Immigration reform needed to stop heartbreaking separations

By Albor Ruiz
The New York Daily News
July 6th 2011

Few people would dispute that children, like everybody else in America, are entitled to the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Yet, Wednesday, at the Peter Rodino Federal Building in Newark, dozens of children and families will gather to demonstrate and remind everyone about that fact.

The children, all of them born in the U.S. to immigrant parents, will give poignant first-hand testimony of the tragedy of being callously separated from their parents by our dysfunctional immigration laws.

They are American citizens, but today they will not speak about their pursuit of happiness. Instead, they will tell everyone about the fear, the sadness and the loneliness they suffer because of the deportation of their parents.

"My name is Jocelyn. The last time I saw my mother was on a Friday morning before heading to school. I have not seen her since that day, which was about three years ago."

Her mother was torn from her four children and her husband and deported to her native Mexico.

"I hope that she comes back to us or that we are able to see her again," said Jocelyn, a serious-looking 15-year old. "We need her and we miss her so much. I only wish to see her to tell her how much I love her."

Jocelyn's story, sad as it is, is far from unique.

The tragedy of citizen children whose parents have been taken from them by our broken immigration laws is one of enormous proportions.

Nearly one in 10 American families are of mixed immigration status, where at least one parent is a noncitizen, and at least one child a citizen, according to data compiled by the American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights.

An estimated 3.1 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, the data shows.

Many others have at least one parent who is a permanent legal resident who can be subject to deportation for minor legal infractions upon filing for a change of immigration status.

As a result, thousands of American children are separated from a parent. Between 1998 and 2007, at least 108,434 parents of U.S.-citizen children were deported.

Absurdly enough, immigration judges are not permitted to balance family unity against deportation requirements. As we have seen, in many cases this has led to one or both parents of child citizens being deported, parents who must choose between leaving the child behind in his or her own country or taking the child to a country foreign to him or her.

That's why these children will rally in Newark to demand their government pays attention to the devastating impact of deportation and enact fair and humane immigration policies that focus on keeping families together.

Certainly it's not too much to ask.

They and advocates will also visit their Congressional representatives today in their district offices. The purpose is to lobby them to co-sponsor the Child Citizen Protection Act recently reintroduced by Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.).

The act would allow immigration judges the discretion to take family situations into account during deportation proceedings.

"I have trouble believing that any American would support their government breaking up families or orphaning children," Serrano said. "We must bring our government's policies in line with our values, which do not include breaking families apart."

Yes, we must, for the sake of these children and for our own sake.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/07/06/2011-07-06_reform_immig_laws_to_end_separation_anxiety.html#ixzz1RSa9UJP1

Why was 4-year-old American girl deported?

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
CNN Contributor
March 23, 2011

San Diego (CNN) -- Under our system, two things are crystal clear: Law enforcement agencies are required to treat children with more care than adults, and U.S. citizens have certain rights that are not to be abridged -- including the right to due process.

Just don't try telling any of that to the parents of Emily Ruiz. They know better. Those principles didn't apply in the case of the 4-year-old from Brentwood, New York, who -- after traveling to Guatemala to visit relatives with her grandfather -- was denied entry into the United States on March 11 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and instead sent back to Guatemala.

That is no way to treat a U.S. citizen. You see, while both of her parents are illegal immigrants, Emily was born in the United States and so she is a U.S. citizen. That is supposed to mean something in this country. At the very least, it should mean that authorities shouldn't have done anything more than greet the little girl with a polite and sincere: "Welcome home."

Instead, according to her family's attorney, Emily was detained alone for several hours at Dulles International Airport while authorities tried to figure out what to do and while her grandfather was treated for what seemed to be a panic attack.

"It's outrageous," David Sperling, the family's attorney, told me. "Effectively, she (Emily) was deported. They treated her like an 'anchor baby,' like a second-class citizen. I can't imagine that they would treat any other U.S. citizen this way."

Speaking of so-called anchor babies, an offensive term used by some on the right to describe the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants who supposedly keep their parents anchored in the United States, this case shows that the whole concept is bogus. Emily couldn't even keep herself anchored in the United States, let alone her parents.

I asked Sperling if he believed that Emily was treated shoddily because she is Latina.

"Absolutely," he said. "If this was a Caucasian girl from some European country, this would never have happened."

According to multiple accounts, here is what happened. At the end of their stay in Guatemala, Emily and her grandfather boarded a plane to return to New York. The grandfather had a work visa and a notarized letter from Emily's parents authorizing him to travel with her. The girl had a U.S. passport. But because of bad weather, the flight was diverted to Washington.

When the two landed there, and went through the processing for re-entry in the United States, it was discovered that the grandfather's visa was no longer valid and that he had a prior arrest for illegal entry in the 1990s. Agents took him into custody and prepared to deport him back to Guatemala.

But what about Emily? When she and her grandfather didn't get off the plane in New York, her father, Leonel, called the airline, and a representative told him that U.S. immigration officials had detained his loved ones in Washington. So then the father called the immigration officials. And, when he was asked about his own immigration status and that of his wife's, he acknowledged that they were both undocumented.

According to Sperling, the father then was given a choice: Emily could be left in a children's detention facility or sent back to Guatemala with her grandfather. The father said he would prefer that Emily stay with her grandfather, and so Emily was deported from the country -- her country.

But oddly enough, the attorney said, the one option the father wasn't given was to go pick up his daughter in Washington. That's what he planned to do, he told The New York Times, but he was never given the chance. (The same article said that officials at Customs and Border Protection gave Ruiz the opportunity to collect her at the airport.)

Officials with Customs and Border Protection declined to comment to me on the record. The best they would do is a statement sent to news agencies declaring that "CBP strives to reunite U.S. citizen children with their parents," without actually saying that it happened in this case.

Sperling told me he plans to travel to Guatemala next week to retrieve Emily.

The idea of an illegal immigrant voluntarily meeting with U.S. immigration officials is not as far-fetched as you might think. Leonel Ruiz is an illegal immigrant, but he is also a father. Besides, if he had come forward, according to immigration lawyers and immigration enforcement officials I've spoke to over the years, he might not have been apprehended and deported. Immigration officials have wide discretion, and they don't have to deport every illegal immigrant with whom they come into contact.

Don't lose sight of the facts through the PR. Or is it CYA? Even if it's true that that Emily's father gave permission for the government to send his daughter back to Guatemala, that doesn't let U.S. officials off the hook. Emily is a minor, but she is also a U.S. citizen with a right to due process -- what Thomas Jefferson called an "inalienable" right granted her not by her father but by her creator.

It's not fair or appropriate for Customs and Border Protection to pawn off the awesome responsibility of whether Emily stays in the United States or goes back to Guatemala to the father just so they can wash their hands of this case and claim they were just following orders.

There are established rules and procedures for how U.S. immigration enforcement agencies are supposed to deal with minors, and those guidelines are set by years of legal precedent. Most of them deal with minors who are in the country illegally and yet still have rights. U.S. citizens have even more rights.

The unanswered question in this case is whether Customs and Border Protection followed those rules and its own procedures and did everything it could to reunite Emily with her family. It doesn't look like it. Rather it looks like U.S. immigration officials couldn't wait to get this girl on a plane and get her off their hands.

What has happened to our country? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seems to brag about the Obama administration's record number of deportations every few weeks, to counter claims that her department is soft on illegal immigration. Has the administration so depleted the pool of illegal immigrants that it's moved on to deporting U.S. citizens?

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs should look into this case, and the Department of Homeland Security should launch an internal investigation. And if it is ultimately decided that Customs and Border Protection officials acted hastily and irresponsibly, they should lose their jobs --as swiftly and as easily as Emily Ruiz lost the freedom that was her birthright.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette Jr.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/03/23/navarrette.child.deported/?hpt=Sbin

Reform pressure falling on Obama, Dems who have failed to address immigrant rights issues

By Albor Ruiz
The New York Daily News
March 13th 2011

President Obama talks a good game when it comes to immigration reform. But by now, it is obvious that's all he does, and few take his promises seriously.

The point was driven home in Jackson Heights, Queens, last Saturday during a breakfast gathering of assorted politicians and community activists concerned with the immigrant rights issue.

Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who heads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force, told the group that if you tell people you are going to push for reform, they laugh at you.

"No one believes anymore that immigration reform is possible, at least not in the next couple of years," Gutiérrez told the group at Natives, a Colombian eatery on Northern Blvd. The busy, spacious restaurant has become an informal meeting place for Queens politicians, activists and artists.

"This administration has failed us. We want Obama to succeed, but his policies have been detrimental to immigrants," he said.

"No se puede tapar el sol con la mano [The sun cannot be covered with one hand]," Gutiérrez added with his trademark intensity.

Covering the sun became even more difficult after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's abject performance before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last Wednesday.

When anti-immigration reform pol Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned her about deportation practices - in particular about the supposed "threat" of using prosecutorial discretion to allow some individuals with compelling cases to delay their deportations - the secretary went out of her way to show him she too was a good practitioner of toughness for the sake of toughness.

Napolitano breathlessly rolled out the department's record number of deportations under her watch, and emphasized that the Obama administration granted deferred action in less than 900 cases last year. That was fewer than the Bush administration, she meekly told Grassley.

"It's a sad day when the Obama administration uses deportation statistics from the Bush years as a measure of success," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group America's Voice.

Sad and shameful.

There are 1,200 deportations every day, and 4 million American children whose parents are undocumented, Gutiérrez told the gathering at Natives.

"There has to be a better way. Make no mistake, the President has executive authority and the power to change things, but his immigration policy is one of supporting e-verify, 287(G), Secure Communities, deportations. It is ripping our community asunder, and we must stand up to it," he said to a standing ovation.

"U.S. policies should be pro-immigration, not against it; we need coordination, to leave divisions behind and speak with one voice," Gutiérrez told the energized audience. "We have to challenge Republicans but also Democrats."

In fact, I would add, we can forget Republicans who care only about persecuting and dehumanizing immigrants.

But let's talk about Democrats: Even though immigrants need Obama and Democratic Congress members on their side, the President and those Congress members also need the increasingly critical immigrant vote, especially Latinos. And there is a growing feeling among Hispanics that there has got to be a quid pro quo next time around so no politician will get something for nothing.

"They need to be reminded the road to the White House goes through el barrio," Gutiérrez said to wild applause.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/13/2011-03-13_immig_reform_pressure_on_obama_dems.html#ixzz1Gh6pn7Ur

2 more North Shore teens go behind bars for assualt of Mexican immigrant

By Frank Donnelly
SILive.com
January 15, 2011

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two more North Shore teens were sent to prison yesterday in connection with last year’s vicious beating of a Mexican immigrant in Port Richmond.

Ethan Cave, 16, of Mariners Harbor, and William Marcano, 18, of Elm Park, were each sentenced to one and one-third to four years behind bars for attacking Rodulfo Olmedo, a baker, on April 5, while allegedly shouting anti-Mexican slurs.

The beating was among a number of assaults committed against Mexican immigrants last year in Port Richmond, sparking a concentrated police presence in the area. A grand jury, however, declined to indict the defendants on hate-crime charges.

Last week, Rolston Hopson, 18, of Elm Park, was sentenced to six years behind bars for his role in the attack.

The fourth and final defendant in the case, Tyrone Goodman, an 18-year-old Elm Park resident, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. He, too, will receive one and one-third to four years.

Last month, the suspects pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George — Hopson to first-degree robbery; Goodman and Marcano to second-degree robbery, and Cave to attempted first-degree robbery — a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan said yesterday.

According to court documents, the four assailants allegedly converged on Olmedo early in the morning, calling him “an [expletive] Mexican.”

Hopson beat him with a wooden stick and Marcano also had a stick, court papers said. The suspects then stole Olmedo’s wallet, $300 and cell phone, before fleeing.

Olmedo, then 25, suffered a fractured skull and other injuries.

Hopson and Goodman allegedly told police that prior to the assault, they had fought with a group of Hispanics, including Olmedo. The quartet retaliated a few minutes later when they saw Olmedo alone.

Cave and Marcano were sentenced yesterday as youthful offenders, meaning the convictions won’t go on their records. Goodman, likewise, could be sentenced next week as a youthful offender.

http://www.silive.com/northshore/index.ssf/2011/01/2_more_north_shore_teens_go_be.html

Gov. Paterson’s Mixed Messages on New York Deportations

by Seth Freed Wessler
Colorlines
December 8 2010

New York Gov. David Paterson announced the pardons of six New Yorkers on Monday, all of whom were to be deported as a result of old criminal convictions. The move was seen as a high-profile swipe at federal immigration policy, which has become increasingly indiscriminate in deportations. In May, the governor announced the creation of a pardon panel to consider the cases of non-citizens with convictions. The five-person panel selected just six cases from a list of 1,100 petitions for clemency, according to the New York Times. More pardons are expected before the end of the year.

Patterson told the Times the panel is necessary because, “Federal immigration laws are often inflexible, arbitrarily applied and excessively harsh, resulting in the deportation of individuals who have paid the price for their crimes and are now making positive contributions to our society. These pardons represent an attempt to achieve fairness and justice.”

Yet, the decision to pardon the six, who included a financial administrator at the City University of New York, is overshadowed by another of the governor’s decisions, also in May, to sign onto the Secure Communities program. The program, which the federal government claims targets only serious criminal offenders by checking the immigration status of anyone booked into participating local jails, has resulted in mostly the deportation of non-citizens, tens of thousands of them, with minor criminal convictions or no convictions at all.

On Thursday of this week, advocates will rally at 11 am. in front of Gov. Paterson’s New York City office, to demand the program be terminated. Arguments against Secure Communities closely echo the statements made by Paterson in explaining his pardons, mainly, that the deportation system is excessively harsh and arbitrary.

People with old criminal convictions who have long ago served jail time are vulnerable to deportation now because of a broadly punitive set of immigration laws that were passed in 1996. Last year, ColorLines reported the story of Calvin James, whom we met while reporting from Jamaica. James was convicted of a drug crime decades ago. In the time that followed, he met his girlfriend and the couple had a child. But after living together for several years, ICE arrived at his door, arrested him and placed him in a detention center. He was soon deported to Jamaica, a place he had not seen since he was a little boy when he immigrated to New York with his mother. He is now permanently separated from his son and his partner.

The 1996 laws have also spurred the deportations of an unknown number of people who have no conviction at all. In October, ColorLines reported on the story of Shahed Hossain, a young man who’d lived in Texas since the age of 11 after immigrating there from Bangladesh with his parents. Hossain had a green card and was soon to be a citizen, but he was removed from his home over a trifle: He accidentally told a border guard he was a citizen rather than a permanent resident, thus triggering automatic deportation based on a clause of the 1996 law. The story reveals just how indiscriminate the expanding deportation dragnet has become.

Secure Communities is among the most roughshod elements in the deportation machine. Paterson’s announcement to pardon six New Yorkers aims, he says, to address the “shortcomings in our federal immigration laws relating to deportation.” But if the governor is at all serious about that, he’d have little choice to end the Secure Communities program in New York before leaving office. The pardons are simply too small an act in the face of an expanding and unchecked deportation system.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/new_york_governor_david_patterson.html

Study challenges Secured Communities motivations

By Maria Michalos
Washington Square News
Published November 26, 2010

It shouldn't come as a surprise to most that the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is to do just as its title suggests, to protect our nation from the hands of potential harm. For the federal government, that seems to necessitate instating an ambiguous program devoted to deporting illegal immigrants held on criminal charges, regardless of the nature of the crime committed.

New York State is in the midst of a debate over the controversial federal immigration enforcement program known as Secured Communities — a program that requires local police to send fingerprints of every individual arrested to the Department of Homeland Security. A rise in deportations over the last year can be attributed to the program that has insidiously found its way into over 34 states and 700 jurisdictions.

While Homeland Security contends that the program's function is to target "dangerous" criminals, a study conducted by the research group Justice Strategies has determined otherwise. The study discovered no association between the level of the offense committed and the targeted deportation at New York City's primary jail on Rikers Island.

According to the study, more than a quarter of the people who are tagged for deportation by Homeland Security agents have misdemeanors or violations, quite the antithesis to the pretense provided to the public. The rational question that remains posed, and left conveniently unanswered by agents, is why the misleading facts? Is it unreasonable to expect honesty from those who are supposedly meant to foster security?

Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano has declared that the program will become a requirement for the entire nation by 2013, which posits yet another unanswered question: Why is Homeland Security trying to embed itself in every jail throughout the country? The inability to connect loose ends leaves one to wonder if this system is another ploy to gather immigrants who haven't necessarily committed a serious crime so as to deport them quickly and quietly. In fact, these alleged "criminals" get identified in less than 24 hours, which leaves little room for a thorough investigation, if any.

The method of deciding whom federal authorities deport is, essentially, arbitrary. Aarti Shahani of Justice Strategies confirms this notion by stating that the concluding data "suggests that there's not a system in place to identify people based on risk, and ICE is simply tagging people who show up." Immigration officers at Rikers Island place "detainers" on inmates without citizenship; according to The New York Times, these detainers enable jail officials to retain inmates for 48 hours beyond their expected release, when they are then placed into the hands of immigration custody who will capriciously choose to deport these "felons."

Of the 1,215 noncitizen inmates at Rikers who were charged with drug related offenses, Justice Strategies determined that 45 percent were given detainers and 34 percent of those with the gravest allegations were given detainers, a confounding analysis given that inmates lack any reason to raise bail, because they will inevitably find themselves wrapped in the arms of immigration authorities.

The impact of instating such a program in New York State, home to more than three million immigrants, will unequivocally be cumbersome, and potentially compromise our immigrant-friendly image. What is even more troubling is the uncertainty of the program itself and its underlying motives. Federal authorities have yet to come to an agreement on whether the program will be mandatory, rendering a dubious impression. Governor David Paterson may have agreed on the program's implementation, but it's up to whistle blowers and city council members to convince the governor of Secure Communities' implications.

Maria Michalos is a contributing columnist. E-mail responses to opinion@nyunews.com.

http://nyunews.com/opinion/2010/11/26/26michalos/

Governor Called On to Ease Deportation Fears

By Tara MacIsaac
The Epoch Times
Nov 18, 2010

NEW YORK—Gov. David Paterson’s immigration policies have been a double-edged sword for New York’s millions of immigrants.

On May 3, Paterson took a trailblazing step in creating the first-ever Immigrant Pardon Board, which aimed to protect immigrants from wrongful deportation. A week later, the governor signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to participate in the federal government’s Secure Communities Initiative that many immigrant advocates say will dramatically increase the incidence of wrongful deportation.

Paterson has not made a public statement in response to the continuing pressure from immigrant advocates regarding Secure Communities.

“While we are very cognizant of the civil rights of immigrants, we are equally cognizant of the fact that this state is a premier target for terrorism,” said state official John M. Cahe, according to a WYNC report from last month.

Council members Ydanis Rodriguez, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Daniel Dromm rallied with immigrant advocates in Federal Plaza Wednesday to call on Paterson and his successor Andrew Cuomo to protect the state’s immigrant population.

“Immigration policies such as the Secure Communities program will lead to unjust detentions and deportations that will only make for insecure communities and destabilize our immigrant families,” said Councilman Dromm in a press release.

The aim of Secure Communities is to identify and deport criminals who are illegal immigrants. Local law enforcement will share information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to facilitate this identification. All fingerprints on file will be funneled through the Department of Homeland Security to ICE, leading to the trial and deportation of these law-breaking individuals.

However, illegal immigrants who may have committed no crime or only a minor crime are also getting deported because of the program.

According a WNYC report, ICE records indicate that “79 percent of individuals deported through the Secure Communities program from October 2008 through June 2010 had no criminal record or were arrested for minor offenses like traffic violations.”

“The Department of Homeland Security can inform the local enforcement agency that they should not release that person, even if there are no charges or the charges have been dropped, so that they can start deportation proceedings,” said Angela Fernandez, an immigrant advocate, according to WNYC.

Fears of deportation reign in the immigrant community. Immigrants make up 68 percent of Councilman Dromm’s district, where he said they have come into his office wrought with worry.

“They are terrified of having any involvement with the police, because they are afraid, despite mayoral orders, that if they have any contact with the police department they may be deported. … They are afraid [that] even if they jaywalk, they will be arrested, their fingerprints will be taken, and deportation proceedings will be initiated against them,” said Dromm.

The Immigrant Pardon Board is in place to provide non-citizens with a platform to dispute unjust immigration rulings for criminals. Though Paterson has taken this precaution upon entering into the Secure Communities agreement, immigrant advocates call on him to suspend collaboration with ICE until the program is fine-tuned to only nab illegal immigrants that are a danger to society.

Added to the fear that prevails in the immigrant community is the confusion pervading the enactment of Secure Communities. Paterson's MOA “enables” local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE but does not require such cooperation, explained Nicholas Katz of the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic.

NYPD did not respond to inquiries about the extent of their participation as of press deadline.

Cuomo told La Diaro La Prensa in an interview before the midterm elections that he would “revise” the MOA, said Councilman Rodriguez.

Though immigrant advocates laud Paterson’s efforts in creating the Immigration Pardon Board, they hope he will work to ease their fears by rescinding from the MOA with ICE. They also call on Governor-Elect Cuomo to continue the innovative Immigration Pardon Board and make good on his promise of revising the MOA.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/46101/

Coziness between jails, ICE worries immigrants

By DEEPTI HAJELA
The Associated Press

November 12, 2010

NEW YORK (AP) — Luis Guerra swore he had nothing to do with any murder, that whoever picked him out of a lineup was wrong. Still, he was held at the Rikers Island jail for more than a year before the charges were dropped.

It didn't end there. Federal immigration officials stepped in because Guerra was in the country illegally, brought over from Mexico as a child. He ended up in federal immigration detention in Texas before being allowed to return to Manhattan; he's now waiting to find out whether he'll be shipped to a country he hasn't seen since he was 9.

Merely being at Rikers put him on the radar of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, said Guerra, 21, who's trying to get a college degree while awaiting word on his future. City authorities made "a mistake, and now I'm paying for their mistake," he said. "I was living a normal life before."

Removing illegal immigrants who come in contact with the criminal justice system is a significant part of ICE's nationwide enforcement efforts, but it needs the cooperation of local law enforcement to do so. The relationships that make it work are causing concern not just in New York, but also in places like Arlington County, Va.; Washington, D.C.; Santa Clara County, Calif.; and San Francisco.

Immigrant advocates and some politicians find it disturbing that local officials work with ICE on identifying illegal immigrants. In New York, they say, it puts a city that owes its existence to immigrants in the deportation business and breeds fear among immigrants that any contact with authorities — even reporting crimes — could have severe consequences.

"It is really not a good idea to have large segments of your community be afraid of law enforcement," said Nancy Morawetz, a professor at the New York University School of Law and part of its Immigrant Rights Clinic.

Guerra, testifying at a City Council hearing on the issue Wednesday, said he saw that firsthand after his 2007 arrest on a second-degree murder charge.

"There were people who witnessed the murder, people who could have cleared my name," he said, "but they were afraid to go to the police after they heard what was happening to me with immigration."

ICE has had a presence at New York's main jail complex for at least 15 years. The city Department of Correction says federal regulations require it to comply with things like detainers that ICE puts on inmates it wants custody of.

In the 2010 fiscal year, 3,155 out of 13,386 foreign-born inmates had ICE detainers, and 2,552 of them were released directly into federal custody when they were discharged from Rikers, the department said. Nationwide, about half of the nearly 393,000 people removed from the country in the past year were criminals, according to Homeland Security Department statistics.

"Our top priority is to identify and remove criminal convicted aliens who post a threat to the community and to national security," said ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado.

ICE says the city is obligated to hold anyone the agency has put a detainer on, and Department of Correction spokeswoman Sharman Stein echoed that.

If anything, ICE should be taking more people into the detention and deportation system, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration.

He argued that every illegal immigrant is deportable at any time, and that as it is, ICE exercises discretion in terms of whom it detains. Advocates' fears of a dragnet dragging are overblown, he said.

"I'd be ecstatic if this program worked the way immigrant rights groups fear it does," he said.

The federal agency often comes under fire for its practices, with critics citing issues like transfers of detainees far away from family and friends, and people in the system having limited access to legal resources that could allow them to stay in the country.

The city is going along with that by not exercising more care in who gets turned over to ICE, critics say. It's one thing for people convicted of violent felonies to be turned over, they say; it's another for someone convicted of a misdemeanor or of nothing at all.

That would include Jose Reyes, a legal resident from the Dominican Republic. Arrested in May 2009 after an argument with his ex's new boyfriend, an immigration detainer was put on him because of a misdemeanor drug arrest from 1997. He was able to avoid deportation after that case was reopened and the charge taken down to disorderly conduct.

"They say they're trying to arrest only criminals," he said through a translator at Wednesday's hearing. "It is not fair that people who have these small convictions are deported."

Critics also worry what the future holds as the Secure Communities program, a more extensive immigration enforcement effort not yet in use in New York City, continues to be implemented around the country as part of a national rollout planned by 2013.

There is confusion over whether localities can opt out of the program, under which the fingerprints of anyone arrested for anything from a traffic violation to a violent crime are automatically checked against federal immigration records.

Arlington County, Washington and Santa Clara County voted recently to opt out the program, saying it could lead to racial profiling, and San Francisco officials tried — with no luck — to drop it.

"I understand that the goal of the relationship between ICE and the Department of Correction is one that is based on the goal of public safety, and keeping New York City residents safe from individuals who are criminals and could do harm," Council Speaker Christine Quinn, among New York's most powerful politicians, said Wednesday.

But, she said, "many appropriate concerns have been raised that the way the Department of Correction is working with ICE is in a way that has granted them such latitude that the implementation of this program goes far beyond."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/coziness-between-jails-ice-worries-immigrants-1.2452731

Legal Immigrants Imprisoned and Deported in 'Wide Net' of DOC

By Tara MacIsaac
Epoch Times Staff
Oct 20, 2010

NEW YORK—Several hundred Immigrants marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Tuesday, October 19, to draw attention to Department of Corrections (DOC) practices that they say threaten the freedoms of legal and illegal immigrants alike.

Thousands of immigrants held by the DOC are transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) every year, according to Make the Road New York (MRNY), the immigrant advocacy group that organized the march. Among the 3,000 to 4,000 transferred to detention centers as far away as Texas or Alabama, are not only undocumented immigrants, but also asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking, and those seeking protection under the Violence Against Women Act.

“They’re brought into the jail system and then (corrections officers) do a background check and then they’re suddenly in detention centers. It doesn’t mean that they’re here illegally. We’re estimating that about 35 percent are permanent residents, people who are here legally, who are just foreign born. That’s what they’re using to identify people. … There are cases of U.S. citizens being deported,” said Melissa Lefas, a law student at Cardozo School of Law and a member of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo.

A program run by ICE, Secure Communities, aims to identify criminal aliens for deportation by sharing information between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. A Secure Communities brochure states that “fingerprints submitted during the booking process (are) checked against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records, including immigration status, providing valuable information to accurately identify those in custody.”

The brochure highlights the case of several criminals involved in violent crimes and drug infractions who have been apprehended and deported through the information-sharing program. Lefas, however, maintains that "they’ve got this really wide net and there aren't the mechanisms to really be able to filter through and identify the right people."

Lefas supports legislation that City Council Members Daniel Dromm and Melissa Mark-Viverito are proposing, which calls for the city’s withdrawal from Secure Communities. DOC participates in the program voluntarily and is under no legal obligation to release detainee information, according to the proposal.

The current situation discourages immigrant victims of violence or witnesses of crimes to cooperate with police, say MRNY members. “Domestic violence victims in particular are reluctant to call for vital police assistance if they know the result will be the deportation of their loved one,” said MRNY in a press release.

DOC attorneys did not respond to inquiries and ICE did not respond as of press deadline.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/44575/

Hunger Strikers Pressure Bloomberg to End Deportations

El Diario, News Report
Posted: Jun 04, 2010

NEW YORK -- A group of 40 pro-immigrant, religious and political leaders have gone on a hunger strike to protest cooperation between federal immigration authorities and the state Department of Corrections in New York, reports Spanish-language newspaper El Diario.

According to the strikers, roughly 4,000 people are deported from New York prisons and jails every year, regardless of whether or not they are found guilty of the crime for which they were originally detained.

The protesters have placed blame squarely on the shoulders of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who they accuse of allowing deportations to continue despite being a self-described, pro-immigrant politician. In addition to those activists on hunger strike, a larger group of over 200 religious leaders have asked Bloomberg to stop cooperating with federal immigration officials.

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/06/hunger-strikers-pressure-bloomberg-to-end-deportations.php#

New York Reviews Deportation Policies for Immigrants Facing Minor Criminal Charges

Posted by Alison Bowen and filed under Beyond Borders
Latin American News Dispatch
May 11th, 2010

Immigrants arrested for decades-old or minor violations, like marijuana possession, may soon be less subject to deportation in at least one state.

Last week, New York state officials promised to ease deportations of immigrants who had committed minor violations. The New York Times reported that the state’s governor, David Paterson, plans to grant more pardons to immigrants facing deportation.

Paterson announced he would establish a five-member panel to review deportation cases, particularly for immigrants facing charges of old or minor criminal violations.

For years, advocates have argued that strict immigration laws make even immigrants with legal status vulnerable to deportation for minor violations.

The American Immigration Council’s Immigration Policy Center reported April 26 that 10 percent of immigrants deported each year are legal permanent residents, and 68 percent of these legal residents are deported for minor, non-violent violations.

Laws passed in 1996 created more restrictions on who could remain in the country legally, and violations that previously didn’t flag an immigrant for deportation – like marijuana possession – now ensnare legal residents alongside undocumented immigrants.

Immigrant advocates say that often, immigrants facing misdemeanor charges plead guilty, hoping this will end the situation, but they may not realize – and might not be notified by their lawyers – that pleading guilty affects their immigration status.

This issue arose in April, when the Supreme Court ruled that lawyers must advise their noncitizen clients about the deportation risks of pleading guilty to a crime.

The central character in the case was Jose Padilla, arrested in 2001 with more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana. He was a legal permanent resident who had served in the Vietnam War, according to The New York Times. He pleaded guilty, he said, after his lawyer incorrectly advised him that it would not affect his immigration status.

This year, the Supreme Court also considered a case about whether immigrants with drug possession offenses should be deported without being able to present their cases to an immigration judge.

In an April 30 press release, Amnesty International criticized an immigration reform bill proposed by New York Senator Charles Schumer, expressing concern that it didn’t protect immigrants deported for minor violations. The group stressed that Congress should consider “the amount of time living in the U.S., presence of family members, community ties and employment history.”

http://latindispatch.com/2010/05/11/new-york-reviews-deportation-policies-for-immigrants-facing-minor-criminal-charges/

Teen guilty of manslaughter in NY immigrant death

By FRANK ELTMAN
The Associate Press

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A former high school athlete who plunged a knife into the chest of an Ecuadorean immigrant during a street fight that cast a national spotlight on bias crimes against Hispanics was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime Monday but acquitted of murder.

Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was one of seven teenagers implicated in the November 2008 stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero in what prosecutors say was the culmination of an ongoing campaign of violence targeting Hispanics. The teens alluded to "beaner-hopping" or "Mexican hopping."

Conroy shook his head slightly when the verdict was announced in the packed courtroom. His brother and sister left the courthouse in tears.

"The hunting season is over, at least for now," brother Joselo Lucero said later.

Four other defendants have pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges. Two others are awaiting trial.

Conroy was the only one of the seven charged with murder and manslaughter; prosecutors said he was the one who inflicted the fatal wound in a midnight fight near the Patchogue train station. He faces eight to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 26.

District Attorney Thomas Spota called the verdict fair, but defense attorney William Keahon said he would appeal.

"Unfortunately, in our system of justice, sometimes young men and women are convicted of crimes they did not commit," Keahon said.

Pablo Colle, of Ecuador's National Department of Migration, said Ecuadorean officials weren't satisfied with the verdict. "We did expect to have a charge for murder," he said.

The killing sent shock waves far beyond Long Island's Suffolk County, where animosity over the influx of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America has been on the rise for nearly a decade.

Latino Justice-PRLDEF repeatedly lobbied for a federal investigation of hate crimes on Long Island following the killing. The U.S. Department of Justice announced last fall it would investigate hate crimes and the police response to them.

Conroy, a three-sport athlete at Patchogue-Medford High School, told police he was responsible for the stabbing but took the witness stand to say he had taken the blame for one of his co-defendants — a teenager he had just met earlier that night.

Lucero, 37, was walking with a friend when they were confronted by the teenagers. Prosecutors say the teens were walking around town looking for targets, began yelling ethnic slurs and approached the two men. One of the teens punched Lucero in the face. Lucero and his friend swung their belts in self-defense and began to chase the teens.

Prosecutors said Lucero hit Conroy in the head with the belt and that the teen lost his temper, opened the folding knife and lunged at Lucero's chest.

Conroy, who has been held without bail since his arrest the night of the killing, testified that co-defendant Christopher Overton told him he had stabbed Lucero. He said Overton had told him earlier in the night that he had a burglary conviction in a case where the homeowner was killed and could not afford further trouble with the police.

Overton has pleaded not guilty in the Lucero case. His attorney has derided Conroy's claims as scapegoating by someone facing a long prison term.

Conroy has a swastika tattoo and a lightning bolt tattoo intended to symbolize "white power," according to trial testimony. On the stand, Conroy said he allowed a friend to place the swastika tattoo on his upper thigh on a dare.

Many Hispanics attacked in the days before Lucero's killing were afraid to report the crimes to police, fearing questions about their immigration status, prosecutors said. A September 2009 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization, included the Lucero killing in its decade-long timeline documenting anti-immigrant attacks throughout the country.

Ecuador's ambassador in Washington, Luis Gallegos, said in a statement before the verdict was announced that he hoped an appropriate punishment would be meted out to set an example to others.

"What concerns us in the United States are crimes of hatred and xenophobia, obviously linked to racism," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press before the verdict. "We believe that in the trial of Mr. Lucero, there must be a sentence of the greatest severity so that this kind of crime is not repeated."

The trial was being followed by many in Ecuador.

"We Hispanics are so unsafe when we go elsewhere, and let's hope that everyone involved in that group that mistreats Hispanics is punished," said Nimia Villacreces, a 33-year-old auditor.

Mauricio Trujillo, a 42-year-old lawyer, added: "It's not enough to punish just one youth, because various people were implicated."

After the Lucero killing, Suffolk Police assigned an Ecuador-born officer to work as a liaison between police and the Hispanic community in Patchogue. Some Hispanics say conditions have improved, but advocates have held several news conferences during the trial, contending much work still needs to be done to ease fears.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyOq7mhNW2WjpPOWuAd607cd0xxgD9F68UH80

Immigration reform critical to state's farms

By JAMES S. ALLEN
The Times Union
April 6, 2010

Now that health care reform is on the books, it's time for Congress to get on with immigration reform, especially as it relates to the needs of agriculture.

Specifically, the apple industry, along with most other New York commodity groups, is looking for immediate consideration from Rep. Scott Murphy, D-Glens Falls, and Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, of the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act.

The bill proposes to create a stable guest worker program to allow migrant laborers to continue to work in our orchards and other farms throughout their districts.

We're grateful Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have already signed on to the Senate version of the bill. Several members of New York's House delegation are supporting the measure as well.

But we need Rep. Murphy and Rep. Tonko, who collectively represent close to 3,000 acres of apple orchards. In order to bring this bill to the floor, their support with a signature is critical, especially too since Murphy sits on the House Agriculture Committee.

The legislation restructures and reforms the federal government's H-2A temporary agricultural worker program by substantially streamlining the program's administrative procedures. The program currently is awash in red tape and extremely difficult for farmers to navigate.

Over the past three years, immigration raids throughout the state have left apple growers with tremendous uncertainty over their labor supply. These raids would cease if there were a solid immigration policy coming out of Washington.

The AgJOBS legislation will ensure labor-intensive industries like agriculture have access to a legal and predictable supply of skilled labor. New York farmers do not support illegal workers, they support legal immigration.

Our preference would be to have local folks working in our orchards. And many do. In fact, apple growers are required to recruit local workers as much as possible before we can access foreign workers through the H2A program.

The problem is that there are not enough local workers available to meet the demand in the fall. It takes more than 8,000 workers to harvest more than 3.4 billion apples in New York.

Even in this down economy, most domestic workers are not interested in physical labor and don't have the necessary skills to do the work anyway.

So we are wholly reliant on a work force of foreign laborers to get the apples off the trees each fall.

Meanwhile, consumers have a major stake in this issue. Without immigration reform, many of our farms will go out of business. That will lead to higher food costs, lesser quality and lower regulatory standards. New York farms are the backbone to the local economy across the state.

We urge the public and our members of Congress to support us in this fight. This is a fight to not only protect local food production but also to help preserve the overall agricultural heritage and economy of upstate New York.

James S. Allen is president of the New York Apple Association, Inc. His e-mail address is jimallen@nyapplecountry.com.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=918764&category=OPINION

In Jury Selection for Hate Crime, a Struggle to Find Tolerance

By MANNY FERNANDEZ
The New York Times
March 8, 2010

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Over the last several days, Justice Robert W. Doyle has heard the typical excuses from potential jurors. One woman mentioned her husband’s medical problems. Another woman complained about her back.

But other prospective jurors, seeking to be excused, have brought up larger issues in the judge’s Long Island courtroom.

A young woman said that her father, a mechanic, has a “huge opinion about illegal immigration,” and that his views on the subject have “become my opinions as well.” A man told Justice Doyle that his house was broken into by illegal immigrants while he was sleeping, a fact that he said would affect his ability to be fair and impartial.

And there were those who took a different view, like the bank worker who said that because her husband is of Mexican and Italian descent, she might have difficulty being fair. And the woman who explained that most of the clients in her job are illegal Latino immigrants.

“I don’t think that because of that they should be killed,” she told Justice Doyle.

The prospective jurors were being asked to sit in judgment in the case involving the killing of Marcelo Lucero, a 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant stabbed to death in November 2008 in Patchogue, more than an hour’s drive from Manhattan.

Mr. Lucero was attacked by seven teenagers who, the police said, had made a sport out of assaulting Hispanic men, calling it “beaner hopping.” Mr. Lucero’s death prompted widespread outrage and exposed racial tensions in Patchogue, where a number of Latinos came forward after the attack to describe muggings and assaults that had them living in fear.

Now, as Jeffrey Conroy, 19, becomes the first defendant to go on trial in the case, jury selection has proven difficult, in part because of the views on Latino immigration held by some prospective jurors in Suffolk County.

Last week, after three days of jury selection, about 130 men and women were questioned by the judge, the prosecutor and Mr. Conroy’s defense lawyer here in State Supreme Court. Only five were selected; the rest were excused. On Monday, jury selection continued as another roughly 130 were brought in, and more than a dozen were excused by the end of the day.

Once the jury is seated, Mr. Conroy’s defense may be complicated by the fact that four of the seven teenagers have pleaded guilty and may testify against him. But something larger may be at play: the treatment of immigrants in Suffolk County and the allegations that have been raised that some residents there are biased against them.

At times, the jury selection had the feel of a call-in show on talk radio, as men and women sounded off on illegal immigration, hate crimes, their ethnic background and the American dream. Most of the comments made by potential jurors came in response to questions asked by Justice Doyle in a third-floor courtroom of the criminal courthouse in Riverhead, as Mr. Conroy sat motionless in a dark suit at a table next to his lawyer.

Mr. Conroy is accused of second-degree murder as a hate crime, among other charges, in Mr. Lucero’s death, as well as attempted assault as a hate crime in episodes involving other Hispanic men. He has pleaded not guilty. The other two defendants have pleaded not guilty to a hate crime and other charges and are awaiting trial.

Justice Doyle has said that some of the witnesses who will testify in the trial are illegal immigrants, and the potential witnesses he has named in court include three Hispanic men whom prosecutors say some or all of the young men also attempted to attack. Mr. Lucero, who worked at a dry cleaning store, had lived in the United States for 16 years at the time he was stabbed.

Several potential jurors were let go because they said they had strong views on illegal immigration and would be unable to be fair and impartial. Others were excused because they said they had Hispanic family members, or were Hispanic themselves, and would side with the victim and his family. And still others said they had followed the case in the news, and had already formed an opinion about Mr. Conroy’s guilt or innocence.

On Monday, a Riverhead man in his early 20s told the judge that he grew up in a racist environment in Pennsylvania and felt that he could not be fair. Another man said that a neighbor has been verbally abusing his son’s family for several years because his daughter-in-law is Puerto Rican and Peruvian. Justice Doyle asked him if this would affect his ability to be fair.

“It could,” said the man, who declined to elaborate after being excused.

Those who raised illegal immigration as a factor in their ability to serve chose their words carefully, so as not to condone the crimes for which Mr. Conroy stands accused.

One man, a school bus driver, said his Teamsters union had taken a stand on what he described as a lack of a federal immigration policy, and because some witnesses might be illegal immigrants, this would be a problem for him. Before he was released, the man said that what he has and what he has earned was gained legally, not illegally. “I’m the old-fashioned way,” he told Justice Doyle.

The majority of potential jurors, including the school bus driver, have been white men and women of all ages. Only a handful have been Hispanic, black or Asian.

The economic and social impact that Latino immigration and Hispanic day laborers have had on communities in Suffolk County has long been a polarizing issue. A report released following the death of Mr. Lucero by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups, found that an environment of racial intolerance fueled dozens of attacks on Latinos in the county in the past decade.

“It is a little bit of a glimpse into the soul of a community,” Bruce Barket, a Long Island defense lawyer and a former Nassau County prosecutor, said of the comments being made in this case so far. “These kinds of issues and these kinds of tensions are always present in the courtroom. Race is probably the most dominant unspoken factor in almost every trial.”

Advocates for immigrants and the brother of Mr. Lucero criticized those who said their feelings on illegal immigration prevented them from being impartial. “We’re not talking about any issues about immigration,” Mr. Lucero’s brother, Joselo Lucero, 35, said in an interview. “We’re talking about justice and human rights. This is totally different.”

Several more days of jury selection are expected. Mr. Conroy’s lawyer, William Keahon, said he was not concerned about how long it was taking to select a jury. “It’s going to take us a couple days longer than unusual, but there’s no doubt that the result will be a fair and impartial jury to both sides,” he said.

There were times during the jury selection process when illegal immigration did not seem to be such a daunting issue. Last week, Megan O’Donnell, an assistant district attorney, asked prospective jurors sitting in the jury box if the victim’s immigration status mattered to them, and all assured her that it did not matter.

Carla Panetta, 60, a Patchogue mother of four and grandmother of six, was among a large group of prospective jurors that Justice Doyle excused at the end of the day on Thursday. Outside the courthouse, she said that illegal immigration had no bearing on the case, and that even though her 14-year-old grandson is Hispanic, she would have had no problem being objective. She criticized those prospective jurors who said they could not be fair because of their views on illegal immigration.

“I don’t care whether the man was legal, illegal, white, black, purple or green,” she said outside the courthouse. “There was a murder. It almost seemed like the poor victim was the one going on trial.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/nyregion/09patchogue.html?hpw

Workers’ rights group decries arrests of immigrants at Stewart

December 24, 2009
Mid-Hudson News Network

NEWBURGH – THE WORKERS’ Rights Law Center of New York, based in Kingston, and the Hudson Valley Community Coalition in White Plains have “strongly condemned” last week’s arrests of a dozen illegal immigrants who worked for Empire Warehouse Solutions at Stewart International Airport.

The workers were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on charges of using fake identification, including Social Security cards.

“These immigrants, like so many across the state, were simply trying to put in a hard day’s work and feed their families,” said Milan Bhatt, executive director of the Workers’ Rights Law Center.

Bhatt also took issue with comments by law-enforcement officials that the 12 workers have posed security risks because they had clearance to enter operations areas as Stewart. “They were there to do whatever they could to support their employer — to work hard to take care of their families like the rest of us,” he said.

The 12 suspects, all from Latin American countries, are not suspected of being part of any broader criminal activity, authorities said last week.

Also, state police Maj. Edward Raso said the arrested workers did not have access to the New York Air National Guard base across the airport grounds from the warehouse. The Air Guard’s 105th Airlift Wing flies C-5A Galaxy cargo planes from the base.

The suspects were arraigned on charges of falsifying business records and were sent to the Orange County Jail. Most were being held for deportation to their home countries.

Authorities said the investigation was initiated by an airport employee who questioned suspicious documents that were presented to him.

Michael Gourlay, president of Empire Warehouse Solutions, which is based in Schenectady, said all 12 suspects underwent Transportation Security Administration background checks before being hired, but a TSA spokeswoman said only nine of the 12 had security badges issued by the airport as a “trusted agent” of the federal agency. Of the other three, two had badge applications pending and one had his application rejected, the spokeswoman said.

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/12/24/news/doc4b32f8aa318fc153732503.txt

CVS work comes to temporary halt after arrest of 7 undocumented workers

By G. Jeffrey Aaron
November 13, 2009
Ithaca Journal

Work at the $88 million CVS warehouse project in the town of Chemung can continue today, but it came to a temporary halt Friday after the arrest of seven undocumented workers from Mexico.

By Friday evening, the subcontractor who hired the workers -- Walker Electric of Nashville, Tenn., -- was suspended indefinitely from the job site by contractor Gray Construction of Lexington, Ky., and the town of Chemung agreed to lift a stop-work order, said County Executive Tom Santulli.

Gray Construction also agreed Friday afternoon to hire seven local electricians to replace the seven who were arrested, Santulli and town of Chemung Supervisor George Richter said.

At a press conference held earlier Friday, Santulli and county Sheriff Christopher Moss said the sheriff's office will regularly monitor the site to ensure all who work there have the proper documentation.

Local labor union officials have complained since summer about how few local union workers have been on the job site. They hope the news of the arrests leads to a change.

"I have about 60 guys who are out of work and I'd like to talk with the county executive, CVS and Gray Construction to see about getting local guys working," said Ernie Hartman, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 139 in Elmira Heights.

CVS, of Woonsocket, R.I., and Gray Construction did not return this newspaper's calls for comment on Friday.

Three-month probe

The arrests, which took place Thursday evening, were the result of a three-month investigation into reports of undocumented workers at the construction site.

Those arrested and charged with federal administrative immigration violations were: Carlos Javier Viveros, 38, of Mississippi; Jose Cristian Viveros, 23, of Mississippi; Martin Viveros, 35, of Georgia; Rodolfo Viveros Leon, 29, of Florida; Sergio Viveros Leon, 28, of Mississippi; Marcos A. Malpica, 30, of Tennessee and Rafael Viveros Leon, 24, of Georgia.

Moss said he unsure if those arrested were related, although he believed two were brothers.

He also said a federal weapons charge was lodged against Jose Viveros after a shotgun was discovered in the Waverly area apartment where the men were staying.

Santulli said county officials received complaints about illegal workers at the CVS site as early as August, but were unable to verify them.

Santulli also said CVS and Gray Construction were told about the concerns, but they assured him proper procedures were in place to screen workers at the site.

Sheriff's deputies went to the site and ran license plate checks and found nothing amiss. But Moss said his officers kept an eye on certain vehicles and workers.

At about 5 p.m. Thursday, near Exit 59A of state Route 17, deputies pulled over two Dodge minivans carrying the seven Mexican workers, charged the men and notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the arrests.

All seven were transported to the Buffalo Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for possible deportation proceedings.

On Friday morning, Richter said town of Chemung code officer and building inspector Larry Lanterman met with Gray Construction officials and shut down the project.

Richter, who noted that Gray officials were very cooperative, said the town building inspector also enforces state building codes that require contractors to comply with state labor laws, including Worker's Compensation statutes that mandate legal documentation of workers.

Union noticed workers

According to local union officials, up to six subcontractors, with a combined workforce of 100 to 200 workers, are on the project.

Local union representatives began to pay close attention to the Walker Electric workers, Hartman said. And not soon after, the crew was using a different gate at the work site.

Hartman wants a full investigation into the work status of all out-of-area workers at the site.

"If the sheriff's department has a presence there, then we don't have to worry about raids on Route 17," said Hartman.

"We're just trying to get local people jobs and it's unfortunate it takes something like this to get them to open their eyes."

Push for local jobs

Hartman also said the local tradesmen will continue to monitor the CVS worksite and push for a local workers' agreement on future building projects in which the county Industrial Development Agency is involved.

The IDA is responsible for bringing electricity, water and sewer lines to the CVS project site, off White Wagon Road, as well as improvements to the road and the state Route 17 interchange nearby.

The total cost for the infrastructure work is about $6.2 million. The bulk of the money, about $3 million, is for electrical work.

The concept of more local jobs has the support of Chemung County Legislator Andrew Patros, who has raised the issue at meetings of the county legislature.

"This points to some of the issues we face with out-of-state companies and the easiest thing to do is hire locally," said Patros.

"In this case, that's seven local people that could have been employed."

County officials have been reluctant to impose a local labor mandate on building projects handled by the IDA, out of concern for interfering with the competitive bidding process. However, such an agreement was put in place for the recently approved Schlumberger Ltd. construction project under way at The Holding Point in Horseheads, county and union officials said.

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091113/NEWS01/911130375/1124

Editorial Notebook: The Spots and the Stems

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
New York Times Editorial
September 20, 2009

Apple picking started last week in Wayne County, in upstate New York, slightly later than usual because of a cool, wet summer.

Men and women moved into the orchards, stooping and reaching, twisting and pulling, filling wooden bins with perfect fruit, avoiding spots and bruises, keeping stems intact, because shoppers want stems on their apples but not spots.

It was the usual harvest race, under constant threat of disruption from bad weather and the Border Patrol. Its mission is to stop incursions from Canada, but its main targets these days have come up from Mexico. People in Wayne County, east of Rochester, know them as neighbors and friends, and as workers who do the hard labor that keeps farms alive.

Every apple you eat has been picked by hand, by someone like Tomás, who used to live in a trailer near Sodus, with his wife, son and two daughters. Not long ago he was picked up. He was here without papers. He left the country on his own. Now he’s somewhere in Mexico, maybe trying to come back in. His wife hasn’t heard from him in weeks. She’s surviving by helping the boss with payroll, but soon she’ll have to move out; the trailer has no heat.

Her fate is not the concern of federal agents. Their job is to hunt fugitives, but their net is wide. People in Sodus call it racial profiling, and tell of harmless neighbors who have been taken away: A young man on a bicycle. Fifteen people in a trailer park. A man on the steps of a Catholic church.

New York’s apple harvest needs 8,000 workers for eight weeks. No Americans will do the work, so it goes to Latino immigrants. Their lives are tuned to crops and seasons: oranges in Florida, melons in North Carolina, blueberries in Maine, then apples in New York.

It should work brilliantly. But ever since 9/11, more federal agents than ever roam the northern border, collecting non-terrorists. Farmers scramble for workers. Workers toil and cower. As they are taken away, an economy ebbs. Restaurants and shops worry about closing. It’s a slow disaster.

So Latino families can at least worship in peace, a few Sodus citizens stand weekly vigil outside Spanish Mass at the Church of the Epiphany, to keep the Border Patrol away. Last Sunday I saw about 60 people in pews that could hold three times that number. When Mass was over, the families filed out.

On the lawn outside they met five women from the vigil, wearing long dresses and shawls, and singing:

When you exploit your workers, you save a buck or two.

But immigrants are people, and they have feelings, too.

The families watched solemnly, unaccustomed to this odd but earnest activism, but welcoming the gesture of friendship. It was strange scene, but not as strange as a country fighting against itself, sorting through its humans, checking for ones to toss out, like apples with spots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20sun3.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Hiding in Plain Sight

Hiding in Plain Sight
For an undocumented family, life in a sanctuary city is feeling less safe all the time.
By Jeff Coplon
Published Nov 30, 2008
The New York Magazine

Sitting in his fluorescent-lit kitchen in Sunset Park, Alberto heard the bulletin over Univision: Four days after Barack Obama’s triumph, seven Suffolk County high-school students drove off on a ritual they called “beaner jumping.” Toward midnight by the Patchogue train station they found their man: Marcelo Lucero, 38, a soft-eyed Ecuadoran who worked at a dry cleaner’s, sent pay home to his sick mother, and draped an American flag around his TV set. The teenagers circled Lucero (“like a lynch mob,” a prosecutor said), punched him in the face, stabbed him in the chest, and left him to die in a driveway.

Sixty miles west, Alberto’s thick brows narrowed as he absorbed the news. “It’s like they’re taking target practice. Like they’re hunting an animal.” He winced at the thought of it. “You always think that this could happen to you,” he said. “It could happen anywhere.”

Alberto came to Brooklyn nine years ago from Puebla, followed soon after by his wife, Luisa, and their two children: Berto, a tall and stocky 11-year-old, and Juliana, a year younger and half her brother’s size. In their experience, New York had borne out its reputation as a so-called sanctuary city; diversity made it easy to blend in here. Mexicans accounted for only 21 percent of the half-million or so undocumented immigrants in New York (as compared with 56 percent nationally), according to Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, with the balance divided mainly among South and East Asians (23 percent), Caribbeans (22 percent), other Latin Americans (19 percent), and Europeans (8 percent). Embedded in multiethnic neighborhoods like Bushwick and Astoria, these newcomers paid taxes and joined church groups; they went out on their senior proms. And city officials recognized their value better than most. “Although they broke the law,” Mayor Bloomberg told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, “our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported.”

Of late, though, a storm surge has lapped at the sanctuary’s door. Within the last fourteen months, Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue driver’s licenses to the undocumented unraveled in a frenzy of xenophobia. Eight miles north of Patchogue, in Farmingville, a hit-and-run driver hopped a sidewalk and struck a day laborer. In September, the sixth Guatemalan in eight years turned up dead in woodsy Mount Kisco—three of them confirmed homicides, and one involving a town cop acquitted of manslaughter. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly blame the “alien invasion” for a grab bag of crises: failing schools, fantasy crime waves, outbreaks of leprosy, looming terrorist attacks. Hard-line politicians—like Suffolk County executive Steve Levy—match them stride for stride.

Raids have spiked in suburb and city alike since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation Return to Sender two years ago. In October 2007, in a sting involving the Queens D.A.’s office and the NYPD, a dragnet was thrown over Roosevelt Avenue in polyglot Jackson Heights. Witnesses saw ICE agents scoop up dozens of fenced-in bystanders who looked Latino. Two months later, a unionization vote failed at the Fresh Direct warehouse in Long Island City after a suspiciously timed ICE audit drove hundreds from their jobs.

http://nymag.com/news/features/52589/

A Death in Patchogue

A Death in Patchogue
November 11, 2008
New York Times Editorial

Marcello Lucero was killed late Saturday night near the commuter railroad station in Patchogue, N.Y., a middle-class village in central Long Island. He was beaten and stabbed. The friend who crouched beside him in a parking lot as he lay dying, soaked in blood, said Mr. Lucero, who was 37, had come to the United States 16 years ago from Ecuador.

The police arrested seven teenage boys, who they said had driven into the village from out of town looking for Latinos to beat up. The police said the mob cornered Mr. Lucero and another man, who escaped and later identified the suspects to the police. A prosecutor at the arraignment on Monday quoted the young men as having said: “Let’s go find some Mexicans.” They have pleaded not guilty.

The county executive, Steve Levy, quickly issued a news release denouncing this latest apparent hate crime in Suffolk County. That should be the first and least of the actions he and other leaders take.

A possible lynching in a New York suburb should be more than enough to force this country to acknowledge the bitter chill that has overcome Latinos in these days of rage against illegal immigration.

The atmosphere began to darken when Republican politicians decided a few years ago to exploit immigration as a wedge issue. They drafted harsh legislation to criminalize the undocumented.

They cheered as vigilantes streamed to the border to confront the concocted crisis of Spanish-speaking workers sneaking in to steal jobs and spread diseases. Cable personalities and radio talk-show hosts latched on to the issue. Years of effort in Congress to assemble a responsible overhaul of the immigration system failed repeatedly. Its opponents wanted only to demonize and punish the Latino workers on which the country had come to depend.

A campaign of raids and deportations, led by federal agents with help from state and local posses, has become so pervasive that nearly 1 in 10 Latinos, including citizens and legal immigrants, have told of being stopped and asked about their immigration status, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Now that the economy is in free fall, the possibility of scapegoating is deepening Hispanic anxiety.

It is not yet clear how closely connected Mr. Lucero’s murder is to this broad wave of xenophobia. But there is both a message and opportunity here for officials like Mr. Levy, an immigration hard-liner whose relations with his rapidly growing Latino immigrant constituency have been strained by past crises and confrontations.

Deadly violence represents the worst fear that immigrants deal with every day, but it is not the only one. It must be every leader’s task to move beyond easy outrage and take on the difficult job of understanding and defending a community so vulnerable to sudden outbreaks of hostility and terror.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/11tue3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Wayne County activists protest federal raids on migrants

Wayne County activists protest federal raids on migrants
Stephanie Veale
November 6, 2008
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Some community activists in Wayne County believe that raids on local migrant worker families have become incessant and aggressive, but a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement says federal agents are just doing their job.

John and Nancy Ghetner of Sodus, who spoke Wednesday night at the monthly meeting of the Rochester Committee on Latin America, say methods used by immigration agents are dishonest and illegal.

They pointed to a Sept. 28 raid that led to the arrest of 14 people. Two had previous arrest warrants for failing to leave or stay out of the country after deportation, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and 12 were arrested and charged with being in the United States illegally.

John Ghetner criticized the methods he says were used in that raid, as did Sister Luci Romero and Padre Jesus Flores, who work closely with the migrant worker community. They said agents showed up to a mobile home park at 6 a.m. on Sunday dressed in civilian clothing. Sister Luci said the occupants of the homes were too scared not to open the door for the agents, since they were shining flashlights through the windows and pounding on the doors.

"The raids are destroying the community," she said through a translator. "Every (migrant worker) family is missing at least one person. ... They're either back in Mexico, in jail, or somewhere else."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Mike Gilhooly says no houses were broken into and no children were arrested during the Sept. 28 raid. Agents do not need search warrants when they carry out fugitive operations, because they are required to ask permission before entering any building, Gilhooly said.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage