhood. It makes sense, except in heavily Latino areas of town.
In those neighborhoods, especially in the Mexican community in South Philadelphia, people cringe when they see the police, and they fear contact with them. Any attempt by the police to gain their trust is doomed.
Why? Because the Police Department has chosen to have a special relationship with the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency - ICE, for short - has been on a tear here and nationally in rounding up illegal immigrants and deporting them. Under the Secure Communities program, the number of deportations has risen dramatically during the Obama administration.
On paper, Secure Communities makes sense. ICE is supposed to target undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Who can disagree with that? Why let Dominican drug dealers or Mexican gang members stay in the country?
In reality, there is a major gap between the stated goals of Secure Communities and its practice. In Philadelphia particularly, the program - which says it targets sharks - has ended up mostly capturing minnows.
Only one out of five illegal immigrants rounded up by ICE agents in Philadelphia in the last two years had been convicted of so-called Level 1 crimes, the most serious offenses (such as murder, kidnapping, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and national security violations). The majority were people who had not been convicted of any crime.
How could this be? Because in Philadelphia, the Police Department allows ICE access to its computer system, which records information about arrests in real time. Officially, it is called the Preliminary Arraignment System (PARS).
To use one example, if a Mexican kid is arrested for being drunk and disorderly, ICE agents know it immediately - often before his parents. We've heard tales of young men arrested on suspicion of theft, with no official charges leveled, being whisked away by ICE and deported to Mexico.
In this particular case, the young man was 25 and had lived in the United States since he was 2. To him, Mexico was a foreign country.
We revealed what was happening with ICE, PARS, and the police in a Metropolis story in June called "The Deportation Machine." (To read it, go to: http://bit.ly/n5bj8L)
Immigrant activists had hoped that the city would end its special relationship with ICE. Most other police jurisdictions do not give ICE agents access to their real-time data. In fact, a number of police departments and local and state officials are unhappy with the whole Secure Communities program, saying it puts them at odds with their local immigrant communities and makes policing more difficult.
Recently, in response to these complaints - and with one eye on reelection - the Obama administration has pulled the throttle back on Secure Communities.
Not in Philadelphia. In this city, as the Spanish-language weekly Al Día has reported, the local officials renewed their contract with ICE to continue to use PARS.
Let's be clear here. This issue is not about where you stand on immigration. ICE has a job to do and if it does capture sharks - people with serious convictions either here or in their home country - they should be deported.
But it shouldn't be the job of the Philadelphia police to de facto become surrogate ICE agents - any more than we should ask ICE agents to combat crime on the streets. Both are enforcement agencies, but each has a different mission.
So far, the Nutter administration has given lip service to critics of the relationship between ICE and the police. The mayor says soothing things about the need for broad immigration reform. Still, he approved renewal of the contract.
That makes him, along with Ramsey, part of the problem.
So, if you are a police officer, don't be surprised if Latinos walk the other way when you walk your beat. Instead of seeing you as a protector of their community, they see you as an arm of ICE.
They fear and distrust you - and the city has earned that distrust.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/129698323.html
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Traffic stops that lead to deportations raise concerns
By Gabrielle Banks
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Over a two-hour stretch one night in April, state troopers stopped two cars on a highway in Inwood, W.Va., a little-known hamlet surrounded by apple orchards in the northeast corner of the state.
In both stops, troopers asked the vehicles' occupants, all Hispanic patrons of a nearby Latin nightclub, for identification. When some handed over Mexican driver's licenses, the troopers contacted the Pittsburgh branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detained the drivers and passengers on charges of illegal entry.
Six occupants of the stopped vehicles face deportation proceedings and are challenging the police stops as unwarranted. Immigration lawyers say their clients fell victim to a pattern of racial profiling by state troopers, who they say purposely staked out motorists a mile from Lobo's, a dance club that plays "norteno" music on Saturday nights and draws largely Hispanic patrons from Winchester, Va.
The attorneys plan to ask immigration court judges to throw out these cases on the grounds that the state troopers stopped the cars because of their occupants' race.
"ICE will not tolerate racial profiling at all," said public affairs agent Mark M. Medvesky. He would not comment specifically on the Inwood stops since proceedings are pending.
Sgt. Michael Baylous, spokesman for the West Virginia State Police, was also unable to comment on the Inwood stops for the same reason, but said, "We don't do racial profiling here in West Virginia. Law enforcement is in the business of criminal profiling. We do actively profile criminals, people who violate the law. But we have not, nor will we ever engage in racial profiling."
David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said this sounded like "a classic case" of racial profiling, adding, "The cops will tell you (racial profiling) is illegal and they'll tell you they don't do it. Cops will say, 'I stopped them for a legitimate reason. I ran their names and found reason to report them.'"
Tackling a racial profiling allegation will be complicated in the parallel universe of immigration court, where clients are not afforded the same protections as in criminal or civil court.
In a civil rights suit, for example, an individual can request discovery of police evidence that might help demonstrate a pattern of racism. In immigration court, there's no guarantee a judge will allow that request. One of the three Inwood attorneys, Michelle Mendez, borrowing a phrase from an immigration judge, said tackling these matters in immigration court "is like trying a death penalty case in traffic court."
Immigration lawyers say the Inwood arrests are part of a nationwide pattern of de facto crackdowns on Hispanics by state and municipal law enforcement in the spirit of the new law passed in Arizona.
"A lot of people end up in removal proceedings because of a traffic stop," said Mendez, who works out of Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. These disconnected arrests, wherever they occur, often aren't even a blip on a local community's radar, she said.
Many deportation arrests slip through the cracks before a qualified lawyer gets a look at them, attorneys said. An Amnesty International report in 2009 found that among individuals facing removal proceedings in Pennsylvania, 84 percent of detained immigrants and 58 percent of all clients did not have attorneys.
Valerie Burch, an American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania attorney representing three Inwood cases, said after troopers booked the two cars' occupants at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, W.Va., none of the suspects was able to phone potential attorneys, or notify family members or day care providers of their whereabouts for three days.
The phones at the jail did not work, they said.
The group came to the attention of a lawyer when they were taken to York County Prison, an East Coast hub for ICE that processes thousands of detainees facing deportation each year.
The six Inwood cases are inching forward in immigration court, which operates differently from what most people picture when they think of a court. Immigration court is not under the judicial branch -- it's an administrative body under the executive branch of the federal government, which means clients aren't guaranteed the right to a lawyer and other constitutional protections.
Burch, of the ACLU, offered a preview of what she will tell the judge.
"I think there were many arrests of Hispanic motorists leaving Lobo's in recent months. ... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's what used to happen down South to the African-American population.
"When people used to get together in one place they would be persecuted by law enforcement. Police would find any reason to stop them and harass them because of the color of their skin," she said.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/nation_world/article_8f34e554-f73d-11df-94ec-001cc4c03286.html
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Over a two-hour stretch one night in April, state troopers stopped two cars on a highway in Inwood, W.Va., a little-known hamlet surrounded by apple orchards in the northeast corner of the state.
In both stops, troopers asked the vehicles' occupants, all Hispanic patrons of a nearby Latin nightclub, for identification. When some handed over Mexican driver's licenses, the troopers contacted the Pittsburgh branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detained the drivers and passengers on charges of illegal entry.
Six occupants of the stopped vehicles face deportation proceedings and are challenging the police stops as unwarranted. Immigration lawyers say their clients fell victim to a pattern of racial profiling by state troopers, who they say purposely staked out motorists a mile from Lobo's, a dance club that plays "norteno" music on Saturday nights and draws largely Hispanic patrons from Winchester, Va.
The attorneys plan to ask immigration court judges to throw out these cases on the grounds that the state troopers stopped the cars because of their occupants' race.
"ICE will not tolerate racial profiling at all," said public affairs agent Mark M. Medvesky. He would not comment specifically on the Inwood stops since proceedings are pending.
Sgt. Michael Baylous, spokesman for the West Virginia State Police, was also unable to comment on the Inwood stops for the same reason, but said, "We don't do racial profiling here in West Virginia. Law enforcement is in the business of criminal profiling. We do actively profile criminals, people who violate the law. But we have not, nor will we ever engage in racial profiling."
David Rudovsky, a civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said this sounded like "a classic case" of racial profiling, adding, "The cops will tell you (racial profiling) is illegal and they'll tell you they don't do it. Cops will say, 'I stopped them for a legitimate reason. I ran their names and found reason to report them.'"
Tackling a racial profiling allegation will be complicated in the parallel universe of immigration court, where clients are not afforded the same protections as in criminal or civil court.
In a civil rights suit, for example, an individual can request discovery of police evidence that might help demonstrate a pattern of racism. In immigration court, there's no guarantee a judge will allow that request. One of the three Inwood attorneys, Michelle Mendez, borrowing a phrase from an immigration judge, said tackling these matters in immigration court "is like trying a death penalty case in traffic court."
Immigration lawyers say the Inwood arrests are part of a nationwide pattern of de facto crackdowns on Hispanics by state and municipal law enforcement in the spirit of the new law passed in Arizona.
"A lot of people end up in removal proceedings because of a traffic stop," said Mendez, who works out of Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. These disconnected arrests, wherever they occur, often aren't even a blip on a local community's radar, she said.
Many deportation arrests slip through the cracks before a qualified lawyer gets a look at them, attorneys said. An Amnesty International report in 2009 found that among individuals facing removal proceedings in Pennsylvania, 84 percent of detained immigrants and 58 percent of all clients did not have attorneys.
Valerie Burch, an American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania attorney representing three Inwood cases, said after troopers booked the two cars' occupants at the Eastern Regional Jail in Martinsburg, W.Va., none of the suspects was able to phone potential attorneys, or notify family members or day care providers of their whereabouts for three days.
The phones at the jail did not work, they said.
The group came to the attention of a lawyer when they were taken to York County Prison, an East Coast hub for ICE that processes thousands of detainees facing deportation each year.
The six Inwood cases are inching forward in immigration court, which operates differently from what most people picture when they think of a court. Immigration court is not under the judicial branch -- it's an administrative body under the executive branch of the federal government, which means clients aren't guaranteed the right to a lawyer and other constitutional protections.
Burch, of the ACLU, offered a preview of what she will tell the judge.
"I think there were many arrests of Hispanic motorists leaving Lobo's in recent months. ... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's what used to happen down South to the African-American population.
"When people used to get together in one place they would be persecuted by law enforcement. Police would find any reason to stop them and harass them because of the color of their skin," she said.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/nation_world/article_8f34e554-f73d-11df-94ec-001cc4c03286.html
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Police nab 12 alleged illegal immigrants after accident in South Whitehall Township
Lehigh Valley Live
February 02, 2010
Twelve alleged illegal immigrants were detained in Lehigh County Prison after a three-vehicle crash Friday evening on Route 22 in South Whitehall Township.
Pennsylvania State Police at Bethlehem say Edward D. Hersch, 46, of Coplay, was driving east about 5 p.m. in an area of heavy traffic. He was unable to stop his vehicle before crashing into a van driven by Jose R. Crespo-Gradio, 25. John P. O'Donnell, 51, of Easton, then rear-ended Hersch's vehicle.
Police say Crespo-Gradio and 11 of his passengers were in the country illegally from Mexico. Police called Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain the men.
The following people were in the vehicle with Crespo-Gradio. Police did not provide addresses for the men and did not specify which 11 were the suspected illegal immigrants:
* Reynalodo Rodriguez, 49
* Jose S. Garcia-Hernadez, 22
* Miguel A. Hernandez, 29
* Abel Guzman, 40
* Alejandro Diaz-Hernadez, 33
* Miguel A. Razo-Ramos, 26
* Alfanzo Zavala, 38
* Roberto Ruiz, 28
* Jose A. Figueroa-Marales, 32
* John Cano, 26
* Jose-Cano-Cano, 38
* Rodolfo Cardenas, 39
Hersch was cited for speeding. Figueroa-Marales suffered a minor injury. No one else was hurrt, police say.
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2010/02/police_nab_12_alleged_illegal.html
February 02, 2010
Twelve alleged illegal immigrants were detained in Lehigh County Prison after a three-vehicle crash Friday evening on Route 22 in South Whitehall Township.
Pennsylvania State Police at Bethlehem say Edward D. Hersch, 46, of Coplay, was driving east about 5 p.m. in an area of heavy traffic. He was unable to stop his vehicle before crashing into a van driven by Jose R. Crespo-Gradio, 25. John P. O'Donnell, 51, of Easton, then rear-ended Hersch's vehicle.
Police say Crespo-Gradio and 11 of his passengers were in the country illegally from Mexico. Police called Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain the men.
The following people were in the vehicle with Crespo-Gradio. Police did not provide addresses for the men and did not specify which 11 were the suspected illegal immigrants:
* Reynalodo Rodriguez, 49
* Jose S. Garcia-Hernadez, 22
* Miguel A. Hernandez, 29
* Abel Guzman, 40
* Alejandro Diaz-Hernadez, 33
* Miguel A. Razo-Ramos, 26
* Alfanzo Zavala, 38
* Roberto Ruiz, 28
* Jose A. Figueroa-Marales, 32
* John Cano, 26
* Jose-Cano-Cano, 38
* Rodolfo Cardenas, 39
Hersch was cited for speeding. Figueroa-Marales suffered a minor injury. No one else was hurrt, police say.
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/allentown/index.ssf/2010/02/police_nab_12_alleged_illegal.html
Monday, January 26, 2009
Local immigration raids show little effect
Local immigration raids show little effect
Few face ouster, but DA defends his enforcement effort
By Riley Yates
Of The Morning Call
January 25, 2009
For years, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli has pursued illegal immigrants in efforts that have given him national status as a crusader on a hot-button political issue.
In interviews with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and on CNN's ''Lou Dobbs Tonight,''Morganelli has defended local raids against businesses hiring illegal immigrants as necessary, given a lack of action at the federal level.
But despite the high visibility, Morganelli has had little success, court records show.
At the federal level, deportations of illegal immigrants Morganelli arrested for false identification or fake Social Security cards were not the rule, a review of 94 cases from 2004 to 2007 by The Morning Call showed. At the local level, slim prison sentences -- if there was prison time at all -- were the norm.
The results demonstrate what Morganelli and other critics of federal immigration enforcement have long contended: that deportations, even for those arrested for crimes, are not guaranteed. They also raise doubts about how successful local authorities are in battling a traditionally federal problem.
''What you have is an unnecessary use of resources which could have been better used fighting real crime -- violent crime and other crime that affects society,'' said David Vaida, an Allentown attorney who has long been critical of Morganelli's policy.
Of the 94 cases reviewed, just one person was actually deported. According to Northampton County and federal court records, seventeen individuals left the country voluntarily, one case is on appeal and one person did not show up for federal court proceedings. No recorded immigration action was taken against the other 74.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-3immigration.6700754jan25,0,2581285.story
Few face ouster, but DA defends his enforcement effort
By Riley Yates
Of The Morning Call
January 25, 2009
For years, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli has pursued illegal immigrants in efforts that have given him national status as a crusader on a hot-button political issue.
In interviews with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and on CNN's ''Lou Dobbs Tonight,''Morganelli has defended local raids against businesses hiring illegal immigrants as necessary, given a lack of action at the federal level.
But despite the high visibility, Morganelli has had little success, court records show.
At the federal level, deportations of illegal immigrants Morganelli arrested for false identification or fake Social Security cards were not the rule, a review of 94 cases from 2004 to 2007 by The Morning Call showed. At the local level, slim prison sentences -- if there was prison time at all -- were the norm.
The results demonstrate what Morganelli and other critics of federal immigration enforcement have long contended: that deportations, even for those arrested for crimes, are not guaranteed. They also raise doubts about how successful local authorities are in battling a traditionally federal problem.
''What you have is an unnecessary use of resources which could have been better used fighting real crime -- violent crime and other crime that affects society,'' said David Vaida, an Allentown attorney who has long been critical of Morganelli's policy.
Of the 94 cases reviewed, just one person was actually deported. According to Northampton County and federal court records, seventeen individuals left the country voluntarily, one case is on appeal and one person did not show up for federal court proceedings. No recorded immigration action was taken against the other 74.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-3immigration.6700754jan25,0,2581285.story
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