ICE

Immigration Raids at Casa Fiesta

Corinne Ramey — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:22:42 -0400

When I was a student at Oberlin College, Casa Fiesta was one of the most popular hangout spots in that small, Midwestern town. Best known for their margaritas, fajitas, and endless supply of free tortilla chips, the Mexican restaurant was always packed with students, townspeople, and professors. It was located just kitty-corner from the house where I lived, so close that sometimes I would always catch a whiff of frying garlic and onions when I walked to and from class.

But that may all have changed at about 11 am this Wednesday, when Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials made a series of arrests at the Casa Fiesta in Oberlin and in Casa Fiestas in Ashland, Fremont, Norwalk, Oregon, Sandusky, Vermillion and Youngstown, Ohio. Overall, 58 immigrants were arrested, although three women were eventually let go. However, they will still be required to appear before a federal immigration judge. According to ICE spokesman Greg Palmore, the immigrants -- all Mexican citizens -- are likely to be deported as soon as possible.

The Casa Fiesta arrests are just the latest in what has become a disturbing pattern of workplace raids by ICE. In Postville, Iowa, this past May, ICE arrested over 400 workers at a kosher meat plant, Agriprocessors, Inc. Other raids have been carried out at restaurants, plants, and workplaces in Texas, California, and across the nation. According to Reuters, "ICE said it had made 949 criminal arrests in worksite-related raids since October 2007, including the arrests of 105 owners, managers, supervisors or human resources employees who face charges ranging from harboring to knowingly hiring illegal aliens."

However, the impact of these raids extends way beyond the 949 arrests. They impact the lives of the immigrants' families, children, and homes. They extend to the children who fear ICE arrests when they go to school, families who are impacted by raids for life, and to the communities where they live. As David Leopold, a Cleveland immigration lawyer, said of the Casa Fiesta workers, "These people are not criminals. The worst thing you can say about them is they came here to feed their families."

Within these communities, both immigrants and non-immigrants have felt the effects of the raids. Restaurants have been shut down and family businesses have closed. Churches have lost their members, and businesses and factories struggle for workers. For example, after the Iowa raids the town struggled to recover:

The tiny northeast town was home to the nation's largest kosher meatpacker, which recently lost nearly half of its work force after a huge raid by immigration officials. The raid sent shockwaves through the town, which has served as a multicultural model...But after the raid, many here are wondering if the future of the town is in jeopardy. Some 2,300 people lived in Postville before the raid; about half of them were Hispanic.

Our country is economically reliant on immigrants. Immigrants pay taxes -- between 1996 and 2003 alone, undocumented immigrants alone contributed nearly $50 billion in taxes -- and contribute to our struggling social security system. They increase consumer demand and generate economic growth. In 2004, the expansion of Hispanic and Asian-American consumer markets was an estimated 12% of America's purchasing power. Raids like the one in Oberlin aren't just bad for the immigrants themselves or for all those college students who will be missing their Mexican food -- immigration raids are bad for the nation as a whole.

ICE's Newest Trick: Deporting High School Valedictorians

Corinne Ramey — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:13:27 -0400

I've written about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials' schoolyard antics before, but the recent news that ICE is planning to deport a California high school valedictorian just affirms my view that these immigration authorities need to get out of the schools. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The valedictorian at Fresno's Bullard High School won't be attending college in the United States this fall because he's scheduled to be deported.
Seventeen-year-old Arthur Mkoyan's 4.0 grade-point average qualified him to enter one of the state's top universities. But he and his mother have been ordered back to Armenia after their last appeal for asylum failed. The family fled from what used to be part of the Soviet Union and has been seeking asylum since 1992.

But, rest assured, ICE shows its nice side once in a while (and if it's not clear, I'm being sarcastic here). As a sort of consolation prize, ICE decided to let Arthur stick around for graduation. According to the article, "A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement says they were given an extension until June 20 so Mkoyan could attend his graduation ceremony."

This past October, the Senate tried to help out students like Arthur, but to no avail. Legislation called the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act -- better know as the DREAM Act -- was introduced in the Senate, but failed a procedural vote. The legislation would have allowed Arthur and approximately 65,000 other undocumented students a path to citizenship and the opportunity for a college education. But unfortunately for Arthur, the legislation failed.

Arthur's story and that of the DREAM Act are just two examples of what amounts to an utterly inconsistent immigration policy. Whether ICE wants to admit it or not, undocumented immigrants are here to stay, and an enforcement-only policy that consists of random deportations just isn't going to cut it. According to a recently-released report by the Public Policy Institute of California, Immigrant Pathways to Legal Permanent Residence: Now and Under a Merit-Based System, more than half of the immigrants in California who have legal permanent resident status were at some point undocumented. This number is 42% for the U.S. as a whole. These immigrants -- both documented and undocumented -- are a vital part of the nation's economy and the fabric of our nation. Deporting smart students like Arthur -- especially considering that such a huge percentage of immigrants eventually receive legal status -- is not only bad for the immigrant community, but for the nation as a whole.

For a slightly happier immigration story, check out this video of DMI scholar and Mexican immigrant Samantha Contreras. Samantha was undocumented when she graduated from high school, and soon realized the hardships associated with being undocumented.. "I learned the reality of my immigration status," she said. "I couldn't work, I couldn't go to college, I couldn't drive, I couldn't even get a Blockbuster membership card." Unlike Arthur's story, Samantha's has a happy ending -- an immigrant rights group helped her to enroll in college, and now she strives for a career in public policy.

Immigration Officials Turn to Schoolyard Bullying

Corinne Ramey — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:04:08 -0400

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in California have stooped to a new, almost unbelievable low: intimidating schoolchildren.

Allow me to state the obvious: schools should be safe. And they should feel safe for the kids, their parents, and the teachers and staff who work there. But for the students at four Oakland schools and Berkley High School on Wednesday, school felt anything but safe. That day, rumors spread throughout the schools that ICE were nearby, possibly planning raids at the schools. Parents text-messaged their kids, warning them that ICE agents were close by so that the undocumented parents couldn't come to the schools to pick their children up. The Berkley school district became so overwhelmed with calls that they set up an automated voice message for parents, which according to the San Francisco Chronicle, stated that the administration would "not allow any child to be taken away from the school." The schools -- including Stonehurst Elementary, where immigration officials were parked across the street -- became a panic scene. Undocumented parents called friends and neighbors, asking them to pick up their children since the parents were afraid to come near the school. ICE spokespeople claimed that their intention was not to raid the schools but rather to make arrests at nearby locations.

Unfortunately, yesterday's Berkley and Oakland cases are not isolated incidents. ICE agents have routinely engaged in intimidation of workers -- both documented and undocumented -- and students. In Tucson, Arizona, a 17-year-old undocumented student at Catalina High Magnet School was arrested for possession of marijuana. Police came to the school, and then called the Border Control. When Border Control found out that the student was undocumented, they deported his father, who returned to Mexico accompanied by his wife and two sons.

The incident created an outrage in the school and community. The teenagers quoted in the Tucson Citizen article about the event state the facts that the adults around were apparently missing. "We think that shouldn't be allowed, because school is where we're supposed to be safe," said 16-year-old Mario Portillo. "No matter if you're an illegal alien, you have the right to an education." Eighteen-year-old Jorge Guerrero asked the somewhat obvious question, "How can we learn if we've scared the Border Patrol is going to come for us?" Araceli Sanchez, 14, said that she knew that the arrested student and his family were undocumented, but said that "he was just another student." And it was up to 14-year-old Ener Lopez to state the really obvious. "We should be safe in school," he said. Following a protest by more than 100 students in front of the Tucson Police Department headquarters, Tucson police have said that they will no longer call U.S. Border Patrol into schools or churches.

More recently, ICE agents in the raided 11 Taqueria El Balazo restaurants in the Bay Area, detaining 63 immigrant workers, including two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old. Given the recent May Day protests by immigrant rights groups, it's unlikely that the timing of the raid was a mere coincidence. As Larisa Casillas, director of Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, said, “I don’t think it is a coincidence that this happened a day after May Day. It wreaks havoc on the community." She sees the target as a strategic one. “When they hit a popular taqueria with a series of raids it sends a message, and our message back is that we need immigration reform. These are people who are working and contributing to the economic health of our region,” she said.

Casillas, I think, hits the nail on the head. Not only are these incidents -- both the school and taqueria raids -- likely part of a purposeful campaign to intimidate the Latino community, but in both cases the intimidation is bad not just for undocumented workers but for their communities at large. School raids cause widespread fear among students, parents, and teachers, and, at the very least, cause serious disruption in the ability of students to learn and feel safe in what should be a guaranteed safe environment. And, as Casillas says, immigrants -- even undocumented ones -- are vital to the economies of the regions where they live.

Immigrants make up 15% of the civilian workforce, and account for half of the labor force growth in the past 10 years, according to a White House report. They pay a significant amount of taxes and produce goods and provide services that are vital to the American middle class. They're vital to keeping our social security system afloat, pumping $6-7 billion a year into the Social Security system, most of which they can't claim because of their immigrant status. According to the same White House report, immigrants increase the earnings and productivity of native-born workers a significant amount, estimated at $37 billion a year. The bottom line is, decent, humane treatment of immigrants isn't just good for immigrants -- it's good for the current and aspiring American middle class.

This kind of conduct by ICE is incredibly destructive to families as well. If schools continue to be a scene of ICE intimidation, undocumented parents are less likely to send their native-born children to school, fearing that raids could result in families being deported. With immigrant families already being hit hard by the current recession and recent crackdowns on undocumented workers -- according to a recent Times article, remittances to Latin America have dropped significantly, yet another sign of the economic squeeze on immigrant families -- worries about deportation because of their kids attending schools are the last thing that immigrant families need.

Notably, it's not all bad. When reading news reports of the raids, in between all the eye-rolling at the fairly inane things that ICE agents said, I've been impressed by how supportive mayors and local officials have been of immigrant rights. "In my view, that is the ugly side of government," Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums said. "No way children should ever be treated to that kind of harassment and fear." Mayor Dellum said that Oakland should be free from raids. "As a sanctuary city," Dellums said, "we're all in unison. We don't want this type of intimidation. Immigrants are human beings, and need to be dealt with respect." Vice Mayor Larry Reid said that local officials were never told about the raids. "ICE just rolls in and tells our police department after the fact," he said. "The students are upset and crying. The school's administration said some of the kids are very shook up."

These local officials get it. When will ICE and the Border Control figure out that schoolyard bullying isn't an effective -- or humane, for that matter -- route to immigration reform?