Posted on 06/06/2007 1:37:02 PM PDT by kik5150
The Department of Homeland Security conducted an early morning raid of undocumented immigrants in New Haven on Wednesday, arresting dozens and prompting city officials to decry what they believe to be federal retaliation for city’s approval Monday of the first-in-the-nation municipal ID program.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made 29 arrests Wednesday, according to a spokeswoman for the agency, and city officials said they expect more arrests over the course of the next two weeks. The officials described it as the first-ever mass arrest of illegal immigrants in recent New Haven history, but the ICE spokeswoman says the arrests are not politically driven and are “routine.”
New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who will be holding a press conference to discuss the arrests later this afternoon, says the federal government arbitrarily targeted New Haven immigrants in response to the Board of Aldermen’s approval of municipal ID cards. The ID cards will be available to all city residents, regardless of their citizenship status, and will allow cardholders to access basic city services and protections.
“We feel that this is too much to be a coincidence, this is a retaliation,” said Jessica Mayorga, DeStefano’s spokeswoman, who called the events a “very big surprise.” “They are attacking us because they failed to integrate immigration reform that worked. That’s not our fault, and we’re doing everything we can to protect the immigrants of New Haven.”
Mayorga said the mayor has not yet devised a response to the events, as the more immediately pressing concern now is the children who will come home to find that their parents have been arrested. Those detained will likely be sent out of state, and a team from Yale Law School has already agreed to represent them.
But Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, said Wednesday’s arrests were nothing out of the ordinary, and she denied any connection between the approval of the ID program and the raids.
“Our Fugitive Operations Team was out today and in New Haven and did make some arrests, but again these are specific arrests,” she said, adding that there are over 20,000 such arrests made throughout the country each year.
Hey DiStephano, stata zeit!
Hey! Wait a minute!
Didn’t New Haven just declare or vote to enact a new policy and ID carding fee schedule for illegal immigrants to live there.?
very suspicious , verrrry suspicious. ;-)
Dogs and Ponies to follow.
Don’t get between a camera and Chertoff and Julie Myers.
City to Feds: We will ignore your laws
Feds to City: We will enforce our laws
Gotta love it.
Pick the children up too and send them off with their "Illegal Parents"!
It can be a new program called "No Child Left Behind"
The feds were simply providing them with access to a national service ... what’s the problem with that?
Why, at that rate the illegal immigrant problem will be fixed in a mere 600 years.
NOTE TO ILLEGALS. just show the ICE your new I.D. Cards! Dummies!
ping
Did you see this article by Ann Coulter? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1846038/posts
Yep! Skeletor has nothing on Schmuck Schumer.
Immigrant-friendly county proposal approved
(http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/415128,dst_immig_605.article)
Orwellian newspeak. Undocumented immigrants = illegal aliens.
Hello, L.A. is the place to come and arrest these guys.
Good catch ...
Thanks for the ping!
OK, so now it’s not just illegal immigrants who flout the laws, but local governments as well? And then they have the gall to complain about enforcement of the laws after they vote to give taxpayer funded services to non-citizen illegal immigrants? Simply amazing...
Oh, and those poor, poor children whose parents have been arrested — that’s what happens to people who break the law — actually this might HELP these children in the long run by seeing that actions have consequences. God only knows if they would’ve received this lesson otherwise.
Should all parents now be allowed to disobey laws without risk of consequence? Seems like that’s what this city official just said. If these parents really cared about the welfare of their children then perhaps they shouldn’t have put them at risk. Likewise to these local officials who allowed these illegal immigrants to work in their community and bypass legal immigration requirements in the first place.
Good article. She should have gone after Bush and co. more. They’re as guilty as Teddy K. on this one.
You know what this proves?
That they CAN do it IF THEY WANT TO!
Do you know what THAT proves?
That they NEVER WANTED TO!
They INTENTIONALLY chose to ignore federal law.
That’s got a name. It’s called “malfeasance of duty”
Methinks other cities will be “less inclined” to pass such things promoting the harboring of illegal aliens.
Nah, extremely unlikely... If it had truly been federal retaliation, they would almost certainly have deported Mayor John DeStefano Jr...
What’s not in the story here:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/006741.html
One of DeStefano’s aides used to head a group that’s collaborating with Mexico; she’s also married to his former campaign manager.
Bttt!
SEND ILLEGAL ALIENS TO NEW HAVEN, CT FLIER !
This flier is in English and Spanish and even provides maps! Send your local illegals to New Haven where the city leaders offer ID, benefits, jobs, bank accounts, and more for illegals. New Haven wants them? Let’s post these fliers and send the illegals to New Haven!
http://www.alipac.us/media/NewHavenCTFinal.PDF
EMPLOYER / REPORT ILLEGALS FLIER
Here is our EMPLOYER FLIER that everyone is talking about! Please print these at home and place them in offices and places of employment across America. These fliers tell employer how to make sure they only hire Americans and legal aliens and they tell employees how to report employers that hire illegal immigrants. This flier is in both English and Spanish.
http://alipac.us/media/ALIPAC-HireLegal.pdf
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