Chicago Tribune article on immigration raids

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-raids-030208-immigrants-illegal-ice,1,3327589.story


Advocates organize to thwart US immigration agents
Phone trees among tools used to thwart federal agents
By Michael Martinez
Tribune staff reporter
2:25 PM CST, March 1, 2008
RESEDA, Calif.
When federal immigration officers visited over three days last October looking for an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, a neighborhood watch kicked into action each time.

Dozens of immigrants, legal and illegal, phoned one another, warning of a raid.

"I called my sister in the building next door and another sister in this building," said Maria, who said she is an illegal immigrant from Mexico and has two children who are U.S.-born citizens. She asked that her full name not be used. "They came and knocked on doors, but no one answered."

Angelita Pascacio, an organizer of Madres Contra Redadas (Mothers Against Raids) who has since moved from the 16-unit apartment building, described the surveillance by immigrants as clumsy at first, but effective. "Thanks to our being organized, they didn't take anyone away," she said.

As the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency beefs up home-visiting teams seeking illegal immigrants, doubling arrests in each of the past two years, migrants and advocates are initiating countermeasures to make legal and illegal immigrants aware of tactics such as not answering their door or remaining silent.

The grass-roots efforts try to help many immigrants who live in fear and ignorance of the law, but an ulterior goal is to stymie agents' door-to-door hunts and thwart "collateral" arrests--illegal immigrants who are discovered accidentally in a questioning for someone else who has absconded from a deportation order.

Immigrants and advocates say they are trying to save families from being cleaved when an illegal immigrant parent is caught and removed from the U.S., leaving behind children or a spouse who are legal residents or citizens.

Dual claims of success

Both sides claim success. While one Mothers Against Raids group in the Los Angeles area boasted of its effectiveness, federal officials say their arrests have finally reduced the population of "fugitive," or deportation-fleeing, immigrants for the first time since ICE was created in 2003.

In addition to block watches and telephone trees, neighbors and activists are videotaping ICE's "fugitive ops" to hold officers accountable; distributing "Know your rights" T-shirts and cards; holding classes in churches; operating hot lines on enforcement actions; and, in one California case, following ICE officers from their office to a community to advise immigrants to reveal only their names.

These street-level activities have increased in the past year because Congress has been unable to pass significant immigration legislation--and apparently won't do so again this year because of the presidential election, experts say.

"When that crashed and burned, I think many communities throughout the country began to focus their attention more on protecting the limited rights that immigrants do have," said Peter Schey, president of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a non-profit legal foundation for immigrants.

While federal officials don't object to free speech, they expressed reservations about efforts to thwart officers and agents. "One assumes they have something to hide," ICE spokeswoman Pat Reilly said.

"They're threatening us that they're going to hamper our ability to enforce the law," she said of the neighborhood watches in particular. "You know, one has to be careful not to aid, abet or harbor people who are illegally in this country, because that's a violation of immigration law. That can be criminal."

The immigration agency's 75 fugitive operations teams --the ones assigned to visit residences--arrested 30,408 illegal immigrants in the fiscal year ending last September, a figure expected to grow with 28 additional teams this year, officials said.

60% caught are fugitives

Almost 40 percent of those arrests were collateral, and the remainder were deportation-fleeing, or fugitive, immigrants, including criminals, Reilly said. For the first time, the backlog of fugitive immigrants fell last fiscal year, to fewer than 595,000, officials said.

The "home raids" have prompted activists in New York to hold more know-your-rights presentations in Mexican, Jamaican and Dominican immigrant communities, said Janis Rosheuvel, executive director of Families for Freedom. Illinois and Florida also have help programs for immigrants, some more aggressive than others.

In Santa Ana, Calif., Guillermo Zavala, 48, a construction worker, followed ICE officers in his car as they left their offices as early as 3:30 a.m. on 15 occasions last year, he said.

Zavala said he didn't interfere with their operations, but he did approach immigrants to advise them not to open their door unless a warrant is slipped under it.

"I go around and create a little bit of a hard time for those that are terrorizing my people--that's what the ICE agents do," said Zavala, who is of Mexican descent. "Once they split a family--because a kid is from here and they deport the mother and the father--that's a violation of human rights, especially when the family is working every day just to survive. That's not a crime."

Immigration officials say they won't be deterred.

"We can wait people out," said Reilly of ICE. "Our folks do this every day. They're very good at figuring out how to find people."