Deportation cases halted, but illegal immigrants lives remain on hold
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5:39 a.m. Monday, May 7, 2012
Dalton -- Pedro “Peter” Morales remembers the party his family and friends threw last summer after he was freed from a detention center and told he would not be deported to Mexico.
They presented the 19-year-old with a chocolate cake that said
“Welcome Back, Pedro.” His dad grilled chicken and steaks. Morales --
who was illegally brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was 7 --
was relieved to be back home in North Georgia. But those happy feelings
have given way to anxiety. He still does not have legal status in the
U.S. And the government won’t permit him to work legally here.
His situation stems from the federal government’s efforts to shrink a
massive backlog in the nation’s immigration courts, totaling 306,010
cases as of last month. The government is shifting more of its focus
toward deporting violent criminals, fugitives from immigration
authorities, recent border crossers and people who have re-entered the
country illegally.
Morales’ deportation case is among 2,722 the government has closed as
part of this effort so far, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
figures show. Of those, 41 were from Atlanta’s immigration court,
according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse -- a research organization that monitors the federal
government.
Charles Kuck, Morales’ immigration attorney, said his firm has about
20 other clients in the same predicament as Morales. He predicted there
are many more caught in similar circumstances nationwide.
“It’s quite clear that there was not a lot of thought given to what
happens to these people when we exercise our discretion of ‘Throw them
back in the ocean,’ ” said Kuck, who teaches immigration law at the
University of Georgia and is past president of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association. “It’s disappointing there wasn’t a better plan,
frankly.”
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, has a different view. He said halting illegal immigrants’
deportation cases and then permitting them to work here could send the
message that it is OK to enter the country illegally and stay here
without legal status.
“It is like: ‘Hey, you know, now I’m legal. It’s great. I’m glad ICE
arrested me,” said Krikorian, whose Washington-based organization
advocates for tighter immigration controls. “Giving work authorization
really is much more problematic.”
Federal officials said they are constrained by law concerning when
they may grant work permits. They said some people who have had their
deportation cases closed since last year have received work permits, but
they could not immediately say how many.
They also pointed out that the Obama administration has been pushing
Congress to pass the Dream Act. That measure -- which failed in Congress
in 2010 -- would give illegal immigrants a path to legal status if they
came here as children, graduated from high school and attended college
or served in the military.
Meanwhile, ICE officials said they are moving as quickly as they can
to review the cases pending in the nation’s immigration courts. They
said they are trying to “alleviate the burden posed on already
overwhelmed immigration courts” and have identified about 16,500 cases
that meet their criteria for being closed. Closing cases through this
process, according to ICE, allows the agency “to more quickly remove
those individuals who pose the biggest threat to community security and
who have most flagrantly abused our immigration system.”
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ignited controversy in
August -- the same month Morales was freed -- when she announced the
case-by-case review. The government’s actions come as Georgia and
several other states are seeking to crack down on illegal immigration
through their own new laws. Among other things, those statutes seek to
block illegal immigrants from taking jobs from U.S. citizens and getting
public benefits they are not entitled to. Parts of those laws are tied
up in federal court amid legal challenges.
State Rep. Matt Ramsey, who authored Georgia’s illegal immigration
law, said it makes sense for the government to prioritize deporting
criminal illegal immigrants. But the government wouldn’t have such a
massive court backlog, he said, if it spent more resources keeping
illegal immigrants out of the country.
“They are in a position of having to do this because they have
fundamentally failed over a period of decades to stem the tide
effectively,” the Peachtree City Republican said, “and they are still
not adequately putting the resources behind it to address the problem.”
President Barack Obama's supporters point out that his administration
has deported a record number of illegal immigrants and other
noncitizens. Last fiscal year, that number was 396,906, the largest
number removed in the history of ICE.
Morales feels strongly about the government’s decision to halt
deportation cases like his. A graduate of Whitfield Career Academy, he
considers himself mostly American. His high school friends nicknamed him
Peter. He sometimes speaks to his parents in English because he doesn’t
know which Spanish words to use.
“I was raised here,” said Morales, a quiet, polite man who speaks in a
somber tone. “I wouldn’t know what to do in Mexico if I go back.”
After his case was closed last year, Morales applied to the
government through a process that could lead to a work permit, but his
application was denied in March, his attorney said. Morales wants to get
a full-time job -- with health insurance benefits -- to pay for tuition
at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. He wants to study auto
mechanics there and open his own car repair shop. He said he can’t
support himself without full-time work, so he lives with his parents and
two U.S.-born siblings.
Morales talked about his case this month at his parent’s home in a
trailer park just outside Dalton. He said his parents brought him to the
United States in 1999, fleeing poverty and crime in Mexico City.
Morales was able to keep his legal status secret until he was arrested
on Father’s Day for driving without a license. Local authorities
determined that he was in the country illegally and turned him over to
ICE, which sent him to a detention center 145 miles south of Atlanta in
Stewart County. He said he spent many weeks there, depressed and worried
about his future.
Morales was freed after his attorney cited the government’s new
guidelines for “prosecutorial discretion” in court. Morales said he is
glad to be free but is nervous about drawing the attention of
immigration authorities again since they have the authority to reopen
his deportation case. He said he rarely leaves home. When he does,
friends drive. He mostly stays busy playing video games and working out
at a local gym, though he can’t shake his restlessness.
“I want to be a good citizen and make a living,” he said. “It’s kind of frustrating right now.”
By the numbers
Seeking to shrink a massive backlog in the nation’s immigration
courts, federal officials have begun an extensive case-by-case review of
the 306,010 matters pending in the courts to see whether they should be
closed because they don’t meet the government’s top priorities for
enforcement. The federal government is shifting more of its focus toward
deporting violent criminals, recent border crossers, people who have
re-entered the country illegally and fugitives from immigration
authorities.
As of April 16, the government has reviewed 219,554 cases and
determined that about 16,500 of them meet its criteria for being closed.
Of those, 2,722 have been closed. They include:
2,055 who have had a “very long-term presence” in the U.S., have an
immediate relative who is a U.S. citizen, have established “compelling
ties and made compelling contributions” to the U.S.
182 who came to the U.S. under the age of 16, have been in the U.S.
for more than five years, have completed high school or its equivalent
and are now pursuing or have completed higher education in the U.S.
175 children who have been in the U.S. for more than five years and
are either enrolled in school or have completed high school or its
equivalent
103 who are a “very low enforcement priority”
100 who suffer from serious mental or physical conditions that would require “significant medical or detention resources”
60 victims of domestic violence, human trafficking or other serious crimes in the U.S.
23 who are older than 65 and have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years
16 who have been lawful permanent residents of the U.S. for 10 years
or more and have a single, minor conviction for a nonviolent offense;
8 who are members of the U.S. military, honorably discharged U.S.
military veterans or spouses or children of U.S. military veterans
Sources: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/deportation-cases-halted-but-1432683.html
Showing posts with label Expulsions in GA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in GA. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
A second chance: Deportation policy changes allow students to stay in U.S.
By Rachel Brown
The Dalton Daily Citizen
Sep 17, 2011
It all started on Father’s Day.
Pedro Morales, 19, of the Eastside community, got a call from his father asking him for a ride home. Pedro’s father normally doesn’t indulge in alcohol, family members said, but on this occasion he’d had a couple of beers and wasn’t feeling well.
“I had to get him home so he could take his pill, and so I decided to drive,” said Morales, who does not have a driver’s license because he was illegally brought into the country when he was 7 and has lived here ever since.
Morales got stopped at a road block, and when a Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office deputy asked him for his license, he confessed he didn’t have one. He was put into the back of a car, and a friend with a valid license drove his father home.
That was the last time he would see his family until Aug. 23, when he was released from custody. In the intervening two months, he spent five days in the local jail and most of the rest of the time in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, fighting not to be deported to his native Mexico, which he hasn’t been to since he was little.
Morales said he was depressed and ready to give up hope when a judge finally dismissed his case based on a new enforcement policy from the Obama administration that instructs officials to focus deportation efforts on illegals who have committed violent crimes or been convicted of crimes. The directive excludes most students from being priorities for deportation, particularly those who have lived most of their lives in the United States.
Caught in traffic
Morales and Gordon Central High School student Luis “Ricky” Hernandez, 18, were among the first youths in the nation to benefit from the new policy.
Hernandez also has ties to Dalton and, like Morales, was represented by Atlanta-based immigration attorney Charles Kuck. Hernandez participated in Dalton State College’s Steps to College program for high school students this summer and was in Dalton when he was arrested and nearly deported back to Mexico.
Like Morales, Hernandez had been brought to the United States at a young age — just 2. His only relative who still lives in Mexico is his grandmother, he said. It’s a country he doesn’t know.
Hernandez said it was mid-June when he was on his way to see the movie “Hangover II” with a friend. He was a passenger in the car his friend was driving, and the two were pulled over for a headlights violation. Hernandez said he was booked on a drug possession charge, which was later dropped after authorities found no proof the drugs, which were found in the car, belonged to him. Once officials discovered he was in the country illegally, he too was sent to the Stewart Detention Center.
The two cases are not uncommon.
Morales said he ran into a few Southeast High School and Whitfield Career Academy students at Stewart while he was there. He said they were likewise arrested on traffic violations and awaiting deportation. Southeast Principal Brian Satterfield, who could not be reached to comment on this story, said in a previous interview that the school’s expected graduation rate dropped slightly because five students were deported last year.
“There’s really not a whole lot we can do with that, although we have tried to work with the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in Atlanta to see if they can possibly graduate before the deportation,” he said last month.
Hernandez’s principal, Scott McClanahan, said another of the school’s students, an honors student who played football, was in JROTC and planned to enter the military, was deported to his native Guatemala in April.
“This happens all the time,” Kuck said. “You let these kids grow up here, you educate them and then you deport them to a country they don’t know. It’s insane. It’s an insane process.”
Staying in Stewart
The detention center houses anyone set to be deported. Morales said he was placed in a cell with 66 people. The men slept on bunk beds and shared three bathrooms and five showers, he said.
“I had never been in trouble for anything,” Morales said. “They put me with people from prison ... It was pretty awkward at the beginning.”
Morales’ father, who is also Pedro Morales, said he went to see eight lawyers in Atlanta, one of whom he lost $1,000 with. He didn’t want his son to return to the chaotic situation in Mexico where just last week three people were killed in his town and there is extortion, drugs and anarchy from the drug traffickers, he said.
“We took it for fact that my son was going to be deported back to Mexico,” said the father. “There were days of anxiety, not sleeping, not eating. It is something you do not wish on anyone.”
Morales’ mother, Veronica Arredondo, said the experience was “very hard,” and that she’d never been apart from her son for so long before. She said he’d never had problems in school or been in trouble with the law.
In Calhoun, teacher and assistant soccer coach Sean McKenzie said he advocated for Hernandez to be able to stay with his family in the United States, as did several other educators. McKenzie said he invited all his students to participate in Steps to College, a program which helps high school students or recent graduates prepare for high stakes tests and college entrance exams, but Hernandez was the only one who took him up on it.
“When I found out Ricky had been picked up, it was especially upsetting to me,” McKenzie said. “He had been working so hard to try to better himself.”
McKenzie said Hernandez had never been in any trouble.
“That wasn’t his marijuana,” he said. “He didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Hernandez said he always held out hope he would not be deported.
“I had a feeling I would (be released) because I didn’t do anything bad,” he said. “I was just in there wasting time when I could have been with my family.”
For two months, Morales stayed in Stewart as Kuck attempted to get him back home. When told he was getting released, he initially didn’t believe it.
“I was getting everything denied, and everything was getting worse,” Morales said. “My last court (date) was the decision if I was going to be able to stay or if I would have to leave. They told me my case was dropped because of what President Obama said, that people brought here as children or were students and trying to achieve a college degree, that immigration was going to have to leave them alone.”
There’s no guarantee, of course, that Morales or Hernandez can continue to live in the United States. Enforcement is conducted on a case-by-case basis.
“ICE moved to administratively close their case,” Kuck said. “ICE could move to administratively open their case.”
Looking forward
Both young men are working to get permission to stay here legally, they said. Kuck said they’re not eligible to become legal residents, but he will apply next week to allow them to continue to live in the U.S. under ICE supervision and get work visas. It could be months before they learn of the decision, he said.
“It (the appeal) is through ICE, and it’s very informal,” he said, adding he didn’t know how long the work permits would last if granted. “A lot of this is dependent on the current administration’s policies on this, and frankly they are at best vague.”
Morales applied to Georgia Northwestern Technical College last year to begin studying auto engine repair at the college’s Walker County campus. A 2010 graduate at the Whitfield Career Academy, he had planned to be in school this fall.
Instead, he spent his college savings on fighting deportation, he said. He said he’s hoping to begin classes in the spring.
Hernandez said he too hopes to go to college somewhere.
Asked what he learned from the situation, Hernandez said he’ll now be more careful who he hangs around with. He said he wishes he could have his own car so he’ll know what’s in it and what’s not.
Morales said he wishes officials would put more thought into who they’re arresting.
“They should look more into seeing what kind of people they’re arresting because a lot of people are not doing anything bad,” he said. “A lot of these people are honest people. They just want to work and make something out of themselves like I’m trying to do.”
Temple Black, an ICE spokesman based in Louisiana, said that without local sheriff and police departments holding illegal aliens, it would be harder to catch those who have committed crimes.
“The identification and removal of many criminal aliens would not be possible without the cooperation of our state and local law enforcement partners,” Black said in an emailed statement. “ICE detainers are an effective tool to ensure that individuals convicted of criminal charges or who have previously been removed, who are found to be in violation of U.S. immigration law, are not released back into the community to potentially commit more crimes.”
He did say using resources on cases that are no longer deemed high priority hurts the department’s goal of deporting those who are a threat to safety.
Teachers, McKenzie said, often find themselves in a delicate situation when it comes to working with children who, though they may have had no say in the matter, are illegal aliens. Schools are required to serve students regardless of their immigration status, meaning American taxpayers foot the bill for a majority of their education.
McKenzie said he would like lawmakers to create a clear path to legal residency for students like Hernandez. Others say there should be stronger border enforcement or even stronger efforts to deport everyone who is in the country illegally. They point out the difficulty of holding illegals accountable since they often don’t carry car insurance, and they lament the fact many undocumented residents take advantage of taxpayer-funded social service programs that are supposed to be reserved for legal residents.
Still others take a middle-of-the-road approach, supporting enforcement of the law but also advocating for leniency for at least some.
“I do think everybody has got to make up their mind how they handle things, but I certainly see it as my role to stand up for my students and be an advocate for them,” McKenzie said. “Ricky is a great kid, and I was honored to stand up for him.”
El Informador writer Jorge Perez contributed to this story.
http://daltondailycitizen.com/local/x1660695849/A-second-chance
The Dalton Daily Citizen
Sep 17, 2011
It all started on Father’s Day.
Pedro Morales, 19, of the Eastside community, got a call from his father asking him for a ride home. Pedro’s father normally doesn’t indulge in alcohol, family members said, but on this occasion he’d had a couple of beers and wasn’t feeling well.
“I had to get him home so he could take his pill, and so I decided to drive,” said Morales, who does not have a driver’s license because he was illegally brought into the country when he was 7 and has lived here ever since.
Morales got stopped at a road block, and when a Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office deputy asked him for his license, he confessed he didn’t have one. He was put into the back of a car, and a friend with a valid license drove his father home.
That was the last time he would see his family until Aug. 23, when he was released from custody. In the intervening two months, he spent five days in the local jail and most of the rest of the time in the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, fighting not to be deported to his native Mexico, which he hasn’t been to since he was little.
Morales said he was depressed and ready to give up hope when a judge finally dismissed his case based on a new enforcement policy from the Obama administration that instructs officials to focus deportation efforts on illegals who have committed violent crimes or been convicted of crimes. The directive excludes most students from being priorities for deportation, particularly those who have lived most of their lives in the United States.
Caught in traffic
Morales and Gordon Central High School student Luis “Ricky” Hernandez, 18, were among the first youths in the nation to benefit from the new policy.
Hernandez also has ties to Dalton and, like Morales, was represented by Atlanta-based immigration attorney Charles Kuck. Hernandez participated in Dalton State College’s Steps to College program for high school students this summer and was in Dalton when he was arrested and nearly deported back to Mexico.
Like Morales, Hernandez had been brought to the United States at a young age — just 2. His only relative who still lives in Mexico is his grandmother, he said. It’s a country he doesn’t know.
Hernandez said it was mid-June when he was on his way to see the movie “Hangover II” with a friend. He was a passenger in the car his friend was driving, and the two were pulled over for a headlights violation. Hernandez said he was booked on a drug possession charge, which was later dropped after authorities found no proof the drugs, which were found in the car, belonged to him. Once officials discovered he was in the country illegally, he too was sent to the Stewart Detention Center.
The two cases are not uncommon.
Morales said he ran into a few Southeast High School and Whitfield Career Academy students at Stewart while he was there. He said they were likewise arrested on traffic violations and awaiting deportation. Southeast Principal Brian Satterfield, who could not be reached to comment on this story, said in a previous interview that the school’s expected graduation rate dropped slightly because five students were deported last year.
“There’s really not a whole lot we can do with that, although we have tried to work with the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in Atlanta to see if they can possibly graduate before the deportation,” he said last month.
Hernandez’s principal, Scott McClanahan, said another of the school’s students, an honors student who played football, was in JROTC and planned to enter the military, was deported to his native Guatemala in April.
“This happens all the time,” Kuck said. “You let these kids grow up here, you educate them and then you deport them to a country they don’t know. It’s insane. It’s an insane process.”
Staying in Stewart
The detention center houses anyone set to be deported. Morales said he was placed in a cell with 66 people. The men slept on bunk beds and shared three bathrooms and five showers, he said.
“I had never been in trouble for anything,” Morales said. “They put me with people from prison ... It was pretty awkward at the beginning.”
Morales’ father, who is also Pedro Morales, said he went to see eight lawyers in Atlanta, one of whom he lost $1,000 with. He didn’t want his son to return to the chaotic situation in Mexico where just last week three people were killed in his town and there is extortion, drugs and anarchy from the drug traffickers, he said.
“We took it for fact that my son was going to be deported back to Mexico,” said the father. “There were days of anxiety, not sleeping, not eating. It is something you do not wish on anyone.”
Morales’ mother, Veronica Arredondo, said the experience was “very hard,” and that she’d never been apart from her son for so long before. She said he’d never had problems in school or been in trouble with the law.
In Calhoun, teacher and assistant soccer coach Sean McKenzie said he advocated for Hernandez to be able to stay with his family in the United States, as did several other educators. McKenzie said he invited all his students to participate in Steps to College, a program which helps high school students or recent graduates prepare for high stakes tests and college entrance exams, but Hernandez was the only one who took him up on it.
“When I found out Ricky had been picked up, it was especially upsetting to me,” McKenzie said. “He had been working so hard to try to better himself.”
McKenzie said Hernandez had never been in any trouble.
“That wasn’t his marijuana,” he said. “He didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Hernandez said he always held out hope he would not be deported.
“I had a feeling I would (be released) because I didn’t do anything bad,” he said. “I was just in there wasting time when I could have been with my family.”
For two months, Morales stayed in Stewart as Kuck attempted to get him back home. When told he was getting released, he initially didn’t believe it.
“I was getting everything denied, and everything was getting worse,” Morales said. “My last court (date) was the decision if I was going to be able to stay or if I would have to leave. They told me my case was dropped because of what President Obama said, that people brought here as children or were students and trying to achieve a college degree, that immigration was going to have to leave them alone.”
There’s no guarantee, of course, that Morales or Hernandez can continue to live in the United States. Enforcement is conducted on a case-by-case basis.
“ICE moved to administratively close their case,” Kuck said. “ICE could move to administratively open their case.”
Looking forward
Both young men are working to get permission to stay here legally, they said. Kuck said they’re not eligible to become legal residents, but he will apply next week to allow them to continue to live in the U.S. under ICE supervision and get work visas. It could be months before they learn of the decision, he said.
“It (the appeal) is through ICE, and it’s very informal,” he said, adding he didn’t know how long the work permits would last if granted. “A lot of this is dependent on the current administration’s policies on this, and frankly they are at best vague.”
Morales applied to Georgia Northwestern Technical College last year to begin studying auto engine repair at the college’s Walker County campus. A 2010 graduate at the Whitfield Career Academy, he had planned to be in school this fall.
Instead, he spent his college savings on fighting deportation, he said. He said he’s hoping to begin classes in the spring.
Hernandez said he too hopes to go to college somewhere.
Asked what he learned from the situation, Hernandez said he’ll now be more careful who he hangs around with. He said he wishes he could have his own car so he’ll know what’s in it and what’s not.
Morales said he wishes officials would put more thought into who they’re arresting.
“They should look more into seeing what kind of people they’re arresting because a lot of people are not doing anything bad,” he said. “A lot of these people are honest people. They just want to work and make something out of themselves like I’m trying to do.”
Temple Black, an ICE spokesman based in Louisiana, said that without local sheriff and police departments holding illegal aliens, it would be harder to catch those who have committed crimes.
“The identification and removal of many criminal aliens would not be possible without the cooperation of our state and local law enforcement partners,” Black said in an emailed statement. “ICE detainers are an effective tool to ensure that individuals convicted of criminal charges or who have previously been removed, who are found to be in violation of U.S. immigration law, are not released back into the community to potentially commit more crimes.”
He did say using resources on cases that are no longer deemed high priority hurts the department’s goal of deporting those who are a threat to safety.
Teachers, McKenzie said, often find themselves in a delicate situation when it comes to working with children who, though they may have had no say in the matter, are illegal aliens. Schools are required to serve students regardless of their immigration status, meaning American taxpayers foot the bill for a majority of their education.
McKenzie said he would like lawmakers to create a clear path to legal residency for students like Hernandez. Others say there should be stronger border enforcement or even stronger efforts to deport everyone who is in the country illegally. They point out the difficulty of holding illegals accountable since they often don’t carry car insurance, and they lament the fact many undocumented residents take advantage of taxpayer-funded social service programs that are supposed to be reserved for legal residents.
Still others take a middle-of-the-road approach, supporting enforcement of the law but also advocating for leniency for at least some.
“I do think everybody has got to make up their mind how they handle things, but I certainly see it as my role to stand up for my students and be an advocate for them,” McKenzie said. “Ricky is a great kid, and I was honored to stand up for him.”
El Informador writer Jorge Perez contributed to this story.
http://daltondailycitizen.com/local/x1660695849/A-second-chance
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Nearly 7,000 deportation cases in Georgia to be reviewed for possible dismissal
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thousands of suspected illegal immigrants facing deportation in Georgia will have their court cases reviewed for possible dismissal as the Obama administration tightens its focus on violent criminals and national security threats.
There were 6,861 pending cases combined in immigration courts in Atlanta and the Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia as of July 31, the most recent date for which these statistics are available, U.S. Justice Department figures show. Nationwide, there were 289,033 pending cases as of that date.
It’s unclear how many of those cases could be closed under plans the Obama administration announced this month. Federal officials don’t keep statistics on how many involve the people they are focusing on, including those who have committed violent crimes, repeat violators of immigration law, people who recently crossed the border illegally and fugitives from immigration authorities.
Opponents of the government's plans say President Barack Obama is playing politics and ignoring federal immigration laws. Supporters say the government needs to prioritize because it has limited resources to detain and deport illegal immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans for the nationwide, case-by-case review in a letter to U.S. senators Aug. 18. She said a team of officials will review all pending cases based on guidelines Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued June 17. Those guidelines say ICE prosecutors may give special consideration to several groups, including illegal immigrants who were brought here as young children, graduated from high schools here or served in the U.S. military.
A Homeland Security spokesman said the government is still deciding how it will do the case-by-case review and when the work will begin.
But the government has already started closing cases in Georgia based on ICE's guidelines.
On Tuesday, Pedro Morales, 19, of Dalton and Luis "Ricky" Hernandez, 18, of Calhoun were freed from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin after their attorney cited the ICE guidelines and Napolitano’s letter in court. Both were illegally brought here from Mexico as young children. And both have attended public high schools in North Georgia.
Other Atlanta-area immigration attorneys say they will use similar tactics. Carolina Antonini said that before Napolitano sent her letter this month Antonini told some of her clients facing deportation: “ ‘Look, I am going to request some things, but it is probably not going to work. Start packing your bags.’ My advice to them now is: ‘Don’t pack your bags. Unpack. This is not over.’ ”
Critics are blasting the new policy, accusing Obama of ignoring federal immigration law and making the United States appear more inviting to illegal immigrants.
“You simply cannot overstate the abuse of executive power that this represents,” said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based organization that supports tougher immigration enforcement. “This administration has just gone completely rogue on this.”
Illegal immigration has long been a hot-button issue in Georgia. Critics say illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens and burdening taxpayer-funded resources. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are 425,000 illegal immigrants in Georgia, the seventh-highest total among the states.
Complaining that the federal government has failed to seal the nation’s borders, Georgia lawmakers this year enacted one of the toughest state laws targeting illegal immigration. A federal judge, however, has temporarily put parts of that law on hold amid a court challenge. Other parts of the law went into effect July 1, including a provision that punishes people who use fake identification to get jobs here.
The author of Georgia’s new law -- House Bill 87 -- said the Obama administration’s new approach amounts to “political pandering leading up to an election.”
“Signaling via regulation that they intend to do less enforcement rather than more enforcement is exactly the wrong direction we should be going in as a nation,” said state Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City.
Proponents of the new policy say it makes sense to focus more on deporting violent criminals and terrorists, given the government’s limited resources.
"This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety,” Napolitano wrote in her letter to senators. “Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons. This process will also allow additional federal enforcement resources to be focused on border security and the removal of public safety threats.”
In Georgia, the government has just seven immigration judges. That works out to nearly 1,000 cases per judge, based on the Justice Department’s most recent count.
Meanwhile, it takes 353 days on average for a case to be resolved in Atlanta’s immigration courts, according to a study by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization that monitors the federal government. Nationwide, the average is 302.
In interviews this week, Hernandez and Morales -- who were both facing deportation to Mexico -- praised the new approach.
“I grew up being an American,” said Morales, who was illegally brought to the United States from Mexico when he was 7. “I don’t know nothing about Mexico. Mexico is a foreign country to me. And they were trying to send me there.”
Morales was arrested in Whitfield County in June on a charge of driving without a license. He graduated from Whitefield Career Academy and is planning to study auto mechanics at Georgia Northwestern Technical College.
Like Morales, Hernandez was arrested during a traffic stop last summer in Whitfield. He was charged with possession of marijuana, but that charge was dropped, his attorney said. Hernandez is now a senior at Gordon Central High School and plans to study construction in college.
“It’s good,” he said of the new policy, “because now we have more opportunities to go to college and have a better life now, a better job. And we know we will not be deported.”
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/nearly-7-000-deportation-1145575.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thousands of suspected illegal immigrants facing deportation in Georgia will have their court cases reviewed for possible dismissal as the Obama administration tightens its focus on violent criminals and national security threats.
There were 6,861 pending cases combined in immigration courts in Atlanta and the Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia as of July 31, the most recent date for which these statistics are available, U.S. Justice Department figures show. Nationwide, there were 289,033 pending cases as of that date.
It’s unclear how many of those cases could be closed under plans the Obama administration announced this month. Federal officials don’t keep statistics on how many involve the people they are focusing on, including those who have committed violent crimes, repeat violators of immigration law, people who recently crossed the border illegally and fugitives from immigration authorities.
Opponents of the government's plans say President Barack Obama is playing politics and ignoring federal immigration laws. Supporters say the government needs to prioritize because it has limited resources to detain and deport illegal immigrants.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans for the nationwide, case-by-case review in a letter to U.S. senators Aug. 18. She said a team of officials will review all pending cases based on guidelines Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued June 17. Those guidelines say ICE prosecutors may give special consideration to several groups, including illegal immigrants who were brought here as young children, graduated from high schools here or served in the U.S. military.
A Homeland Security spokesman said the government is still deciding how it will do the case-by-case review and when the work will begin.
But the government has already started closing cases in Georgia based on ICE's guidelines.
On Tuesday, Pedro Morales, 19, of Dalton and Luis "Ricky" Hernandez, 18, of Calhoun were freed from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin after their attorney cited the ICE guidelines and Napolitano’s letter in court. Both were illegally brought here from Mexico as young children. And both have attended public high schools in North Georgia.
Other Atlanta-area immigration attorneys say they will use similar tactics. Carolina Antonini said that before Napolitano sent her letter this month Antonini told some of her clients facing deportation: “ ‘Look, I am going to request some things, but it is probably not going to work. Start packing your bags.’ My advice to them now is: ‘Don’t pack your bags. Unpack. This is not over.’ ”
Critics are blasting the new policy, accusing Obama of ignoring federal immigration law and making the United States appear more inviting to illegal immigrants.
“You simply cannot overstate the abuse of executive power that this represents,” said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based organization that supports tougher immigration enforcement. “This administration has just gone completely rogue on this.”
Illegal immigration has long been a hot-button issue in Georgia. Critics say illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens and burdening taxpayer-funded resources. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that there are 425,000 illegal immigrants in Georgia, the seventh-highest total among the states.
Complaining that the federal government has failed to seal the nation’s borders, Georgia lawmakers this year enacted one of the toughest state laws targeting illegal immigration. A federal judge, however, has temporarily put parts of that law on hold amid a court challenge. Other parts of the law went into effect July 1, including a provision that punishes people who use fake identification to get jobs here.
The author of Georgia’s new law -- House Bill 87 -- said the Obama administration’s new approach amounts to “political pandering leading up to an election.”
“Signaling via regulation that they intend to do less enforcement rather than more enforcement is exactly the wrong direction we should be going in as a nation,” said state Rep. Matt Ramsey, R-Peachtree City.
Proponents of the new policy say it makes sense to focus more on deporting violent criminals and terrorists, given the government’s limited resources.
"This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety,” Napolitano wrote in her letter to senators. “Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons. This process will also allow additional federal enforcement resources to be focused on border security and the removal of public safety threats.”
In Georgia, the government has just seven immigration judges. That works out to nearly 1,000 cases per judge, based on the Justice Department’s most recent count.
Meanwhile, it takes 353 days on average for a case to be resolved in Atlanta’s immigration courts, according to a study by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization that monitors the federal government. Nationwide, the average is 302.
In interviews this week, Hernandez and Morales -- who were both facing deportation to Mexico -- praised the new approach.
“I grew up being an American,” said Morales, who was illegally brought to the United States from Mexico when he was 7. “I don’t know nothing about Mexico. Mexico is a foreign country to me. And they were trying to send me there.”
Morales was arrested in Whitfield County in June on a charge of driving without a license. He graduated from Whitefield Career Academy and is planning to study auto mechanics at Georgia Northwestern Technical College.
Like Morales, Hernandez was arrested during a traffic stop last summer in Whitfield. He was charged with possession of marijuana, but that charge was dropped, his attorney said. Hernandez is now a senior at Gordon Central High School and plans to study construction in college.
“It’s good,” he said of the new policy, “because now we have more opportunities to go to college and have a better life now, a better job. And we know we will not be deported.”
Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/nearly-7-000-deportation-1145575.html
Monday, May 16, 2011
Student reluctant immigration symbol; Debate over education rights of immigrants
By Kate Brumback
The Associated Press
May 14, 2011
ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl has always tried to keep a low profile — obeying the speed limit, making sure her lights work properly — knowing that a brush with law enforcement could lead to her deportation and cost her a college diploma.
After a few close calls, her fears were realized last spring, when she was stopped for a minor traffic violation, charged with driving without a license and turned over to immigration authorities. She spent 37 days in a detention center in Alabama before they let her out and said they would give her a year to finish her studies at Kennesaw State University.
Before her arrest, Colotl had revealed her immigration status only to her closest friends. In the five weeks she was held last spring, her sorority sisters marched to have her freed, her case went viral and she was thrust into the national spotlight.
She emerged a reluctant symbol, seized upon by both sides of the debate over illegal immigration.
"It was a very beautiful and scary case at the same time," said Georgina Perez, who was brought here illegally as a young child, as was Colotl. "When they let her go, we were all so happy. But then when I saw how the anti-immigrant people went after her, I became scared."
Advocates for tighter restrictions on illegal immigrants argued in letters to the editor and complaints to the Georgia university system that illegal immigrants like Colotl shouldn't be allowed to attend state schools and should be deported.
"I think it's grossly unfair to the real immigrants who have followed the rules to come here legally," said D.A. King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
Through it all, the soft-spoken Colotl has been left wondering, "Why me?"
"I don't like it at all," she said of the intense scrutiny she's endured. "I've never liked to be the center of attention, especially for a controversial issue."
Colotl, 22, is among hundreds of thousands of young people who have been brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents. Many hold out hope that Congress will eventually provide a path to legalization for certain illegal immigrants brought here as children.
Groups of illegal immigrant students have come out around the country over the past year, staging high-profile actions designed to draw attention to their plight and urge lawmakers to act. Last month, Perez was one of seven illegal immigrant youths who demanded greater access to higher education by sitting down in an Atlanta street blocking traffic until police arrested them.
Unlike the students who have revealed their illegal status voluntarily, Colotl didn't choose to go public. She supports their actions, she said, but has been too busy with school and her sorority to participate.
"I know a lot of people in the community sometimes wish she would come out more, but it's completely understandable with everything she's been through that she doesn't want to," Perez said.
Colotl's case sparked public concerns that Georgia state colleges and universities were being overrun by illegal immigrants, that taxpayers were subsidizing their education and legal residents were being displaced. Yet a study conducted by the university system's Board of Regents found that less than 1 percent of the state's public college students were illegal immigrants, and that students who pay out-of-state tuition — which illegal immigrants are required to do — more than pay for their education.
The board implemented a new policy in October barring any school that has rejected academically qualified applicants in the previous two years from accepting illegal immigrants. State lawmakers tried to go a step farther, introducing an ultimately unsuccessful bill that would have prohibited all of Georgia's state colleges and universities from admitting illegal immigrants.
King, an ardent supporter of that bill, said he used Colotl's case last year to file a complaint against the Board of Regents. Young people like Colotl who were brought here by their parents present a sympathetic case, he said, but he blames their parents for their situation.
"I think Jessica Colotl should have been deported last year as an example to the parents who are shamelessly bringing their children into this country," he said.
Colotl's parents brought her from Puebla, Mexico, to the U.S. when she was 11. She completed high school in Georgia and went on to Kennesaw State, where she's set to graduate Wednesday with a major in political science with a legal studies concentration and minor in French.
She very nearly missed out on walking in cap and gown — her one-year reprieve was extended for another year last week, days before it was to expire. Now she hopes to become an immigration lawyer.
While she didn't invite the spotlight, Colotl still feels it's had a positive effect.
"I have a few friends who were completely against immigration of any kind, and when they read about my story, they changed their minds and a lot of them told me, 'We were not right in our opinions, and I appreciate you for educating me on this subject,'" she said.
She's also been contacted by some illegal immigrant high school students who are inspired by her case.
"That has been the most rewarding part of everything, that other students see this struggle as motivation to keep fighting and to get a higher education," she said.
Despite all her troubles over the past year, Colotl doesn't regret her parents' decision to bring her here.
"I would never dare to blame them for trying to give me a better life," she said.
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/may/14/student-reluctant-immigration-symbol/
The Associated Press
May 14, 2011
ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl has always tried to keep a low profile — obeying the speed limit, making sure her lights work properly — knowing that a brush with law enforcement could lead to her deportation and cost her a college diploma.
After a few close calls, her fears were realized last spring, when she was stopped for a minor traffic violation, charged with driving without a license and turned over to immigration authorities. She spent 37 days in a detention center in Alabama before they let her out and said they would give her a year to finish her studies at Kennesaw State University.
Before her arrest, Colotl had revealed her immigration status only to her closest friends. In the five weeks she was held last spring, her sorority sisters marched to have her freed, her case went viral and she was thrust into the national spotlight.
She emerged a reluctant symbol, seized upon by both sides of the debate over illegal immigration.
"It was a very beautiful and scary case at the same time," said Georgina Perez, who was brought here illegally as a young child, as was Colotl. "When they let her go, we were all so happy. But then when I saw how the anti-immigrant people went after her, I became scared."
Advocates for tighter restrictions on illegal immigrants argued in letters to the editor and complaints to the Georgia university system that illegal immigrants like Colotl shouldn't be allowed to attend state schools and should be deported.
"I think it's grossly unfair to the real immigrants who have followed the rules to come here legally," said D.A. King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
Through it all, the soft-spoken Colotl has been left wondering, "Why me?"
"I don't like it at all," she said of the intense scrutiny she's endured. "I've never liked to be the center of attention, especially for a controversial issue."
Colotl, 22, is among hundreds of thousands of young people who have been brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents. Many hold out hope that Congress will eventually provide a path to legalization for certain illegal immigrants brought here as children.
Groups of illegal immigrant students have come out around the country over the past year, staging high-profile actions designed to draw attention to their plight and urge lawmakers to act. Last month, Perez was one of seven illegal immigrant youths who demanded greater access to higher education by sitting down in an Atlanta street blocking traffic until police arrested them.
Unlike the students who have revealed their illegal status voluntarily, Colotl didn't choose to go public. She supports their actions, she said, but has been too busy with school and her sorority to participate.
"I know a lot of people in the community sometimes wish she would come out more, but it's completely understandable with everything she's been through that she doesn't want to," Perez said.
Colotl's case sparked public concerns that Georgia state colleges and universities were being overrun by illegal immigrants, that taxpayers were subsidizing their education and legal residents were being displaced. Yet a study conducted by the university system's Board of Regents found that less than 1 percent of the state's public college students were illegal immigrants, and that students who pay out-of-state tuition — which illegal immigrants are required to do — more than pay for their education.
The board implemented a new policy in October barring any school that has rejected academically qualified applicants in the previous two years from accepting illegal immigrants. State lawmakers tried to go a step farther, introducing an ultimately unsuccessful bill that would have prohibited all of Georgia's state colleges and universities from admitting illegal immigrants.
King, an ardent supporter of that bill, said he used Colotl's case last year to file a complaint against the Board of Regents. Young people like Colotl who were brought here by their parents present a sympathetic case, he said, but he blames their parents for their situation.
"I think Jessica Colotl should have been deported last year as an example to the parents who are shamelessly bringing their children into this country," he said.
Colotl's parents brought her from Puebla, Mexico, to the U.S. when she was 11. She completed high school in Georgia and went on to Kennesaw State, where she's set to graduate Wednesday with a major in political science with a legal studies concentration and minor in French.
She very nearly missed out on walking in cap and gown — her one-year reprieve was extended for another year last week, days before it was to expire. Now she hopes to become an immigration lawyer.
While she didn't invite the spotlight, Colotl still feels it's had a positive effect.
"I have a few friends who were completely against immigration of any kind, and when they read about my story, they changed their minds and a lot of them told me, 'We were not right in our opinions, and I appreciate you for educating me on this subject,'" she said.
She's also been contacted by some illegal immigrant high school students who are inspired by her case.
"That has been the most rewarding part of everything, that other students see this struggle as motivation to keep fighting and to get a higher education," she said.
Despite all her troubles over the past year, Colotl doesn't regret her parents' decision to bring her here.
"I would never dare to blame them for trying to give me a better life," she said.
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/may/14/student-reluctant-immigration-symbol/
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Whitfield County soccer star must leave country after title match
By Gene Henley
Chattanooga Times Free Press
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
If the Southeast Whitfield Raiders win their game tonight against top-ranked St. Pius X of Atlanta, Bernabe Rangel will play for the Georgia Class AAA soccer championship Saturday.
Two days later, the standout midfielder for the Dalton, Ga., high school will be deported to Mexico.
“I’d love to stay here. Who wouldn’t?” said Rangel, a four-year starter for the Raiders. “Some of the teachers ask me if I’m scared, and I’m not. They worry, but I tell them that God’s always there.”
He and his teammates were Class AAAA state runners-up in 2008 and are 20-1 and ranked third in AAA this season.
Rangel will be deported three days before his 19th birthday.
His tale “could be pitched to a movie producer,” Raiders coach Jamison Griffin said. “This kid has been through a lot.”
A seemingly routine event last year — a teenager accepting a Nintendo DS — sent Rangel’s life into a tailspin and left his college plans in America in limbo.
Rangel said a friend gave him the Nintendo game and asked him to “hold it.” The next day, he was called into an assistant principal’s office and asked if he had it. He said yes. It turned out the game was stolen.
He was arrested and charged with theft by receiving, a Class A misdemeanor. That charge was dropped after Rangel performed community service, according to Griffin. But it triggered the involvement of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because Rangel was in the country illegally.
He arrived with his parents and older brother when Bernabe was 6, and he began to attend Dalton schools. He hasn’t been back to Mexico since.
Whitfield County, under a federal program, has one of 69 state and local law enforcement agencies in 24 states whose officers can perform immigration law-enforcement functions.
Four Georgia counties and Davidson County in Tennessee participate in the 287(g) program.
Whitfield County launched its 287(g) program in 2008 and now has nine officers trained in immigration duties. The county sent about 350 inmates to ICE in 2008, with the number growing to 400 in 2009 and to 600 last year, according to a news release from the county.
Griffin and a lawyer working pro bono tried to help Rangel avoid deportation. Now their efforts are to help him return to the United States “the right way,” Griffin said.
Multiple calls made to Temple Black, the New Orleans-based Southeastern public affairs officer for ICE, were not returned. The United States had 393,000 deportations in the 2010 fiscal year. Nearly half — 195,000 — were for what were considered criminal offenses.
GOING HOME
Rangel’s parents, like many Mexicans living in Dalton, moved to the United States for jobs.
His father and brother work in the city’s carpet mills that over the years have drawn many immigrants — legal and illegal — from Mexico, Guatemala and other Central and South American countries. His mother stays at home and takes care of his younger cousins.
Nearly half the people in Dalton and one out of three in Whitfield County are Hispanic, according to information from the 2010 census. Hispanic students account for more than 80 percent of students in some Dalton schools.
The rapid growth of Georgia’s immigrant population spurred not only widespread anti-immigration sentiment, but tougher immigration laws.
In 2006, Georgia passed what at the time was considered one of the toughest immigration enforcement laws in the country, which made it harder for illegal immigrants to receive health care, higher education and other public benefits. And Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal is expected this week to sign new legislation that is even stricter. It allows police officers to ask about the legal status of anyone they stop for other reasons.
According to a Pew Hispanic Center report released in February, Georgia ranks seventh in the nation for states with illegal immigration, behind California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. An estimated 425,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Georgia, about 4.4 percent of the total population, and about 325,000 hold jobs, comprising about 7 percent of the state’s labor force.
Once he is deported, Rangel will live with his grandparents in Guanajuato, Mexico.
“It’s going to be hard for him because he’s adapted to the culture of the United States,” said his cousin Patricia Rodriguez, who also lives in Dalton. “He’ll have family there with grandparents, aunts and uncles, but he’s leaving his family and the place he grew up at and starting all over.”
Coach Griffin and Rangel’s lawyer and family are hoping to secure a student visa that would allow him to re-enter the United States.
With the coach spurring cooperation from the Southeast faculty and staff, Rangel is on track to fulfill graduation requirements before leaving although he will be deported before Southeast holds its graduation ceremony.
“This whole situation has given me a new perspective on things,” Griffin said. “Yes, Bernabe is an illegal immigrant, but he’s not here because he’s done anything wrong, but because it was a choice his family made because of the job opportunities they were told America would give them.”
Rodriguez, who acts as the family’s primary interpreter and spokesperson, said the Rangels now understand everything that’s going on with Bernabe, but they still have questions about the situation that got him to this point.
“They wonder why this is all happening to them,” Rodriguez said. “The whole situation [with the game system] could have been handled in school. Why wasn’t there a conference or something? We should at least have had that.”
Rodriguez said that if Bernabe is not able to work out a U.S. return, his family probably will move back to Mexico, too.
JAIL TIME
On July 7, 2010, Rangel, Griffin and the attorney went to Atlanta for a meeting with ICE. At the time, Rangel’s case worker wasn’t present, but the one assigned to them told the group to report back in September.
When they showed up, court officers slammed Rangel on the desk and arrested him, citing a failure-to-appear violation for a July 11 court date for his immigration case, Rangel said.
“We didn’t know anything about that court date,” Griffin said. “If they knew we had a court date on the 11th, why didn’t they tell us?”
Rangel was shocked by the arrest.
“I thought everything was cool,” he said. “I thought I would just go to the check-in and come right back out.”
Instead, he was taken to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga.
His fourth day there, he called Griffin with the news that he was about to be bused to the airport for deportation to Mexico. Griffin called the attorney, who immediately filed an emergency motion to have Rangel’s case heard.
By the time the judge granted the motion, Rangel was in line to get on the airplane for deportation. He was returned to the detention center, where he spent a total of 30 days.
“I just got into a routine,” Rangel said. “I got up at 5 a.m., ate breakfast and went outside, because when I was in my cell, all I did was think, and I didn’t want to think about things.”
He said he felt isolated.
“I didn’t know anything going on on the outside,” Rangel said. “I wondered when I would get out. I wanted to get out right away, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“I started going to a group that got together at 7 at night and talked about God. I really wasn’t into that before, but now it’s so much different. Sometimes you go through things like this, and you have to learn from it.”
Upon his release, Rangel was given a January date for a court hearing. That later was continued to Tuesday in Atlanta, where he showed proof that he has travel plans to be back in Mexico before his birthday.
SOCCER DIVERSION
In his final days in the United States, Rangel is enjoying his soccer team’s run.
“It’s what I look forward to,” he said. “When I get to practice or a game, I’m able to get my mind off things. I could look at it like I’m alone, but I’m not. My team is like my family. If I’m having a bad day, I get to practice and it’s like I’m starting a new day. They bring me up.”
He’s hoping for an upset win tonight on the home field of Georgia’s No. 1 Class AAA team.
“All I want to do is to go back to the state finals and win it all,” Rangel said. “It would mean the world to me.”
Griffin noted that he and Rangel “didn’t get along so well at first. He actually tried to quit his sophomore and junior years. But this experience has brought us closer.”
Rangel is grateful.
“What Coach has done means everything to me,” Rangel said. “He was the only one who came to see me while I was locked up. He’s been there the whole time, telling me what to do.”
Griffin downplays his involvement.
“This story doesn’t have anything to do with me,” he said. “More than anything, we’re just trying to promote awareness on the situation that this happens. It’s changed me in so many ways. Bernabe didn’t ask for any of this. He’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”
Rangel has an opportunity to attend and play soccer at a private college in Georgia, should he be able to return.
“If I got that opportunity, it would mean a different life,” he said. “It would give me something to fight for, something to keep me going.”
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/may/11/whitfield-county-soccer-star-must-leave-country-af/
Chattanooga Times Free Press
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
If the Southeast Whitfield Raiders win their game tonight against top-ranked St. Pius X of Atlanta, Bernabe Rangel will play for the Georgia Class AAA soccer championship Saturday.
Two days later, the standout midfielder for the Dalton, Ga., high school will be deported to Mexico.
“I’d love to stay here. Who wouldn’t?” said Rangel, a four-year starter for the Raiders. “Some of the teachers ask me if I’m scared, and I’m not. They worry, but I tell them that God’s always there.”
He and his teammates were Class AAAA state runners-up in 2008 and are 20-1 and ranked third in AAA this season.
Rangel will be deported three days before his 19th birthday.
His tale “could be pitched to a movie producer,” Raiders coach Jamison Griffin said. “This kid has been through a lot.”
A seemingly routine event last year — a teenager accepting a Nintendo DS — sent Rangel’s life into a tailspin and left his college plans in America in limbo.
Rangel said a friend gave him the Nintendo game and asked him to “hold it.” The next day, he was called into an assistant principal’s office and asked if he had it. He said yes. It turned out the game was stolen.
He was arrested and charged with theft by receiving, a Class A misdemeanor. That charge was dropped after Rangel performed community service, according to Griffin. But it triggered the involvement of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because Rangel was in the country illegally.
He arrived with his parents and older brother when Bernabe was 6, and he began to attend Dalton schools. He hasn’t been back to Mexico since.
Whitfield County, under a federal program, has one of 69 state and local law enforcement agencies in 24 states whose officers can perform immigration law-enforcement functions.
Four Georgia counties and Davidson County in Tennessee participate in the 287(g) program.
Whitfield County launched its 287(g) program in 2008 and now has nine officers trained in immigration duties. The county sent about 350 inmates to ICE in 2008, with the number growing to 400 in 2009 and to 600 last year, according to a news release from the county.
Griffin and a lawyer working pro bono tried to help Rangel avoid deportation. Now their efforts are to help him return to the United States “the right way,” Griffin said.
Multiple calls made to Temple Black, the New Orleans-based Southeastern public affairs officer for ICE, were not returned. The United States had 393,000 deportations in the 2010 fiscal year. Nearly half — 195,000 — were for what were considered criminal offenses.
GOING HOME
Rangel’s parents, like many Mexicans living in Dalton, moved to the United States for jobs.
His father and brother work in the city’s carpet mills that over the years have drawn many immigrants — legal and illegal — from Mexico, Guatemala and other Central and South American countries. His mother stays at home and takes care of his younger cousins.
Nearly half the people in Dalton and one out of three in Whitfield County are Hispanic, according to information from the 2010 census. Hispanic students account for more than 80 percent of students in some Dalton schools.
The rapid growth of Georgia’s immigrant population spurred not only widespread anti-immigration sentiment, but tougher immigration laws.
In 2006, Georgia passed what at the time was considered one of the toughest immigration enforcement laws in the country, which made it harder for illegal immigrants to receive health care, higher education and other public benefits. And Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal is expected this week to sign new legislation that is even stricter. It allows police officers to ask about the legal status of anyone they stop for other reasons.
According to a Pew Hispanic Center report released in February, Georgia ranks seventh in the nation for states with illegal immigration, behind California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. An estimated 425,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Georgia, about 4.4 percent of the total population, and about 325,000 hold jobs, comprising about 7 percent of the state’s labor force.
Once he is deported, Rangel will live with his grandparents in Guanajuato, Mexico.
“It’s going to be hard for him because he’s adapted to the culture of the United States,” said his cousin Patricia Rodriguez, who also lives in Dalton. “He’ll have family there with grandparents, aunts and uncles, but he’s leaving his family and the place he grew up at and starting all over.”
Coach Griffin and Rangel’s lawyer and family are hoping to secure a student visa that would allow him to re-enter the United States.
With the coach spurring cooperation from the Southeast faculty and staff, Rangel is on track to fulfill graduation requirements before leaving although he will be deported before Southeast holds its graduation ceremony.
“This whole situation has given me a new perspective on things,” Griffin said. “Yes, Bernabe is an illegal immigrant, but he’s not here because he’s done anything wrong, but because it was a choice his family made because of the job opportunities they were told America would give them.”
Rodriguez, who acts as the family’s primary interpreter and spokesperson, said the Rangels now understand everything that’s going on with Bernabe, but they still have questions about the situation that got him to this point.
“They wonder why this is all happening to them,” Rodriguez said. “The whole situation [with the game system] could have been handled in school. Why wasn’t there a conference or something? We should at least have had that.”
Rodriguez said that if Bernabe is not able to work out a U.S. return, his family probably will move back to Mexico, too.
JAIL TIME
On July 7, 2010, Rangel, Griffin and the attorney went to Atlanta for a meeting with ICE. At the time, Rangel’s case worker wasn’t present, but the one assigned to them told the group to report back in September.
When they showed up, court officers slammed Rangel on the desk and arrested him, citing a failure-to-appear violation for a July 11 court date for his immigration case, Rangel said.
“We didn’t know anything about that court date,” Griffin said. “If they knew we had a court date on the 11th, why didn’t they tell us?”
Rangel was shocked by the arrest.
“I thought everything was cool,” he said. “I thought I would just go to the check-in and come right back out.”
Instead, he was taken to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga.
His fourth day there, he called Griffin with the news that he was about to be bused to the airport for deportation to Mexico. Griffin called the attorney, who immediately filed an emergency motion to have Rangel’s case heard.
By the time the judge granted the motion, Rangel was in line to get on the airplane for deportation. He was returned to the detention center, where he spent a total of 30 days.
“I just got into a routine,” Rangel said. “I got up at 5 a.m., ate breakfast and went outside, because when I was in my cell, all I did was think, and I didn’t want to think about things.”
He said he felt isolated.
“I didn’t know anything going on on the outside,” Rangel said. “I wondered when I would get out. I wanted to get out right away, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“I started going to a group that got together at 7 at night and talked about God. I really wasn’t into that before, but now it’s so much different. Sometimes you go through things like this, and you have to learn from it.”
Upon his release, Rangel was given a January date for a court hearing. That later was continued to Tuesday in Atlanta, where he showed proof that he has travel plans to be back in Mexico before his birthday.
SOCCER DIVERSION
In his final days in the United States, Rangel is enjoying his soccer team’s run.
“It’s what I look forward to,” he said. “When I get to practice or a game, I’m able to get my mind off things. I could look at it like I’m alone, but I’m not. My team is like my family. If I’m having a bad day, I get to practice and it’s like I’m starting a new day. They bring me up.”
He’s hoping for an upset win tonight on the home field of Georgia’s No. 1 Class AAA team.
“All I want to do is to go back to the state finals and win it all,” Rangel said. “It would mean the world to me.”
Griffin noted that he and Rangel “didn’t get along so well at first. He actually tried to quit his sophomore and junior years. But this experience has brought us closer.”
Rangel is grateful.
“What Coach has done means everything to me,” Rangel said. “He was the only one who came to see me while I was locked up. He’s been there the whole time, telling me what to do.”
Griffin downplays his involvement.
“This story doesn’t have anything to do with me,” he said. “More than anything, we’re just trying to promote awareness on the situation that this happens. It’s changed me in so many ways. Bernabe didn’t ask for any of this. He’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”
Rangel has an opportunity to attend and play soccer at a private college in Georgia, should he be able to return.
“If I got that opportunity, it would mean a different life,” he said. “It would give me something to fight for, something to keep me going.”
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/may/11/whitfield-county-soccer-star-must-leave-country-af/
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Not targeted but not safe, young illegal immigrants push for a new policy
Young activists had pinned their hopes on the Dream Act. When it was put to bed, they started a new strategy: 'Coming out' as illegal immigrants and protesting their uncertain fates in this country.
By Richard Fausset
Los Angeles Times
April 10, 2011
Reporting from Atlanta—Seven college-age Latinos gathered in downtown Atlanta and passed around a microphone, announcing to the world that they were coming out of the shadows as illegal immigrants.
Then, in an act of civil disobedience, they sat down in the middle of a busy street and announced it again to a large and chanting crowd. When they were hauled off to jail, they even declared their status to a pair of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — who proceeded to do nothing.
Wednesday, after a night in jail, the seven were free again, clutching misdemeanor tickets issued by the city for blocking traffic.
So what, one might ask, does it take for an illegal immigrant to get deported in the United States of 2011?
That turns out to be a good question, particularly for immigrants who, like the Georgia youths, call themselves "the Dreamers" — that is, immigrants who might have achieved legal status through the federal Dream Act.
The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age, had lived here for at least five years, had stayed out of trouble and enrolled in college or served in the military.
The bill passed the House of Representatives in December, but was scuttled in the Senate by Republican-led opposition.
With the bill dead for the foreseeable future — especially given the new GOP majority in the House — the Obama administration appears to be operating in a kind of workaround mode.
At an April 1 public forum in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that immigrants who would have benefitted from the Dream Act were "not the priority" when it came to enforcing immigration law.
Well before her comments, administration officials had said they would focus deportation efforts on those who commit serious crimes. But some immigrant rights groups have complained that the administration has been too aggressive in deportations. The Obama administration deported 392,862 people in the last fiscal year, up from 369,221 people deported in the last full year of the Bush administration.
When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman was asked to comment on the agency's inaction after the Atlanta protests, he simply referred to Napolitano's April 1 comments.
As policy statements go, it is a rather ambiguous one. Does it mean that no Dreamers will be deported? Or that some of them will? Gillian M. Christensen, an agency spokeswoman in Washington, declined to elaborate.
Anti-illegal-immigration groups are predictably perturbed. The New American, a John Birch Society newsmagazine, declared in a recent headline that the "Unpassed" Dream Act was "Now the Law."
"Obama has apparently passed his own de facto Dream Act, and disregarded the will of Congress," said D.A. King, head of the Dustin Inman Society, a Georgia-based anti-illegal-immigration group. "I'd like to know which federal laws I can ignore without punishment."
But the Dreamers are frustrated as well. Mohammad Abdollahi, 25, a co-founder of thedreamiscoming.com and one of the organizers of the Atlanta protest, said he believed that many young people were still subject to detention and deportation.
"Just because they stayed away from [the Atlanta] case because it was a more public case doesn't show that they're staying away from undocumented youth," said Abdollahi, who was brought to the U.S. illegally at age 3 from Iran. "The whole notion of not deporting Dreamers is just a lie on the Obama administration's part."
Even so, Abdollahi said his group was urging immigrant youth to publicly declare their illegal status, in part because it appeared that the Obama administration was handling the more public cases with kid gloves.
"The more out there you are, the more public you are, the safer you really are," he said.
Some of the young Latinos who spoke out in Atlanta said they were aware that the strategy may be risky. A less sympathetic person could win the presidency in 2012.
Still, they said they had to implore other illegal youths to come out; they could not build a political movement with a population in hiding.
Their own public declarations Tuesday were directed at Georgia education officials' decision to bar illegal immigrants from being admitted to the state's five most selective public colleges beginning in the fall.
The coming-out also served as a catharsis. "I am undocumented and I am unafraid!" said Viridiana Martinez, 24, of North Carolina, who came to the United States from Mexico at age 7. "We're people. We want to go to school, and we want to be doctors and lawyers and nurses."
To similarly situated youth, she said, "Come out — the courage is in you!"
The group's Atlanta protest was the first in which participants were arrested since the bill's defeat in December. Abdollahi said it would not be the last.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-illegal-immigrants-20110410,0,7571188.story
By Richard Fausset
Los Angeles Times
April 10, 2011
Reporting from Atlanta—Seven college-age Latinos gathered in downtown Atlanta and passed around a microphone, announcing to the world that they were coming out of the shadows as illegal immigrants.
Then, in an act of civil disobedience, they sat down in the middle of a busy street and announced it again to a large and chanting crowd. When they were hauled off to jail, they even declared their status to a pair of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — who proceeded to do nothing.
Wednesday, after a night in jail, the seven were free again, clutching misdemeanor tickets issued by the city for blocking traffic.
So what, one might ask, does it take for an illegal immigrant to get deported in the United States of 2011?
That turns out to be a good question, particularly for immigrants who, like the Georgia youths, call themselves "the Dreamers" — that is, immigrants who might have achieved legal status through the federal Dream Act.
The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age, had lived here for at least five years, had stayed out of trouble and enrolled in college or served in the military.
The bill passed the House of Representatives in December, but was scuttled in the Senate by Republican-led opposition.
With the bill dead for the foreseeable future — especially given the new GOP majority in the House — the Obama administration appears to be operating in a kind of workaround mode.
At an April 1 public forum in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that immigrants who would have benefitted from the Dream Act were "not the priority" when it came to enforcing immigration law.
Well before her comments, administration officials had said they would focus deportation efforts on those who commit serious crimes. But some immigrant rights groups have complained that the administration has been too aggressive in deportations. The Obama administration deported 392,862 people in the last fiscal year, up from 369,221 people deported in the last full year of the Bush administration.
When an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman was asked to comment on the agency's inaction after the Atlanta protests, he simply referred to Napolitano's April 1 comments.
As policy statements go, it is a rather ambiguous one. Does it mean that no Dreamers will be deported? Or that some of them will? Gillian M. Christensen, an agency spokeswoman in Washington, declined to elaborate.
Anti-illegal-immigration groups are predictably perturbed. The New American, a John Birch Society newsmagazine, declared in a recent headline that the "Unpassed" Dream Act was "Now the Law."
"Obama has apparently passed his own de facto Dream Act, and disregarded the will of Congress," said D.A. King, head of the Dustin Inman Society, a Georgia-based anti-illegal-immigration group. "I'd like to know which federal laws I can ignore without punishment."
But the Dreamers are frustrated as well. Mohammad Abdollahi, 25, a co-founder of thedreamiscoming.com and one of the organizers of the Atlanta protest, said he believed that many young people were still subject to detention and deportation.
"Just because they stayed away from [the Atlanta] case because it was a more public case doesn't show that they're staying away from undocumented youth," said Abdollahi, who was brought to the U.S. illegally at age 3 from Iran. "The whole notion of not deporting Dreamers is just a lie on the Obama administration's part."
Even so, Abdollahi said his group was urging immigrant youth to publicly declare their illegal status, in part because it appeared that the Obama administration was handling the more public cases with kid gloves.
"The more out there you are, the more public you are, the safer you really are," he said.
Some of the young Latinos who spoke out in Atlanta said they were aware that the strategy may be risky. A less sympathetic person could win the presidency in 2012.
Still, they said they had to implore other illegal youths to come out; they could not build a political movement with a population in hiding.
Their own public declarations Tuesday were directed at Georgia education officials' decision to bar illegal immigrants from being admitted to the state's five most selective public colleges beginning in the fall.
The coming-out also served as a catharsis. "I am undocumented and I am unafraid!" said Viridiana Martinez, 24, of North Carolina, who came to the United States from Mexico at age 7. "We're people. We want to go to school, and we want to be doctors and lawyers and nurses."
To similarly situated youth, she said, "Come out — the courage is in you!"
The group's Atlanta protest was the first in which participants were arrested since the bill's defeat in December. Abdollahi said it would not be the last.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-illegal-immigrants-20110410,0,7571188.story
Friday, April 8, 2011
3 More Georgia Counties Effected By ICE Strategy to Enhance Identification
By U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
September 8, 2010
On Wednesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information sharing capability in Cobb, Fulton and Muscogee counties that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement’s custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE’s comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).
If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS’s biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual’s immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.
“The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody,” said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. “Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE’s mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners.”
With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to these three counties, ICE is using this capability in six Georgia jurisdictions, including Clayton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 589 jurisdictions in 31 states. By 2013, ICE plans to be able to respond nationwide to fingerprint matches generated through the biometric information sharing capability.
“The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office has had a positive and productive partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for many years,” said Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren. “As Sheriff, it is my duty and responsibility to utilize any concept, program or tool that will assist my efforts to protect and serve the citizens of Cobb County. The Secure Communities Program is another resource that will enable our agency to accurately identify individuals booked into our facility. This initiative can help improve public safety by keeping dangerous offenders from being released in our community.”
“The use of this new biometric technology is part of an ongoing effort to coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Fulton County Sheriff Theodore “Ted” Jackson. “We will continue to cooperate fully with ICE and take the appropriate actions necessary when we have persons in custody at the Fulton County Jail, who are determined to be in the country illegally.”
Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 10,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 27,000 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as “criminal aliens.” Instead, a “criminal alien” is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.
The IDENT system is maintained by DHS’s US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).
“US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it,” said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. “By enhancing the interoperability of DHS’s and the FBI’s biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation.”
“Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens,” said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI’s CJIS Division. “Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals.”
For more information, visit www.ice.gov/secure_communities.
http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/immigration/details/3-more-georgia-counties-to-benefit-from-ice-strategy-to-enhance-identi/1679/
September 8, 2010
On Wednesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information sharing capability in Cobb, Fulton and Muscogee counties that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement’s custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE’s comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).
If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS’s biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual’s immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.
“The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody,” said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. “Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE’s mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners.”
With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to these three counties, ICE is using this capability in six Georgia jurisdictions, including Clayton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 589 jurisdictions in 31 states. By 2013, ICE plans to be able to respond nationwide to fingerprint matches generated through the biometric information sharing capability.
“The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office has had a positive and productive partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for many years,” said Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren. “As Sheriff, it is my duty and responsibility to utilize any concept, program or tool that will assist my efforts to protect and serve the citizens of Cobb County. The Secure Communities Program is another resource that will enable our agency to accurately identify individuals booked into our facility. This initiative can help improve public safety by keeping dangerous offenders from being released in our community.”
“The use of this new biometric technology is part of an ongoing effort to coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Fulton County Sheriff Theodore “Ted” Jackson. “We will continue to cooperate fully with ICE and take the appropriate actions necessary when we have persons in custody at the Fulton County Jail, who are determined to be in the country illegally.”
Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 10,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 27,000 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as “criminal aliens.” Instead, a “criminal alien” is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.
The IDENT system is maintained by DHS’s US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).
“US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it,” said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. “By enhancing the interoperability of DHS’s and the FBI’s biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation.”
“Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens,” said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI’s CJIS Division. “Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals.”
For more information, visit www.ice.gov/secure_communities.
http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/immigration/details/3-more-georgia-counties-to-benefit-from-ice-strategy-to-enhance-identi/1679/
Monday, February 28, 2011
Deportation program plays out in Whitfield
By Mariann Martin
Time Free Press
Monday, February 28, 2011
DALTON, Ga.—The number of immigration violators processed for deportation in Whitfield County through a federal program increased more than 30 percent in 2010, figures show.
Meanwhile, a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute shows 79 percent of people detained nationally for immigration violations were arrested for minor offenses or traffic violations, with 11 percent arrested for felonies or minor drug offenses.
Capt. Wes Lynch, who heads the Whitfield County program, said Wednesday the increase — 609 in 2010 compared with about 400 in 2009 — occurred because officers are becoming better trained in the program. Deportations make the county safer, remove repeat offenders and have led to fewer total arrests per year, he said.
“We are not deporting people for minor traffic violations. We are deporting people for being in the country illegally,” Lynch said. “Most people — not just aliens — encounter law enforcement because of traffic violations. ... I believe people should operate under the rule of law, and it is our job to enforce that law.”
But Jerry Gonzalez, an executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials who helped coordinate the study in Georgia, said the high numbers of people detained in Whitfield County and the study results highlight problems with the 287(g) program.
“The program is not working how the Obama administration wanted it to work and is being abused by local law enforcement,” Gonzalez said. “I have no problem deporting people who commit serious crimes. But people are being racially profiled — if they weren’t arrested for a minor traffic violation, they would not be deported.”
Illegal immigration and the response by local, state and federal government is a hot-button political issue. The federal government has not passed recent substantive immigration measures. But many state governments, including Tennessee and Georgia, have passed or are considering laws to allow police and other agencies more ways to check citizenship status as well as to deny certain benefits to illegal immigrants.
The Migration Policy Institute study released in January and information from Whitfield County show how existing federal laws are being used to target illegal immigration in new ways.
The program
The 287(g) program operates under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has 70 active agreements in 25 states, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said.
Between October 2009 and September 2010, officers working with the program identified more than 48,491 unauthorized immigrants and ICE deported more than 30,028 of them.
Four Georgia counties and Davidson County in Tennessee participate in the program. A Tennessee law that took effect in January requires all sheriff’s offices to ask arrestees two questions about their citizenship status when they are booked.
Whitfield County launched its 287(g) program in early 2008 with seven trained officers, two of whom were assigned full time to immigration duties.
Of the four Georgia counties, Whitfield has the highest percentage of Hispanics or Latinos at about 31 percent, 2009 census numbers show. Local officials say the numbers may be significantly higher.
Since Whitfield began the program, 1,225 illegal immigrants had been detained as of through Feb. 2 and 789 deported, Barbara Gonzalez said.
In a 2010 report prepared for local officials, Lynch highlighted a felon who had been arrested 17 times in Whitfield County since 1994 and had spent about 536 days in jail at a cost to taxpayers of about $22,000. His arrests ranged from violent felonies to domestic violence to disorderly conduct and alcohol-related offenses.
“There’s nothing in the criminal justice system where we can really remove people that are a danger to the community,” Lynch said. “[Under this program] we can remove them permanently — people that have no right to be here in the first place.”
The study
Jerry Gonzalez argued that the study done by the Migration Policy Institute clearly shows the 287(g) program is not targeting dangerous offenders, particularly in Georgia.
The study of 287(g) programs was conducted from Oct. 1, 2009, to Aug. 2, 2010, in states including California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland and Virginia. Researchers found that about half the detainees were accused of misdemeanors or traffic offenses and the other of felonies or other serious crimes.
But in the Southeast, including Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall and Whitfield counties in Georgia and Davidson County in Tennessee, the greatest number of detainees was arrested for minor offenses, the study found.
“[S]tate and local officials operate 287(g) programs according to priorities shaped largely by political pressures ... Southeast and Southwest immigrant populations grew rapidly leading to a public backlash and putting pressure on sheriffs and other elected officials to pursue a set of enforcement strategies,” the study says.
Georgia legislators have proposed several bills this year to address illegal immigration. One would allow police to check the citizenship status of people picked up for crimes and would fine governments and private businesses that hire illegal immigrants. Others would deny illegal immigrants worker’s compensation benefits or state college enrollment and require a count of illegal immigrants in all public schools and hospitals.
During the study period, 450 people were processed by Whitfield County. Of those, 33 had been arrested in or convicted of major drug offenses, murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, kidnapping or other serious offenses; 61 had been arrested or convicted for minor drug offenses, 136 had been arrested or convicted for misdemeanors or civil offenses and 220 had committed traffic violations.
“It is apparent the majority of offenses in Georgia were noncriminal or minor offenses,” Jerry Gonzalez said. “It is not consistent with what the program was designed to do.”
The study does not call for an end to the 287(g) program, but that it be redone to target serious criminal offenders.
Decreased arrests
Lynch noted that arrests in Whitfield County quickly dropped from an average of 9,500 a year to about 6,600 when the program was implemented in 2008. Arrest numbers have increased slightly, but are still below those when the program was implemented, he said.
Other factors may play a role, Lynch said, but he credits the program for most of the decrease.
“One of the local federal agents was told by an informant that ‘nobody wants to get in trouble because they don’t want to be deported,’” Lynch said. “And when you deport repeat offenders, they aren’t being arrested again.”
Jerry Gonzalez said he believes other factors have led to the decrease in arrests, including a community reluctant to report crimes, a factor noted in the study.
“When you start targeting a community, members avoid law enforcement, which undermines community policy and public safety,” he said. “Residents should be concerned about the program.”
Lynch insisted the opposite has been true in Whitfield County. He said several people have contacted officers in the program to report crimes involving illegal immigrants.
“We’ve never had anyone call like that before,” Lynch said. “People within the Hispanic community don’t want bad people here either.”
Lynch also stressed that officers question only people who have been arrested for a crime — victims or people reporting crimes are never targets for possible deportation.
“You have to commit a crime — we will never investigate you other than that,” Lynch said. “We did that on purpose to make sure the lines of communication [with the community] don’t break down.”
Time Free Press
Monday, February 28, 2011
DALTON, Ga.—The number of immigration violators processed for deportation in Whitfield County through a federal program increased more than 30 percent in 2010, figures show.
Meanwhile, a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute shows 79 percent of people detained nationally for immigration violations were arrested for minor offenses or traffic violations, with 11 percent arrested for felonies or minor drug offenses.
Capt. Wes Lynch, who heads the Whitfield County program, said Wednesday the increase — 609 in 2010 compared with about 400 in 2009 — occurred because officers are becoming better trained in the program. Deportations make the county safer, remove repeat offenders and have led to fewer total arrests per year, he said.
“We are not deporting people for minor traffic violations. We are deporting people for being in the country illegally,” Lynch said. “Most people — not just aliens — encounter law enforcement because of traffic violations. ... I believe people should operate under the rule of law, and it is our job to enforce that law.”
But Jerry Gonzalez, an executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials who helped coordinate the study in Georgia, said the high numbers of people detained in Whitfield County and the study results highlight problems with the 287(g) program.
“The program is not working how the Obama administration wanted it to work and is being abused by local law enforcement,” Gonzalez said. “I have no problem deporting people who commit serious crimes. But people are being racially profiled — if they weren’t arrested for a minor traffic violation, they would not be deported.”
Illegal immigration and the response by local, state and federal government is a hot-button political issue. The federal government has not passed recent substantive immigration measures. But many state governments, including Tennessee and Georgia, have passed or are considering laws to allow police and other agencies more ways to check citizenship status as well as to deny certain benefits to illegal immigrants.
The Migration Policy Institute study released in January and information from Whitfield County show how existing federal laws are being used to target illegal immigration in new ways.
The program
The 287(g) program operates under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has 70 active agreements in 25 states, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said.
Between October 2009 and September 2010, officers working with the program identified more than 48,491 unauthorized immigrants and ICE deported more than 30,028 of them.
Four Georgia counties and Davidson County in Tennessee participate in the program. A Tennessee law that took effect in January requires all sheriff’s offices to ask arrestees two questions about their citizenship status when they are booked.
Whitfield County launched its 287(g) program in early 2008 with seven trained officers, two of whom were assigned full time to immigration duties.
Of the four Georgia counties, Whitfield has the highest percentage of Hispanics or Latinos at about 31 percent, 2009 census numbers show. Local officials say the numbers may be significantly higher.
Since Whitfield began the program, 1,225 illegal immigrants had been detained as of through Feb. 2 and 789 deported, Barbara Gonzalez said.
In a 2010 report prepared for local officials, Lynch highlighted a felon who had been arrested 17 times in Whitfield County since 1994 and had spent about 536 days in jail at a cost to taxpayers of about $22,000. His arrests ranged from violent felonies to domestic violence to disorderly conduct and alcohol-related offenses.
“There’s nothing in the criminal justice system where we can really remove people that are a danger to the community,” Lynch said. “[Under this program] we can remove them permanently — people that have no right to be here in the first place.”
The study
Jerry Gonzalez argued that the study done by the Migration Policy Institute clearly shows the 287(g) program is not targeting dangerous offenders, particularly in Georgia.
The study of 287(g) programs was conducted from Oct. 1, 2009, to Aug. 2, 2010, in states including California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland and Virginia. Researchers found that about half the detainees were accused of misdemeanors or traffic offenses and the other of felonies or other serious crimes.
But in the Southeast, including Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall and Whitfield counties in Georgia and Davidson County in Tennessee, the greatest number of detainees was arrested for minor offenses, the study found.
“[S]tate and local officials operate 287(g) programs according to priorities shaped largely by political pressures ... Southeast and Southwest immigrant populations grew rapidly leading to a public backlash and putting pressure on sheriffs and other elected officials to pursue a set of enforcement strategies,” the study says.
Georgia legislators have proposed several bills this year to address illegal immigration. One would allow police to check the citizenship status of people picked up for crimes and would fine governments and private businesses that hire illegal immigrants. Others would deny illegal immigrants worker’s compensation benefits or state college enrollment and require a count of illegal immigrants in all public schools and hospitals.
During the study period, 450 people were processed by Whitfield County. Of those, 33 had been arrested in or convicted of major drug offenses, murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, kidnapping or other serious offenses; 61 had been arrested or convicted for minor drug offenses, 136 had been arrested or convicted for misdemeanors or civil offenses and 220 had committed traffic violations.
“It is apparent the majority of offenses in Georgia were noncriminal or minor offenses,” Jerry Gonzalez said. “It is not consistent with what the program was designed to do.”
The study does not call for an end to the 287(g) program, but that it be redone to target serious criminal offenders.
Decreased arrests
Lynch noted that arrests in Whitfield County quickly dropped from an average of 9,500 a year to about 6,600 when the program was implemented in 2008. Arrest numbers have increased slightly, but are still below those when the program was implemented, he said.
Other factors may play a role, Lynch said, but he credits the program for most of the decrease.
“One of the local federal agents was told by an informant that ‘nobody wants to get in trouble because they don’t want to be deported,’” Lynch said. “And when you deport repeat offenders, they aren’t being arrested again.”
Jerry Gonzalez said he believes other factors have led to the decrease in arrests, including a community reluctant to report crimes, a factor noted in the study.
“When you start targeting a community, members avoid law enforcement, which undermines community policy and public safety,” he said. “Residents should be concerned about the program.”
Lynch insisted the opposite has been true in Whitfield County. He said several people have contacted officers in the program to report crimes involving illegal immigrants.
“We’ve never had anyone call like that before,” Lynch said. “People within the Hispanic community don’t want bad people here either.”
Lynch also stressed that officers question only people who have been arrested for a crime — victims or people reporting crimes are never targets for possible deportation.
“You have to commit a crime — we will never investigate you other than that,” Lynch said. “We did that on purpose to make sure the lines of communication [with the community] don’t break down.”
AT A GLANCEhttp://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/feb/28/deportation-program-plays-out-whitfield/
• According to a Pew Hispanic Center report released this month, Georgia ranks seventh in the nation for states with illegal immigration, behind California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
• An estimated 425,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Georgia, about 4.4 percent of the total population, and about 325,000 hold jobs, comprising about 7 percent of the state’s labor force.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Georgia detention center is largest in nation
Facility in Stewart, Ga. houses detainees facing deportation from U.S.
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 16, 2011
ATLANTA — Georgia doesn't have the most illegal immigrants among the states. Not by far. That distinction, according to official estimates, falls to California.
But Georgia can claim it is tops in something else. It is home to the biggest and busiest jail in the nation for people facing deportation, federal records show.
On average, the privately run Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia held 1,614 detainees per day during the fiscal year ending in September.
That is the most of any of the 252 jails where the federal government houses suspected illegal immigrants, according to figures supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas, ranked second with an average daily count of 1,527 detainees, followed by the Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Eloy, Ariz., with 1,487.
Stewart — which is located in Lumpkin and houses detainees from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina — had the highest count partly because it can hold the most at 1,924.
But ICE also has expanded its enforcement efforts in states that send suspects to Stewart, including Georgia. Among those efforts is a federal fingerprint-sharing program called "Secure Communities." State legislators, meanwhile, are preparing to crack down on illegal immigration, which could send more people to one of several jails where the federal government holds people in Georgia.
Taxpayers, of course, are footing the bill for jailing illegal immigrants in the state and across the nation. ICE's budget for detaining people stood at $1.77 billion last fiscal year. As of the end of December, ICE was holding 33,442 people in jails nationwide.
Activists have called on ICE to shut down Stewart and its other jails in Georgia, complaining they are located in isolated corners of the state far from immigrants' families and attorneys. They also have urged ICE to use less expensive alternatives to detention, such as freeing immigrants on bond and requiring them to check in with the government periodically.
"We are putting a whole bunch of money into a failed immigration system," said Anton Flores-Maisonet of Georgia Detention Watch, a coalition of organizations seeking the closure of all ICE jails in Georgia. "And in the end, the only people who are going to profit are the private prison industries that we are contracting with here in Georgia."
Critics say suspected illegal immigrants could flee while on bond.
"You have to hold people, especially in immigration, because the flight risk is huge," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that advocates for tighter immigration controls.
Federal immigration officials said they are required to hold certain offenders in their detention centers, including those who have committed violent crimes. They said they keep tabs on others by making them wear electronic monitoring devices. ICE had a $69.9 million budget for such alternatives last fiscal year.
"One of our long-term goals is ensuring key detention facilities are located near the site of apprehensions, legal service providers, hospitals and medical providers, immigration courts and transportation hubs," ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said. "This nationwide evaluation is ongoing."
Corrections Corp. of America, a $1.6 billion business based in Nashville, owns and operates the Stewart jail. Federal taxpayers pay Stewart County $60.50 per inmate held at that jail per day through an agreement with ICE. That works out to $97,647 per day, based on the last fiscal year's average daily inmate count.
The county, however, keeps only 85 cents per inmate per day for its administrative costs and pays CCA the rest, or $59.65 per inmate per day.
Since 2007, the county has collected about $1.7 million through this arrangement, county officials said. That represents more than half of the county's $3 million annual operating budget.
The jail is the county's largest employer with about 340 workers, most of whom are from the local area, CCA and county officials said. Jobs are crucial in Stewart, where nearly one in five families live below the federal poverty level, according to U.S. census figures.
Some detainees are sent to ICE jails after they are caught crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas. Most in Stewart wound up there after being charged with other crimes, some as minor as traffic offenses, others as serious as rape, robbery and murder. They aren't sent to Stewart, however, until after they complete sentences for any crimes they commit in the United States. Some are transferred to Stewart from state prisons and county jails. Most are originally from Central America and South America.
Those held at the jail wear color-coded uniforms and are segregated, based on the crimes they have committed. The most violent criminals wear red, while the least violent wear blue.
ICE and CCA officials gave a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a roughly hourlong tour of the jail. Dozens of detainees were observed quietly watching television, reading and making phone calls from large rooms where they sleep on bunk beds. Others are held in two-man quarters.
Some of the detainees were playing soccer in a fenced-in courtyard. They also have access to Wii video games and a library.
Detainees can voluntarily work for $1 to $3 a day cooking and cleaning, said Mike Swinton, the jail's warden. They can save that money or spend it on MoonPies, pork rinds, chicken ramen noodles or other goods sold in the jail store.
Oscar Leon, 25, who lived in Norcross, spent two months in Stewart late last year before he was deported to Mexico. He said he was struck by how many detainees passed through Stewart. Hundreds leave each week, but buses routinely pull up to the jail, carrying more people to replace them, said the Phoenix High School graduate. Leon was sent to Stewart last year after pleading guilty to driving without a license in Georgia.
"It's just like a well-oiled machine, you know," Leon said in a telephone interview last month from the jail. "One in, one out. One in, one out. It's amazing how many people come in and out in one week."
http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/3199855-Ga-detention-center-is-largest-in-nation/
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 16, 2011
ATLANTA — Georgia doesn't have the most illegal immigrants among the states. Not by far. That distinction, according to official estimates, falls to California.
But Georgia can claim it is tops in something else. It is home to the biggest and busiest jail in the nation for people facing deportation, federal records show.
On average, the privately run Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia held 1,614 detainees per day during the fiscal year ending in September.
That is the most of any of the 252 jails where the federal government houses suspected illegal immigrants, according to figures supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas, ranked second with an average daily count of 1,527 detainees, followed by the Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Eloy, Ariz., with 1,487.
Stewart — which is located in Lumpkin and houses detainees from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina — had the highest count partly because it can hold the most at 1,924.
But ICE also has expanded its enforcement efforts in states that send suspects to Stewart, including Georgia. Among those efforts is a federal fingerprint-sharing program called "Secure Communities." State legislators, meanwhile, are preparing to crack down on illegal immigration, which could send more people to one of several jails where the federal government holds people in Georgia.
Taxpayers, of course, are footing the bill for jailing illegal immigrants in the state and across the nation. ICE's budget for detaining people stood at $1.77 billion last fiscal year. As of the end of December, ICE was holding 33,442 people in jails nationwide.
Activists have called on ICE to shut down Stewart and its other jails in Georgia, complaining they are located in isolated corners of the state far from immigrants' families and attorneys. They also have urged ICE to use less expensive alternatives to detention, such as freeing immigrants on bond and requiring them to check in with the government periodically.
"We are putting a whole bunch of money into a failed immigration system," said Anton Flores-Maisonet of Georgia Detention Watch, a coalition of organizations seeking the closure of all ICE jails in Georgia. "And in the end, the only people who are going to profit are the private prison industries that we are contracting with here in Georgia."
Critics say suspected illegal immigrants could flee while on bond.
"You have to hold people, especially in immigration, because the flight risk is huge," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that advocates for tighter immigration controls.
Federal immigration officials said they are required to hold certain offenders in their detention centers, including those who have committed violent crimes. They said they keep tabs on others by making them wear electronic monitoring devices. ICE had a $69.9 million budget for such alternatives last fiscal year.
"One of our long-term goals is ensuring key detention facilities are located near the site of apprehensions, legal service providers, hospitals and medical providers, immigration courts and transportation hubs," ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said. "This nationwide evaluation is ongoing."
Corrections Corp. of America, a $1.6 billion business based in Nashville, owns and operates the Stewart jail. Federal taxpayers pay Stewart County $60.50 per inmate held at that jail per day through an agreement with ICE. That works out to $97,647 per day, based on the last fiscal year's average daily inmate count.
The county, however, keeps only 85 cents per inmate per day for its administrative costs and pays CCA the rest, or $59.65 per inmate per day.
Since 2007, the county has collected about $1.7 million through this arrangement, county officials said. That represents more than half of the county's $3 million annual operating budget.
The jail is the county's largest employer with about 340 workers, most of whom are from the local area, CCA and county officials said. Jobs are crucial in Stewart, where nearly one in five families live below the federal poverty level, according to U.S. census figures.
Some detainees are sent to ICE jails after they are caught crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas. Most in Stewart wound up there after being charged with other crimes, some as minor as traffic offenses, others as serious as rape, robbery and murder. They aren't sent to Stewart, however, until after they complete sentences for any crimes they commit in the United States. Some are transferred to Stewart from state prisons and county jails. Most are originally from Central America and South America.
Those held at the jail wear color-coded uniforms and are segregated, based on the crimes they have committed. The most violent criminals wear red, while the least violent wear blue.
ICE and CCA officials gave a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a roughly hourlong tour of the jail. Dozens of detainees were observed quietly watching television, reading and making phone calls from large rooms where they sleep on bunk beds. Others are held in two-man quarters.
Some of the detainees were playing soccer in a fenced-in courtyard. They also have access to Wii video games and a library.
Detainees can voluntarily work for $1 to $3 a day cooking and cleaning, said Mike Swinton, the jail's warden. They can save that money or spend it on MoonPies, pork rinds, chicken ramen noodles or other goods sold in the jail store.
Oscar Leon, 25, who lived in Norcross, spent two months in Stewart late last year before he was deported to Mexico. He said he was struck by how many detainees passed through Stewart. Hundreds leave each week, but buses routinely pull up to the jail, carrying more people to replace them, said the Phoenix High School graduate. Leon was sent to Stewart last year after pleading guilty to driving without a license in Georgia.
"It's just like a well-oiled machine, you know," Leon said in a telephone interview last month from the jail. "One in, one out. One in, one out. It's amazing how many people come in and out in one week."
http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/3199855-Ga-detention-center-is-largest-in-nation/
Friday, December 10, 2010
Gwinnett program results in 1,400 deportations
By Andria Simmons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 10, 2010
A controversial program to identify illegal immigrants in the Gwinnett County Jail has been in operation a little more than a year, and officials say the program already is saving money and bed space.
So far, deputies have identified 3,034 inmates who were in the United States illegally, about half of whom ultimately were removed from the country after immigration proceedings.
"I'm very pleased with the program so far," Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said. "It has saved the county millions of dollars."
As part of the county's participation in a local-federal partnership called the 287(g) program, which officially began in November 2009, 18 sheriff's deputies were trained to enforce certain federal immigration laws. Inmates suspected of being in the country illegally are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after their cases are disposed of. ICE then will initiate deportation proceedings against them. The detainees still have the opportunity to go before an immigration judge to plead their case.
Statistics offer an interesting snapshot of the types of offenders the program netted in its first year:
* Many offenders had committed serious and violent crimes, including aggravated assault (73), rape (28), aggravated child molestation (24) and felony drug charges (267).
* They came from countries far and near, like Jamaica (11), India (3), Germany (2) and Brazil (5). However, the majority of the offenders hailed from Latin American countries, such as Mexico (2,053), Honduras (276), Guatemala (270) and El Salvador (169).
* 715 of the offenders, or 24 percent of the Gwinnett inmates detained for ICE, had returned to the United States after already being removed from the country at least once.
Jail statistics also do little to dispel one of the main complaints about such local law enforcement partnerships with ICE. Despite the 287(g) program's stated goal of deporting criminal illegal immigrants who pose a danger to public safety, it often nets minor offenders. About 470 inmates who were detained for ICE were charged with driving without a license, and 1,264 were charged with some other traffic violation. That's almost half the total number of detainees from Gwinnett.
Conway said that, per ICE policy, inmates are classified under a three-level priority scheme depending on the seriousness of the offense they committed. However, so far Gwinnett has not released any inmates suspected of being illegal immigrants because they committed a low-level offense. That's because ICE has had enough bed space to accommodate them all, Conway said.
A total of 1,408 inmates ultimately were removed from the country after being arrested in Gwinnett between November 2009 and November 2010, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for ICE.
It's impossible to determine whether fewer illegal immigrants are being jailed since the program started, because deputies were unable to check the immigration status of inmates prior to November 2009.
However, jail officials have compared the number of foreign-born inmates who were jailed during the first year of 287(g) with foreign-born inmates jailed the previous year and found a 28 percent decline. The difference between the two years was 4,289 inmates.
While the average length of stay in the jail is 11 days, Conway said, if those 4,289 inmates had stayed only two days (the amount of time inmates are typically held for misdemeanor offenses) at a cost of $45 per day, they would have cost the county $386,010. Had they stayed 11 days, he said, it would have cost the county $2.1 million.
Conway estimated a little over half of foreign-born inmates were in the country illegally.
He believes the decline in foreign-born inmates is a direct result of illegal immigrants leaving Gwinnett or ceasing to drive to avoid being jailed and deported.
Lilburn Police Chief John Davidson said the program probably has made the county safer.
"Obviously, if 1,400 offenders are gone from our community, that is going to have an overall impact on crime," Davidson said. "These are people that came into contact with the sheriff because they were committing some sort of criminal offense."
Pro-immigrant groups have been critical of the 287(g) program, and Gwinnett's partnership is no exception. Opponents say the program promotes racial profiling, tears apart families and causes distrust between law enforcement and the immigrant communities they are tasked with policing. The ACLU has called for the Obama administration to end the program, saying it is fundamentally flawed.
"I think the whole system encourages racial profiling," said Azadeh Shahshahani, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of Georgia. "The stated purpose is to go after the most serious offenders and to make our community safer, but in some situations it's not really clear why people are being pulled over in the first place."
Pro-immigrant organizations have pushed for an anti-racial profiling law in Georgia that would require law enforcement agencies to collect and report arrest data, including the ethnicity of those arrested. However, that effort was unsuccessful.
“No law enforcement agency in Gwinnett County is racial profiling," Conway said. "People are going to jail because they are breaking the law."
Salvador, a 26-year-old Doraville resident who asked to be identified only by his first name because he is an illegal immigrant and fears deportation, said his 27-year-old stepbrother, Hiram Huerta-Fraga, was deported Oct. 4 after being arrested by Gwinnett police for driving without a license. Huerta-Fraga was pulled over for a brake light violation, police said.
"If they see you are Hispanic they just pull you over because they know you will not have a license," Salvador said. "They are just pulling random people for no reason at all."
Salvador, who has a job with an office installation company, said he and his brother were brought into the United States by their father when they were 12 and 13 years old respectively. He said many childhood immigrants like him are willing to work hard and would gladly pay a fee for a path to citizenship.
"I love this country and I want to be here," Salvador said. "I don't think it's fair they get to decide what happens to your life after they pull you over. It's just like playing the lottery every day. You never know when you're going to get pulled over."
The Gwinnett sheriff's office is one of only five Georgia law enforcement agencies participating in 287(g). The others are the Cobb, Hall and Whitfield County sheriff's offices and the Georgia Department of Public Safety. Not surprisingly, Gwinnett, which has the largest Hispanic population in the state, identified the largest number of illegal immigrants in its jail during the 2010 federal fiscal year.
According to ICE, Cobb had 2,023, Hall 755, Whitfield 581 and the Georgia Department of Public Safety had nine.
Several other Georgia law enforcement agencies, including the Roswell Police Department and the Cherokee and Forsyth sheriff's departments, have asked to join the program. However, ICE has not approved any new programs in Georgia in 2010, citing funding issues.
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) supports 287(g) and hopes to one day expand it.
"The 287(g) program is a great program and it works hand in glove with the Secure Communities initiative," Gingrey said. "I think both those programs are necessary. I would like to see every county participate."
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/gwinnett-program-results-in-771587.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 10, 2010
A controversial program to identify illegal immigrants in the Gwinnett County Jail has been in operation a little more than a year, and officials say the program already is saving money and bed space.
So far, deputies have identified 3,034 inmates who were in the United States illegally, about half of whom ultimately were removed from the country after immigration proceedings.
"I'm very pleased with the program so far," Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said. "It has saved the county millions of dollars."
As part of the county's participation in a local-federal partnership called the 287(g) program, which officially began in November 2009, 18 sheriff's deputies were trained to enforce certain federal immigration laws. Inmates suspected of being in the country illegally are turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after their cases are disposed of. ICE then will initiate deportation proceedings against them. The detainees still have the opportunity to go before an immigration judge to plead their case.
Statistics offer an interesting snapshot of the types of offenders the program netted in its first year:
* Many offenders had committed serious and violent crimes, including aggravated assault (73), rape (28), aggravated child molestation (24) and felony drug charges (267).
* They came from countries far and near, like Jamaica (11), India (3), Germany (2) and Brazil (5). However, the majority of the offenders hailed from Latin American countries, such as Mexico (2,053), Honduras (276), Guatemala (270) and El Salvador (169).
* 715 of the offenders, or 24 percent of the Gwinnett inmates detained for ICE, had returned to the United States after already being removed from the country at least once.
Jail statistics also do little to dispel one of the main complaints about such local law enforcement partnerships with ICE. Despite the 287(g) program's stated goal of deporting criminal illegal immigrants who pose a danger to public safety, it often nets minor offenders. About 470 inmates who were detained for ICE were charged with driving without a license, and 1,264 were charged with some other traffic violation. That's almost half the total number of detainees from Gwinnett.
Conway said that, per ICE policy, inmates are classified under a three-level priority scheme depending on the seriousness of the offense they committed. However, so far Gwinnett has not released any inmates suspected of being illegal immigrants because they committed a low-level offense. That's because ICE has had enough bed space to accommodate them all, Conway said.
A total of 1,408 inmates ultimately were removed from the country after being arrested in Gwinnett between November 2009 and November 2010, said Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for ICE.
It's impossible to determine whether fewer illegal immigrants are being jailed since the program started, because deputies were unable to check the immigration status of inmates prior to November 2009.
However, jail officials have compared the number of foreign-born inmates who were jailed during the first year of 287(g) with foreign-born inmates jailed the previous year and found a 28 percent decline. The difference between the two years was 4,289 inmates.
While the average length of stay in the jail is 11 days, Conway said, if those 4,289 inmates had stayed only two days (the amount of time inmates are typically held for misdemeanor offenses) at a cost of $45 per day, they would have cost the county $386,010. Had they stayed 11 days, he said, it would have cost the county $2.1 million.
Conway estimated a little over half of foreign-born inmates were in the country illegally.
He believes the decline in foreign-born inmates is a direct result of illegal immigrants leaving Gwinnett or ceasing to drive to avoid being jailed and deported.
Lilburn Police Chief John Davidson said the program probably has made the county safer.
"Obviously, if 1,400 offenders are gone from our community, that is going to have an overall impact on crime," Davidson said. "These are people that came into contact with the sheriff because they were committing some sort of criminal offense."
Pro-immigrant groups have been critical of the 287(g) program, and Gwinnett's partnership is no exception. Opponents say the program promotes racial profiling, tears apart families and causes distrust between law enforcement and the immigrant communities they are tasked with policing. The ACLU has called for the Obama administration to end the program, saying it is fundamentally flawed.
"I think the whole system encourages racial profiling," said Azadeh Shahshahani, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of Georgia. "The stated purpose is to go after the most serious offenders and to make our community safer, but in some situations it's not really clear why people are being pulled over in the first place."
Pro-immigrant organizations have pushed for an anti-racial profiling law in Georgia that would require law enforcement agencies to collect and report arrest data, including the ethnicity of those arrested. However, that effort was unsuccessful.
“No law enforcement agency in Gwinnett County is racial profiling," Conway said. "People are going to jail because they are breaking the law."
Salvador, a 26-year-old Doraville resident who asked to be identified only by his first name because he is an illegal immigrant and fears deportation, said his 27-year-old stepbrother, Hiram Huerta-Fraga, was deported Oct. 4 after being arrested by Gwinnett police for driving without a license. Huerta-Fraga was pulled over for a brake light violation, police said.
"If they see you are Hispanic they just pull you over because they know you will not have a license," Salvador said. "They are just pulling random people for no reason at all."
Salvador, who has a job with an office installation company, said he and his brother were brought into the United States by their father when they were 12 and 13 years old respectively. He said many childhood immigrants like him are willing to work hard and would gladly pay a fee for a path to citizenship.
"I love this country and I want to be here," Salvador said. "I don't think it's fair they get to decide what happens to your life after they pull you over. It's just like playing the lottery every day. You never know when you're going to get pulled over."
The Gwinnett sheriff's office is one of only five Georgia law enforcement agencies participating in 287(g). The others are the Cobb, Hall and Whitfield County sheriff's offices and the Georgia Department of Public Safety. Not surprisingly, Gwinnett, which has the largest Hispanic population in the state, identified the largest number of illegal immigrants in its jail during the 2010 federal fiscal year.
According to ICE, Cobb had 2,023, Hall 755, Whitfield 581 and the Georgia Department of Public Safety had nine.
Several other Georgia law enforcement agencies, including the Roswell Police Department and the Cherokee and Forsyth sheriff's departments, have asked to join the program. However, ICE has not approved any new programs in Georgia in 2010, citing funding issues.
U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) supports 287(g) and hopes to one day expand it.
"The 287(g) program is a great program and it works hand in glove with the Secure Communities initiative," Gingrey said. "I think both those programs are necessary. I would like to see every county participate."
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/gwinnett-program-results-in-771587.html
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Student’s Arrest Tests Immigration Policy
By ROBBIE BROWN
The New York Times
May 14, 2010
ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old college student and illegal Mexican immigrant at the center of a contentious immigration case, surrendered to a Georgia sheriff on Friday but continued to deny wrongdoing.
Ms. Colotl was arrested in March for driving without a license and could face deportation next year. On Wednesday the sheriff filed a felony charge against her for providing a false address to the police.
The case has become a flash point in the national debate over whether federal immigration laws should be enforced by local and state officials. And like Arizona’s tough new immigration law, it has highlighted a rift between the federal government and local politicians over how illegal immigrants should be detected and prosecuted.
“I never thought that I’d be caught up in this messed-up system,” Ms. Colotl said Friday at a news conference after being released on $2,500 bail. “I was treated like a criminal, like a threat to the nation.”
Civil rights groups say Ms. Colotl should be spared deportation because she was brought to the United States without legal documents by her parents at age 11. They also note that she has excelled academically and was discovered to be here illegally only after a routine traffic violation.
Supporters of immigration laws and the sheriff’s office in Cobb County say she violated state law, misled the police about her address and should not receive special treatment for her age or education.
Ms. Colotl was pulled over March 29 by a campus officer at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta, where she is two semesters from graduation, for “impeding the flow of traffic.” After she presented the officer an expired Mexican passport instead of a valid driver’s license, she was arrested and taken to a county jail, where she acknowledged being an illegal immigrant.
On May 5, she was transferred to the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama to await deportation to Mexico.
But after protests by Latino groups, demonstrations at the Georgia Capitol by her sorority sisters and a letter of support from the university’s president, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency granted a one-year deferral on her deportation so she could finish college. The “deferred action” means she could still be deported, but will be allowed to apply for an extension next year.
Her ultimate goal, Ms. Colotl said at the news conference, is that proposed legislation called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — known as the Dream Act — will become law, providing students without legal immigration status a path to become legal.
She and her lawyer declined to discuss the immigration status of her parents.
In Georgia, the case has become intensely political. Ms. Colotl received in-state tuition, substantially reducing her cost of attending Kennesaw State. The university will charge her out-of-state rates in the future, but Republican politicians are calling for new legislation to make attendance more expensive, or impossible, for illegal immigrants.
One Republican candidate for governor, Eric Johnson, has said that if elected he will mandate that all college applicants demonstrate their citizenship. The chancellor of the state university system says that would be prohibitively expensive, costing $1.5 million, for roughly 300,000 students.
Under a program by the Department of Homeland Security, known as 287(g), local sheriffs are permitted to handle federal immigration law enforcement. The Cobb County sheriff’s office was the first in Georgia and one of the first in the United States to apply for the program. Immigration is a hot topic in the largely conservative county, where Hispanics make up 11 percent of the population, census figures show.
Mary Bauer, the legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is assisting in Ms. Colotl’s defense, said Cobb County had a history of using federal laws designed to detect dangerous criminals for arresting illegal immigrants for minor offenses. A review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that from 2007 to 2009, the main crime for which immigration detainees were arrested in the county was traffic offenses.
“This is a civil rights disaster,” said Ms. Bauer, who called the county’s application of the law “mean-spirited and very probably illegal.”
“We call on the Obama administration to end 287(g),” she said.
Supporters of strict immigration legislation say Ms. Colotl’s case was handled legally.
The sheriff, Neil Warren, said Ms. Colotl provided a false address to the police, a felony charge. Her lawyers say that she provided the address of the residence where she used to live and to where her car insurance is registered, and that she also provided her current address.
No exception should be made, however admirable the offender, said Phil Kent, a spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, a national group opposed to illegal immigration.
“Ironically, she says she wants to go on to law school, but she’s undermining the law,” Mr. Kent said. “What’s the point of educating an illegal immigrant in a system where she can’t hold a job legally or get a driver’s license?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/us/15student.html
The New York Times
May 14, 2010
ATLANTA — Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old college student and illegal Mexican immigrant at the center of a contentious immigration case, surrendered to a Georgia sheriff on Friday but continued to deny wrongdoing.
Ms. Colotl was arrested in March for driving without a license and could face deportation next year. On Wednesday the sheriff filed a felony charge against her for providing a false address to the police.
The case has become a flash point in the national debate over whether federal immigration laws should be enforced by local and state officials. And like Arizona’s tough new immigration law, it has highlighted a rift between the federal government and local politicians over how illegal immigrants should be detected and prosecuted.
“I never thought that I’d be caught up in this messed-up system,” Ms. Colotl said Friday at a news conference after being released on $2,500 bail. “I was treated like a criminal, like a threat to the nation.”
Civil rights groups say Ms. Colotl should be spared deportation because she was brought to the United States without legal documents by her parents at age 11. They also note that she has excelled academically and was discovered to be here illegally only after a routine traffic violation.
Supporters of immigration laws and the sheriff’s office in Cobb County say she violated state law, misled the police about her address and should not receive special treatment for her age or education.
Ms. Colotl was pulled over March 29 by a campus officer at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta, where she is two semesters from graduation, for “impeding the flow of traffic.” After she presented the officer an expired Mexican passport instead of a valid driver’s license, she was arrested and taken to a county jail, where she acknowledged being an illegal immigrant.
On May 5, she was transferred to the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama to await deportation to Mexico.
But after protests by Latino groups, demonstrations at the Georgia Capitol by her sorority sisters and a letter of support from the university’s president, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency granted a one-year deferral on her deportation so she could finish college. The “deferred action” means she could still be deported, but will be allowed to apply for an extension next year.
Her ultimate goal, Ms. Colotl said at the news conference, is that proposed legislation called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — known as the Dream Act — will become law, providing students without legal immigration status a path to become legal.
She and her lawyer declined to discuss the immigration status of her parents.
In Georgia, the case has become intensely political. Ms. Colotl received in-state tuition, substantially reducing her cost of attending Kennesaw State. The university will charge her out-of-state rates in the future, but Republican politicians are calling for new legislation to make attendance more expensive, or impossible, for illegal immigrants.
One Republican candidate for governor, Eric Johnson, has said that if elected he will mandate that all college applicants demonstrate their citizenship. The chancellor of the state university system says that would be prohibitively expensive, costing $1.5 million, for roughly 300,000 students.
Under a program by the Department of Homeland Security, known as 287(g), local sheriffs are permitted to handle federal immigration law enforcement. The Cobb County sheriff’s office was the first in Georgia and one of the first in the United States to apply for the program. Immigration is a hot topic in the largely conservative county, where Hispanics make up 11 percent of the population, census figures show.
Mary Bauer, the legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is assisting in Ms. Colotl’s defense, said Cobb County had a history of using federal laws designed to detect dangerous criminals for arresting illegal immigrants for minor offenses. A review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that from 2007 to 2009, the main crime for which immigration detainees were arrested in the county was traffic offenses.
“This is a civil rights disaster,” said Ms. Bauer, who called the county’s application of the law “mean-spirited and very probably illegal.”
“We call on the Obama administration to end 287(g),” she said.
Supporters of strict immigration legislation say Ms. Colotl’s case was handled legally.
The sheriff, Neil Warren, said Ms. Colotl provided a false address to the police, a felony charge. Her lawyers say that she provided the address of the residence where she used to live and to where her car insurance is registered, and that she also provided her current address.
No exception should be made, however admirable the offender, said Phil Kent, a spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, a national group opposed to illegal immigration.
“Ironically, she says she wants to go on to law school, but she’s undermining the law,” Mr. Kent said. “What’s the point of educating an illegal immigrant in a system where she can’t hold a job legally or get a driver’s license?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/us/15student.html
Thursday, November 19, 2009
License to Deport in Gwinnett County, Georgia
Atlanta Latino
Judith MartÃnez, Translated by Elena Shore
Nov 18, 2009
ATLANTA -- Without knowing exactly how the 287 (g) program works, Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway officially announced on Monday, Nov. 16 that the jail he runs is ready to deport an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 undocumented immigrants who have driven without a valid Georgia license, which is classified as a crime in the state.
Conway did not respond to questions about the exact deportation proceedings when someone goes to jail, but he emphasized that he took the oath to enforce the laws and that is what he will do.
He asserted that they would only review the immigration status of those who have been arrested and put in jail, and that they will not ask people on the streets or county residents about their immigration status.
According to Conway, the 287 (g) program will save his prison $7 million a year because the prisoners will be deported in about 48 hours.
The sheriff estimates that of the 2,600 prisoners at the Gwinnett jail, 800 are foreign nationals.
Stacey Bourbonnais, spokesperson for the Gwinnett County’s Sheriff’s Department, said that 18 officials have been trained to implement the 287 (g) program.
She anticipated that this week, they would start to investigate prisoners’ records and officials would familiarize themselves with the computer equipment.
The agreement between ICE and Gwinnett County was part of a national plan to expand the 287 (g) to another 66 public agencies. ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas said the program will last for three years from Oct. 16, when it was signed, unless either party decides to terminate it sooner.
Where Does the Money Come From?
Although the county is experiencing a difficult economic crisis, the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners approved $1 million for the implementation of the agreement in a public meeting on July 30.
"The county had the money saved in an account, but they were the only ones who knew the amount," said Bourbonnais.
Meanwhile, Jose Perez, the only Latino member of the Engage Gwinnett commission, a volunteer group of county residents that advises authorities on the budget, said that one of the main concerns of the residents of Gwinnett County is “security" and they would not hesitate when it comes to keeping the streets safe.
The 287 (g) agreement was presented to the public as a program that deports undocumented criminals.
"The goal of 287 (g) has been, since its implementation in 2006, to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed a serious crime,” according to ICE.
But the program has been used by some local law enforcement agencies to deport immigrants for misdemeanor offenses. This is the case in Cobb County, where there were a number of complaints documented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights that arrests and deportations were based on "racial profiling and minor traffic offenses.”
During a telephonic press conference, John Morton, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that in order to avoid arrests based on skin color or appearance, ICE has implemented a system that requires the agency to authorize all arrests for violating immigration laws.
“No detention will take place if we don’t approve it,” Morton said.
Gwinnett officially implemented the agreement this week, although a pilot program called CAP was in place at the beginning of the year, during which 914 people were deported. Of these, 226 committed the crime of driving without a license in Georgia, which is punishable by two days in jail. After the fourth conviction within five years, driving without a license in the state is considered a felony.
Gwinnett’s policy allows law enforcement officers working in the jail to identify which prisoners are undocumented immigrants and which are subject to deportation. This does not mean that any Gwinnett County police officer has the authority to investigate the immigration status of a driver before he or she goes to jail.
"Only 18 agents inside the prison know how to carry out the deportation process," said the ICE spokeswoman.
"With this model, officers are not authorized to carry out random raids," according to the 287 (g) memorandum. Local authorities must contact ICE to get approval for arrests.
People Subject to Deportation Through the 287 (g) Program Over One Year in Georgia, By County:
Hall 1,070
Whitfield 378
Cobb 2,585
Georgia Department of Public Safety 14
Data provided by ICE based on the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009.
ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas clarified that these figures do not represent the total number of deportations.
"These people were identified through the 287 (g) program for violating immigration laws and classified as criminals. This doesn’t mean that all of them have been deported since all of them – except for fugitives -- have the right to appeal (due process) before a judge," said the spokeswoman, adding that ICE does not decide who gets deported.
"We (ICE) can’t deport unless the judge there decides it," she said.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7d1b1270d89ba31fe64bde02e107f3ee
Judith MartÃnez, Translated by Elena Shore
Nov 18, 2009
ATLANTA -- Without knowing exactly how the 287 (g) program works, Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway officially announced on Monday, Nov. 16 that the jail he runs is ready to deport an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 undocumented immigrants who have driven without a valid Georgia license, which is classified as a crime in the state.
Conway did not respond to questions about the exact deportation proceedings when someone goes to jail, but he emphasized that he took the oath to enforce the laws and that is what he will do.
He asserted that they would only review the immigration status of those who have been arrested and put in jail, and that they will not ask people on the streets or county residents about their immigration status.
According to Conway, the 287 (g) program will save his prison $7 million a year because the prisoners will be deported in about 48 hours.
The sheriff estimates that of the 2,600 prisoners at the Gwinnett jail, 800 are foreign nationals.
Stacey Bourbonnais, spokesperson for the Gwinnett County’s Sheriff’s Department, said that 18 officials have been trained to implement the 287 (g) program.
She anticipated that this week, they would start to investigate prisoners’ records and officials would familiarize themselves with the computer equipment.
The agreement between ICE and Gwinnett County was part of a national plan to expand the 287 (g) to another 66 public agencies. ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas said the program will last for three years from Oct. 16, when it was signed, unless either party decides to terminate it sooner.
Where Does the Money Come From?
Although the county is experiencing a difficult economic crisis, the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners approved $1 million for the implementation of the agreement in a public meeting on July 30.
"The county had the money saved in an account, but they were the only ones who knew the amount," said Bourbonnais.
Meanwhile, Jose Perez, the only Latino member of the Engage Gwinnett commission, a volunteer group of county residents that advises authorities on the budget, said that one of the main concerns of the residents of Gwinnett County is “security" and they would not hesitate when it comes to keeping the streets safe.
The 287 (g) agreement was presented to the public as a program that deports undocumented criminals.
"The goal of 287 (g) has been, since its implementation in 2006, to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed a serious crime,” according to ICE.
But the program has been used by some local law enforcement agencies to deport immigrants for misdemeanor offenses. This is the case in Cobb County, where there were a number of complaints documented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights that arrests and deportations were based on "racial profiling and minor traffic offenses.”
During a telephonic press conference, John Morton, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that in order to avoid arrests based on skin color or appearance, ICE has implemented a system that requires the agency to authorize all arrests for violating immigration laws.
“No detention will take place if we don’t approve it,” Morton said.
Gwinnett officially implemented the agreement this week, although a pilot program called CAP was in place at the beginning of the year, during which 914 people were deported. Of these, 226 committed the crime of driving without a license in Georgia, which is punishable by two days in jail. After the fourth conviction within five years, driving without a license in the state is considered a felony.
Gwinnett’s policy allows law enforcement officers working in the jail to identify which prisoners are undocumented immigrants and which are subject to deportation. This does not mean that any Gwinnett County police officer has the authority to investigate the immigration status of a driver before he or she goes to jail.
"Only 18 agents inside the prison know how to carry out the deportation process," said the ICE spokeswoman.
"With this model, officers are not authorized to carry out random raids," according to the 287 (g) memorandum. Local authorities must contact ICE to get approval for arrests.
People Subject to Deportation Through the 287 (g) Program Over One Year in Georgia, By County:
Hall 1,070
Whitfield 378
Cobb 2,585
Georgia Department of Public Safety 14
Data provided by ICE based on the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009.
ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas clarified that these figures do not represent the total number of deportations.
"These people were identified through the 287 (g) program for violating immigration laws and classified as criminals. This doesn’t mean that all of them have been deported since all of them – except for fugitives -- have the right to appeal (due process) before a judge," said the spokeswoman, adding that ICE does not decide who gets deported.
"We (ICE) can’t deport unless the judge there decides it," she said.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7d1b1270d89ba31fe64bde02e107f3ee
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Immigration raids result in arrests of Rome, NWGA residents
by Mark Millican
Dalton Daily Citizen
Several people living in Dalton, Chatsworth and Rome have been arrested and put on Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds for deportation, officials said. The arrests were made with the help of the Conasauga Safe Streets Task Force, said Maj. John Gibson with the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, and all are in the Whitfield County Jail awaiting deportation.
“This was actually a federal operation, the rounding up of illegals here and then shipping them back out,” said Gibson.
Steve Peluso of the Dalton ICE office said a Detention Removal Unit that deals with fugitives out of the Atlanta ICE office made the arrests.
“We’ve had a fugitive operations team in the area, arresting folks with final orders of removal,” said Temple Black, a spokesman for the Detention Removal Unit. Those arrested by the team have been ordered to leave the country by an immigration judge but have failed to comply, according to a news release Black sent out.
Black would not give specifics as to why each of the 10 were arrested in northwest Georgia. The release said fugitive operations teams “give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and community safety, including members of transnational street gangs, child sex offenders and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.”
Arrested were:
Pedro Francisco Alonzo, 55, 1104 Walston St., Apt. 106, Dalton, a native of Guatemala
Aracely Canales, 36, 703 Hampton Court, Apt. 16, Dalton (El Salvador)
Francisco Javier Hurtado-Lazarin, 31, 207 W. Long St., Dalton (Mexico)
Miguel Monzon, 514 Burnett Ferry Road, Rome (Guatemala)
Eliseo Perez Ramirez, 2190 Leonard Bridge Road, Chatsworth (Guatemala)
Alfonso Torres, 505 Willowdale Road, Dalton (original country unknown)
David Rey Sanchez Torres, 1116 Willowdale Road, Dalton (Mexico)
Maximiliano Hernandez Alvarado, 47, of Old Grade Road, Apt. 1, in Dalton, formerly of El Salvador
Angel Santizo-Perez, 22, of 2048 Mimosa St. in Dalton (El Salvador)
Mauricio Perez-Vincentes, 32, of 514 Burnett Ferry Road in Rome (Guatemala)
The Conasauga Safe Streets Task Force consists of agents from the FBI and ICE and officers from the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Police Department and Calhoun Police Department.
http://romenews-tribune.com/pages/full_story?page_label=home_top_stories_news&id=2777023-10+arrested+in+immigration+raids+in+Rome-+NWGA&article-10%20arrested%20in%20immigration%20raids%20in%20Rome-%20NWGA%20=&widget=push&instance=home_news_lead&open=&
Dalton Daily Citizen
Several people living in Dalton, Chatsworth and Rome have been arrested and put on Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds for deportation, officials said. The arrests were made with the help of the Conasauga Safe Streets Task Force, said Maj. John Gibson with the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, and all are in the Whitfield County Jail awaiting deportation.
“This was actually a federal operation, the rounding up of illegals here and then shipping them back out,” said Gibson.
Steve Peluso of the Dalton ICE office said a Detention Removal Unit that deals with fugitives out of the Atlanta ICE office made the arrests.
“We’ve had a fugitive operations team in the area, arresting folks with final orders of removal,” said Temple Black, a spokesman for the Detention Removal Unit. Those arrested by the team have been ordered to leave the country by an immigration judge but have failed to comply, according to a news release Black sent out.
Black would not give specifics as to why each of the 10 were arrested in northwest Georgia. The release said fugitive operations teams “give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and community safety, including members of transnational street gangs, child sex offenders and aliens with prior convictions for violent crimes.”
Arrested were:
Pedro Francisco Alonzo, 55, 1104 Walston St., Apt. 106, Dalton, a native of Guatemala
Aracely Canales, 36, 703 Hampton Court, Apt. 16, Dalton (El Salvador)
Francisco Javier Hurtado-Lazarin, 31, 207 W. Long St., Dalton (Mexico)
Miguel Monzon, 514 Burnett Ferry Road, Rome (Guatemala)
Eliseo Perez Ramirez, 2190 Leonard Bridge Road, Chatsworth (Guatemala)
Alfonso Torres, 505 Willowdale Road, Dalton (original country unknown)
David Rey Sanchez Torres, 1116 Willowdale Road, Dalton (Mexico)
Maximiliano Hernandez Alvarado, 47, of Old Grade Road, Apt. 1, in Dalton, formerly of El Salvador
Angel Santizo-Perez, 22, of 2048 Mimosa St. in Dalton (El Salvador)
Mauricio Perez-Vincentes, 32, of 514 Burnett Ferry Road in Rome (Guatemala)
The Conasauga Safe Streets Task Force consists of agents from the FBI and ICE and officers from the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, Dalton Police Department and Calhoun Police Department.
http://romenews-tribune.com/pages/full_story?page_label=home_top_stories_news&id=2777023-10+arrested+in+immigration+raids+in+Rome-+NWGA&article-10%20arrested%20in%20immigration%20raids%20in%20Rome-%20NWGA%20=&widget=push&instance=home_news_lead&open=&
Monday, March 9, 2009
Prof thinks ICE raids unjust
Prof thinks ICE raids unjust
By Joe Johnson, joe.johnson@onlineathens.com
Athens Banner-Herald
3/8/2009
A University of Georgia professor is relieved the federal government has declared a moratorium on workplace raids that rounded up illegal immigrants by the dozens.
The raids constituted a "grave social injustice" comparable to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the government's blind eye to lynchings during the days of Jim Crow laws, said Larry Nackerud, who teaches at UGA's School of Social Work.
"They are a failure on the part of the federal government to reasonably form immigration policy," Nackerud said. "Raids have frightened a lot of people and caused tremendous family disruption. It's an ill-advised way to go about responding to the call for public policy focused on immigration."
President Obama has signaled a shift in immigration policy that would rely less on worksite enforcement in favor of cracking down on employers who depend on illegal immigrants.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was caught off-guard by the first workplace raid since Obama took office, in which 28 illegal immigrants were arrested at an engine manufacturing plant in Washington state.
With a new secretary at the helm, Homeland Security imposed a "partial moratorium" on workplace raids while all agency operations are reviewed, according to Nackerud.
Large-scale workplace raids were common in the last years of the Bush administration.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 5,173 undocumented immigrants during worksite raids in fiscal-year 2008, according to ICE, an investigative arm of Homeland Security.
In addition, ICE agents made 1,101 arrests in connection with worksite investigations.
Government agents conduct raids to remove people who sneak into the country and drive down wages and take away jobs from citizens during a deepening economic recession, said Phil Kent, spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control.
"We want the workplace raids to continue," Kent said. "They're a way to demagnetize the job magnet" that draws undocumented immigrants across the border.
Illegal immigrants not only compete for scarce jobs, but put a strain on services, Kent said. "Cheap labor is not cheap," he said. "We still have, in parts of Georgia, hospitals and schools that are swamped with illegal immigrants."
Whether in the country legally or not, immigrants are necessary in the United States where, according to Nackerud, there is little "population momentum," or fewer younger citizens to fill future jobs.
"It's been well documented that you need immigration for the economy to function well in the U.S.," he said.
Nackerud and a colleague at UGA recently completed a study that found employers see immigrants as hard-working, reliable employees.
"Employers in all areas say without these folks, we wouldn't have survived as a business," he said.
Nackerud has studied the Southeast Georgia city of Stillmore, which was reduced to a ghost town after an ICE raid in 2006 that targeted trailer parks that housed hundreds of undocumented workers employed at the local poultry plant.
"It created a tremendous economic depression," he said. "I'm not so worried about the arrests of immigrants who have committed criminal offenses or have deportation orders, but I think ICE has got to get better at these things because many apprehended and detained immigrants don't have a criminal background."
http://onlineathens.com/stories/030909/uga_406935719.shtml
By Joe Johnson, joe.johnson@onlineathens.com
Athens Banner-Herald
3/8/2009
A University of Georgia professor is relieved the federal government has declared a moratorium on workplace raids that rounded up illegal immigrants by the dozens.
The raids constituted a "grave social injustice" comparable to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the government's blind eye to lynchings during the days of Jim Crow laws, said Larry Nackerud, who teaches at UGA's School of Social Work.
"They are a failure on the part of the federal government to reasonably form immigration policy," Nackerud said. "Raids have frightened a lot of people and caused tremendous family disruption. It's an ill-advised way to go about responding to the call for public policy focused on immigration."
President Obama has signaled a shift in immigration policy that would rely less on worksite enforcement in favor of cracking down on employers who depend on illegal immigrants.
Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was caught off-guard by the first workplace raid since Obama took office, in which 28 illegal immigrants were arrested at an engine manufacturing plant in Washington state.
With a new secretary at the helm, Homeland Security imposed a "partial moratorium" on workplace raids while all agency operations are reviewed, according to Nackerud.
Large-scale workplace raids were common in the last years of the Bush administration.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 5,173 undocumented immigrants during worksite raids in fiscal-year 2008, according to ICE, an investigative arm of Homeland Security.
In addition, ICE agents made 1,101 arrests in connection with worksite investigations.
Government agents conduct raids to remove people who sneak into the country and drive down wages and take away jobs from citizens during a deepening economic recession, said Phil Kent, spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control.
"We want the workplace raids to continue," Kent said. "They're a way to demagnetize the job magnet" that draws undocumented immigrants across the border.
Illegal immigrants not only compete for scarce jobs, but put a strain on services, Kent said. "Cheap labor is not cheap," he said. "We still have, in parts of Georgia, hospitals and schools that are swamped with illegal immigrants."
Whether in the country legally or not, immigrants are necessary in the United States where, according to Nackerud, there is little "population momentum," or fewer younger citizens to fill future jobs.
"It's been well documented that you need immigration for the economy to function well in the U.S.," he said.
Nackerud and a colleague at UGA recently completed a study that found employers see immigrants as hard-working, reliable employees.
"Employers in all areas say without these folks, we wouldn't have survived as a business," he said.
Nackerud has studied the Southeast Georgia city of Stillmore, which was reduced to a ghost town after an ICE raid in 2006 that targeted trailer parks that housed hundreds of undocumented workers employed at the local poultry plant.
"It created a tremendous economic depression," he said. "I'm not so worried about the arrests of immigrants who have committed criminal offenses or have deportation orders, but I think ICE has got to get better at these things because many apprehended and detained immigrants don't have a criminal background."
http://onlineathens.com/stories/030909/uga_406935719.shtml
Friday, January 2, 2009
Gwinnett makes push for inmate deportations
Gwinnett makes push for inmate deportations
By Staff
Access North Georgia
January 1, 2009
LAWRENCEVILLE - There are hundreds of illegal immigrants in the Gwinnett County jail, and starting next month, the county will begin the push to have them deported.
Published reports say that starting January 12, county law enforcement along with federal immigration agents will begin canvassing the county jail. Their goal: to identify the illegal inmates and get them out of the country.
So far in 2008, over 14,000 foreign nationals have been booked at the Gwinnett County jail, but it is unknown how many were illegal. Gwinnett projects it may deport between 4,000 and 6,000 illegal inmates.
Hall County already participates in the inmate ID program, known as 287(g).
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=216426
By Staff
Access North Georgia
January 1, 2009
LAWRENCEVILLE - There are hundreds of illegal immigrants in the Gwinnett County jail, and starting next month, the county will begin the push to have them deported.
Published reports say that starting January 12, county law enforcement along with federal immigration agents will begin canvassing the county jail. Their goal: to identify the illegal inmates and get them out of the country.
So far in 2008, over 14,000 foreign nationals have been booked at the Gwinnett County jail, but it is unknown how many were illegal. Gwinnett projects it may deport between 4,000 and 6,000 illegal inmates.
Hall County already participates in the inmate ID program, known as 287(g).
http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=216426
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Advocates urge immigrants to get affairs in order
Advocates urge immigrants to get affairs in order
By KATE BRUMBACK
September 16, 2008
Associated Press
CHAMBLEE, Ga. (AP) — Fear rippled through a group of Latino parents in suburban Atlanta when a friend was deported to Mexico and temporarily separated from her two young U.S.-born children. The kids weren't able to immediately join her because she and her husband hadn't gotten passports for them.
More than nine months later, anxiety about being taken from their children is still palpable among the members of the support group for Spanish-speaking parents — most of them undocumented — of children with Down syndrome.
To guard against such separations — a widely decried effect of recent large-scale workplace raids — social workers and activists are urging undocumented immigrants to put together emergency kits similar to the kind emergency officials encourage people to keep in case of fire or natural disaster.
"Information is power," said Sonia Parras Konrad, a lawyer in Iowa who helped undocumented immigrants in the wake of a raid at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant in May. "If they know their rights and are prepared, they can be more in control of their lives and what happens to them."
The immigrants' kits include passports for U.S.-born children, contact info for an attorney, information on their legal rights and other material that can keep families together or help relatives retrieve a last paycheck.
Susy Martorell, a social worker and president of the board of the Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia who has run the Down syndrome group for about 10 years, said the group's members are constantly preoccupied with their legal status. That prompted her to depart from the group's main focus on health issues once or twice a year to bring in an immigration lawyer.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iFIWAbgk3TDSVy2NGdNjzxzEq-fwD937BL1G0
By KATE BRUMBACK
September 16, 2008
Associated Press
CHAMBLEE, Ga. (AP) — Fear rippled through a group of Latino parents in suburban Atlanta when a friend was deported to Mexico and temporarily separated from her two young U.S.-born children. The kids weren't able to immediately join her because she and her husband hadn't gotten passports for them.
More than nine months later, anxiety about being taken from their children is still palpable among the members of the support group for Spanish-speaking parents — most of them undocumented — of children with Down syndrome.
To guard against such separations — a widely decried effect of recent large-scale workplace raids — social workers and activists are urging undocumented immigrants to put together emergency kits similar to the kind emergency officials encourage people to keep in case of fire or natural disaster.
"Information is power," said Sonia Parras Konrad, a lawyer in Iowa who helped undocumented immigrants in the wake of a raid at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant in May. "If they know their rights and are prepared, they can be more in control of their lives and what happens to them."
The immigrants' kits include passports for U.S.-born children, contact info for an attorney, information on their legal rights and other material that can keep families together or help relatives retrieve a last paycheck.
Susy Martorell, a social worker and president of the board of the Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia who has run the Down syndrome group for about 10 years, said the group's members are constantly preoccupied with their legal status. That prompted her to depart from the group's main focus on health issues once or twice a year to bring in an immigration lawyer.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iFIWAbgk3TDSVy2NGdNjzxzEq-fwD937BL1G0
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