Posted on 06/05/2007 1:57:52 PM PDT by Coleus
Immigration arrests in New Jersey have more than doubled in the last two years, an upswing that is likely to continue with the imminent addition of more agents devoted to arresting and deporting illegal immigrants. In the last year, immigration agents arrested 1,772 people in New Jersey living in the country illegally. The year before -- May 2005 to May 2006 -- they arrested 860.
Of the federal agency's 24 field offices, only one in Los Angeles and another in Miami surpassed the Newark district in the number of arrests. The hike in arrests shows "how seriously we take the issue of trying to locate and take into custody these fugitives," said Scott Weber, field office director in Newark for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The arrests are part of Operation Return to Sender, a two-year-old nationwide program to reduce illegal immigration. Nationally, the number of illegal immigrant arrests also doubled in the same time frame. This summer, ICE plans to add a third enforcement team in the Newark field office. A spokesman wouldn't say how many agents are on a team.
The crackdown comes as local public officials wrestle with what to do about the growing number of illegal immigrants who have settled in their towns. Those who favor strict immigration enforcement praise aggressive efforts such as Operation Return to Sender, but want more. "It's reassuring that the government is doing something," said Gayle Kesselman, a Carlstadt resident and co-chairwoman of New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control. "But it's a drop in the bucket. If the government was serious about enforcing immigration law, they would build a fence along the border, militarize the border and stop the invasion."
Raids criticized
But immigration advocates say the raids are over the top, with teams of more than a dozen agents sometimes showing up to arrest a single person with no known criminal record. They bitterly complain that the raids separate families, often taking away the male breadwinner, leaving behind mothers and children who, in some cases, are U.S. citizens. "These raids are done in front of children, who see their parents handcuffed and taken away," said Daniel Santo-Pietro, head of the Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey. "Most of these people are not criminals; they're people who tried to legalize their status and either because their lawyers didn't do something right, or they were misguided by one of the many scammers who take advantage of immigrants, had their applications denied and were ordered deported.
"The majority are not the criminals and terrorists that ICE says they're targeting with these raids," Santo-Pietro said. "They're laborers, hardworking people." The operation's main mission is to track down illegal immigrants with criminal records, as well as people who have ignored deportation orders and continue to live in the United States. Some 600,000 such immigrants, the majority of whom have no known criminal records, are in federal databases. ICE officials say the number of "absconders" in New Jersey is unclear. "For ICE, removing criminal and fugitive aliens from our streets and neighborhoods is an agency-wide initiative that improves our national security and combats the rise in local crime rates," Bartolome Rodriguez, an ICE official in Newark, said in an April press release announcing the arrest of 217 immigrants during an intensive three-week crackdown.
Operation Return to Sender has included the arrest of foreign nationals in New Jersey who had convictions for assaulting pregnant women, for felony theft, burglary, child abuse, identity theft and drug offenses. But it also has brought that pre-dawn knock on the door by ICE agents for hundreds of non-criminals in the state who see immigration violations that sometimes date more than a decade finally catch up with them. The vast majority -- 1,610 -- of those arrested in the past year had ignored deportation orders or, while in the midst of a raid targeting someone else, were unable to show ICE agents evidence that they were here legally. The rest, 162, had criminal records.
Immigration officials say they cannot turn a blind eye to those who have violated immigration laws. "They're not sweeps, our guys are not coming in in the morning and saying, 'Let's go out and find some people we can arrest today,' " Weber said. "When we find the fugitive, they've already gone through the process; they've had their day in court." Often, he said, agents will come across other illegal immigrants at the home or work site of their original target, and they become "collateral" arrests.
"These are people who know they're in the United States illegally," he said. "We have a responsibility to take action on it when we encounter someone who's here illegally." In Bergen County, Laureana Marte-Organ advises immigrants about their rights in the event of a raid. "People are making awful, heart-wrenching decisions," said Marte-Organ, a Montvale resident who is with the Dominican American Organization. "The husbands are taken, and wives have to decide whether to leave with their kids or stay here and keep the family divided."
But immigration officials say that they are not the culprit. Blaming immigration agents for separating families, said Adam Puharic, a spokesman for ICE in Newark, "unfairly places all responsibility with ICE rather than with the individual. The individuals themselves are making those decisions to break the laws."
Absolutely no problem. Send them all out of the country.
BTW, before we get all warm and fuzzy about increased deportations, let's remember that we've got around 40 million of these people here.
It's going to take a good deal more than is currently being done.
“The majority are not the criminals and terrorists that ICE says they’re targeting with these raids,” Santo-Pietro said. “They’re laborers, hardworking people.”
They’re ILLEGAL!
Uh, other than being in a country illegally that is...
BS, I was watching a cops program a few years back, a trooper pulled over a van full of illegals, the drive had no insurance and a bogus drives license. The trooper radio INS, they told him to let them go.
Whenever I read an article bragging about the increase in arrests of illegals, I can’t help but wonder how many of those arrested are actually deported.
They’re not deported. They all live in Union city and West New York, N.J.
ping
Over a million of them live in Georgia. I have very polite, non-English-speaking neighbors that come and go next door. Literally next door.
I’d luv to see the states take a role.
There is no reason a state couldn’t make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant in the state.
The authority granted to Congress is only to establish uniform rules of naturalization. Not to administer the rules, not to ignore illegal immigration, but to establish uniform rules.
Besides for that fact, remember, the federal government WORKS FOR THE PEOPLE AND THE STATES, not the other way around. If you hire somebody to work for you, and they fail miserably, it’s your own fault if you keep them on the payroll!
Your 1,000,000 illegal aliens are already moving into TN because of the Bill that becomes law on July 1st....
Hopefully Lindsey Graham will get about 999,999 in SC....
For whatever reason, somehow our Congress has turned into a House of Lords and our prez is the reigning Monarch.
(I wonder what it will take to get our govt back?)
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