[Ppnews] Police State Raids Against Immigrants

[Political Prisoner News]

Police State Raids Against Immigrants

By Stephen Lendman
http://countercurrents.org/lendman290909.htm

29 September, 2009
Countercurrents.org

In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established its 
largest investigative and enforcement branch - the US Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement arm (ICE) "as a law enforcement agency for the 
post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement authorities against criminal 
and terrorist activities, including the fights against human 
trafficking and smuggling violent transnational gangs and sexual 
predators on children (who are) criminal (and) terrorist" threats to 
the nation.

Along with Muslims, Latinos are its prime targets, often using 
militarized unconstitutional tactics against vulnerable, defenseless 
people. Post-9/11, the Bush administration initiated them, and they 
continue under Obama.

On May 23, 2007, as a senator, Obama said:

"The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. We need 
stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace."

Then on July 8, 2009, Wall Street Journal online writer Cam Simpson 
said on politicalforum.com that:

"The Obama administration (today) said it would move forward with a 
Bush-era program aimed at cracking down on illegal-immigrant workers 
and their employers, just as Republicans in the Senate are pushing 
legislation that would mandate a similar move."

With about 10% of DHS' $55 billion FY 2010 budget, ICE will continue 
targeting Latinos at the border, at work sites, and at their homes 
with some recent examples below:

-- in a September 18 press release, ICE's Miami field office 
announced it "removed" 423 "criminal aliens from 36 countries" in 
August, charging them with drugs traffickin, robbery, and various 
fraudulent activities;

-- on September 11, 23 alleged gang members faced deportation after 
being being arrested in a four-day operation; unmentioned was whether 
any of them are undocumented;

-- on August 25, 15 Latinos were arrested in San Antonio, TX on 
alleged drugs trafficking charges;

-- on August 11, 50 arrests were made on charges of "enter(ing) into 
sham marriages to gain citizenship," including those undocumented and 
their US citizen wives;

-- on July 31, 53 alleged South Florida gang members and associates 
were arrested in a two-day operation; some "were found to be in 
violation of the immigration law (and) were processed for removal 
from the United States;"

-- on July 31, eight San Francisco area alleged gang members and 
associates were seized "during a six hour surge;" some were "foreign 
nationals who are being processed for deportation;"

-- on June 30, 116 alleged gang members, their associates and 
"immigration status violators" were targeted in a five day operation 
in Houston, Beaumont, and Corpus Christi, TX;

-- on June 30 in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, 81 others were 
arrested; foreign-born ones seized were from Mexico, El Salvador, 
Honduras and Laos;

-- on February 25, 28 "illegal workers" were arrested at Yamato 
Engine Specialists in Bellingham, WA during an earlier Obama 
administration raid; and

On February 18, the Washington Post reported that "immigration 
officers had been raiding targets across Prince George's and 
Montgomery counties all night long in search of fugitive and criminal 
immigrants but only netted a handful."

Earlier, a Baltimore ICE supervisor warned about being well behind "a 
Washington-mandated annual quota of 1000 arrests per team" and 
ordered his agents to seize more saying: "I don't care where you get 
more arrests, we need more numbers," and apparently he meant from any 
street corner, work place, or personal residence. An hour later, 24 
Latino men were seized at a nearby 7-Eleven store.

Since established in 2003, Congress appropriated hundreds of millions 
of dollars to let ICE "bring in tens of thousands of immigrants who 
have not evaded a deportation order or committed a crime...." Since 
then, it continued the operation, and, during 2007 and 2008, expanded 
tactical home entries using militarized agents for illegal 
warrantless raids without the consent of their owners.

On July 26, The New York Times reported that:

"Federal immigration squads with shotguns and automatic weapons (are) 
forcing their way into citizens' homes without warrants or lawful 
consent, shoving open doors and climbing through windows in predawn 
darkness, pulling innocent people from their beds, holding groggy 
occupants at gunpoint, (and) taking people away without explanation - 
after invading the wrong house."

"This is a true account of the depths to which the Bush 
administration sank in its twilight, when immigration enforcement was 
ramped up to a feverish extreme." Shamefully, these practices 
continue under Obama.

A recent New York City Cardozo School of Law Immigration Justice 
Clinic (IJC) study titled "Constitution on Ice: A Report on 
Immigration Home Raid Operations" examined the problem in New York, 
New Jersey, and Long Island from 2006 - 2008 and included other 
examples in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Georgia and elsewhere. 
Researchers documented a nationwide assault on poor immigrant 
workers, the great majority being Latinos. Many times ICE broke into 
homes, seizing all occupants "without legal basis."

IJC discovered a systematic pattern of misconduct "suggest(ing it) 
may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond" the areas 
studied. It involves:

-- illegal ICE agent entries with no legal authority;

-- illegally arresting people randomly, including innocent ones in 
their bedrooms;

-- conducting lawless searches and seizures in violation of the 
Fourth Amendment; and

-- making arrests based on ethnicity, race, appearance, and English 
proficiency.

These police state tactics have no place in a democracy, yet ICE (on 
its web site) lists dozens of monthly swat-type raids, often against 
innocent people and their families in their homes. IJC described them this way:

A typical home raid has "a team of heavily armed ICE agents 
approaching a private residence in the pre-dawn hours, purportedly 
seeking an individual believed to have committed some civil 
immigration violation. Agents, armed only with administrative 
warrants, which do not grant them legal authority to enter private 
dwellings, then push their way in when residents answer the door, 
enter through unlocked doors or windows or, in some cases, physically 
break into homes."

All occupants are then seized and interrogated with no legal 
authority, and often "no target is apprehended." These aren't random, 
standard operating procedures in violation of the Fourth Amendment 
that protects citizens and non-citizens alike. The Office of 
Detention and Removal (DRO) conducts them cooperatively with the 
Office of Investigations (OI), charged with investigating national 
security threats, immigration violations, and various other suspected crimes.

Home raid operations include:

-- the National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP) using over 100 
seven-person Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) to target individuals 
for deportation;

-- Operation Cross Check focusing on specific immigrant populations 
or ones working in certain industries like dangerous, low-paying meat 
packing operations, unattractive to workers able to find safer, 
better-paying jobs;

-- Operation Community Shield (OCS) against suspected immigrant gang 
members; and

-- Operation Predator against suspected immigrant sex offenders.

Most often, high priority targets aren't seized. Instead, "collateral 
arrests of mere (suspected) immigration status violators" are made, 
and since 2006 the numbers expanded eight-fold because of primarily 
relying on home raids despite their illegality.

On April 15, 1980 in Payton v. New York, the Supreme Court ruled that 
"The Fourth Amendment....prohibits the police from making a 
warrantless and nonconsenual entry into a suspect's home in order to 
make a routine (criminal or civil) felony arrest." Such "entry....is 
the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed."

Searches are also prohibited. Only an adult resident's consent 
permits either or both. Administrative warrants have no authority, 
and police may only interrogate suspects based on "reasonable 
suspicion" of unlawful activity. "In addition, agents can never rely 
solely on the racial or ethnic appearance or the limited English 
proficiency of an individual to justify a seizure."

DHS' own regulations cover these restrictions, and ICE's Detention 
and Deportation Officer's Field Manual states:

"Warrants of Deportation and Removal are administrative rather than 
criminal, and do not grant the authority to breach doors. Thus 
informed consent must be obtained from the occupant of the residence 
prior to entering."

Nonetheless, "empirical data drawn from ICE's own arrest records 
(obtained by Freedom of Information Act lawsuits) strongly suggest a 
significant and disturbing pattern of (agency) misconduct during home 
raids" during which over 1000 people were seized. The evidence is 
alarming and shows "an unacceptable level of illegal entries" in 
clear violation of the law. In addition, most arrest records indicate 
"no basis for the initial seizure" and a disturbing racial profiling 
pattern against Latinos.

In recent years, defense lawyers increasingly have used suppression 
motions to prevent illegally obtained evidence being used. Earlier, 
they were rare in immigration courts, given the Supreme Court's 
decision in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza (July 5, 1984) that deportation 
proceedings are:

"civil action(s) to determine a person's eligibility to remain in 
this country....not to punish past transgressions. (As such) various 
protections (including suppression motions don't generally) 
apply....in a deportation hearing."

In immigration courts, they're not standard procedures. Since 2006, 
however, they're more often used because the High Court also 
"reasoned that the exclusionary rule may (apply) in immigration 
proceedings for egregious and widespread Fourth Amendment violations" 
even though prevailing in immigration cases remains challenging, 
expensive, and time-consuming.

Political and Local Law Enforcement Concerns

ICE often requests operational help from local police who complain 
that Fourth Amendment violations undermine their central crime 
suppression mission. Political leaders voice similar concerns. New 
York state Senator Kirstin Gillibrand said she was "appalled by some 
of the practices I have heard about," and New Haven Mayor John 
DeStefano said "We won't stand for the violation of constitutional 
rights and racial profiling" in reacting to city raids.

In September 2007, the Nassau County Police Department pulled out of 
an operation it agreed to because of "serious allegations of 
misconduct and malfeasance." In this case, no warrants were used, not 
even administrative ones. ICE fraudulently claimed they weren't 
needed because consent to enter all homes was received. In response, 
Nassau County Police Commissioner, Lawrence Mulvey, said:

"In my 29 years of police work, I have executed countless warrants 
and have sought to enter countless homes. ICE's claim that they 
received 100% complaince with their requests to enter is not credible 
even under the best of circumstances."

Evidence Suggests a National Pattern of Constitutional Violations

Since 2006, lawsuits have been filed against ICE "in every region of 
the country - including two large class actions" and several with 
multiple defendants - all alleging a similar pattern of misconduct.

They pertain to illegally entering private homes as well as other 
misconduct charges. In March 2009, Jimmy Slaughter, an Arizona DHS 
officer, filed suit as well, stating:

"I was at home with my wife when the door bell rang. I opened the 
door and noticed approximately 7 uniformed ICE agents with vests and 
guns....I opened the door to look at the paperwork and five agents 
entered my house....The agents then told my wife to stand in the 
center of 'OUR' living room. Not once did anyone say they had a warrant."

Numerous other instances confirm a national pattern of constitutional 
violations, including:

-- unannounced pre-dawn raids;

-- illegal entries into private homes, at times forcibly with drawn guns;

-- some with administrative warrants; others with none; often with no 
probable cause or consent;

-- unconstitutional searches and seizures;

-- all occupants arrested and interrogated;

-- commonplace use of excessive force; and

-- at times, individuals prevented from calling attorneys.

New York Immigration Judge Noel Brennan ruled on one case saying:

"It is hard for me to fathom a country or a place in which we live in 
which the Government can barge into one's house without authority 
from the Third Branch after a probable cause finding. So for all 
these reasons I find that what is essentially a warrantless search in 
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment....was an egregious violation, 
and therefore I suppress all the evidence and order these proceedings 
terminated."

ICE's 2006 Policy Changes

Three new memoranda issued dramatic enforcement changes that led to 
and facilitated nationwide home raids. Fugitive Operation Team (FOT) 
annual quotas were raised eight-fold (from 125 to 1000 arrests) and 
didn't have to include "criminal aliens."

Another change permitted "collateral" arrests of suspected civil 
immigration status violators. These actions "incentivized the pattern 
of unlawful behavior" and put tremendous pressure on ICE agents to 
deliver. As a result, home raids increased sharply and illegally. 
Wrongful arrests became common. Easy targets were chosen, including 
women and children, often at the expense of real criminals remaining at large.

Immigrants are some of "the most vulnerable of populations in this 
nation's legal system." Most are poor, are unfamiliar with the law, 
and many speak imperfect or limited English. Often those seized have 
no lawyers, are kept in detention, and are then deported summarily 
with no ability to pursue justice. In addition, "traditional civil 
remedies are (often) ineffective deterrents to unlawful ICE home raids."

IJC Policy Recommendations

Major constitutional issues are at stake making everyone potentially 
as vulnerable as immigrants. If authorities can get away with 
constitutional violations against some, they can do it against 
anyone. That said, IJC recommends the following:

-- home raids should only be for criminal arrests or civil ones in 
cases posing real risks to national security or for persons with 
violent criminal records;

-- judicial warrants should be required, not administrative ones;

-- in all cases, "high-level centralized pre-approval in advance of 
any home raid operation" should be required;

-- if judicial warrants aren't obtained, residents' consent should be 
required after informing them "explicitly and clearly" of their right 
to refuse before entry is made;

-- in all pre-dawn and nighttime raids, judicial warrants should be required;

-- in all cases, a high-level supervisor should be involved on site;

-- home raids should be videotaped;

-- ICE agents should be trained on home raid procedures stressing 
compliance with the law at all times;

-- local law enforcement agencies should be apprised of raids and 
their results;

-- they should not be asked to participate in or facilitate lawless activities;

-- emphasis should be on arresting dangerous criminals, not 
collateral ones to meet quotas;

-- arrests should be race, ethnicity, and English proficiency neutral;

-- agent misconduct should be assessed and properly addressed;

-- a clear public complaint procedure should be established; and

-- illegally obtained evidence should be disallowed.

Obama Administration's Immigrant Detention Policies

On August 7, Washington Post writer Spencer Hsu headlined, "Agency 
Plans to Improve Oversight of Immigrant Detention" in saying the 
Obama administration intends to "restructure the nation's 
much-criticized immigration detention system by strengthening federal 
oversight and seeking to standardize conditions in a 32,000-bed 
system now scattered throughout 350 local jails, state prisons and 
contract facilities."

Since 1979, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) has 
represented, protected, and promoted "the rights of low income 
immigrants and their family members (and) earned a national 
reputation as a leading expert on immigration, public benefits, and 
employment laws affecting immigrants and refugees."

It calls US immigrant detention centers "A Broken System" in a recent 
report that presents "the first-ever system-wide look at the federal 
government's compliance with its own standards regulating immigrant 
detention facilities....based on previously unreleased first-hand 
reports of monitoring inspections."

Annually, over 320,000 immigrants are incarcerated. They face 
enormous obstacles challenging their detention, and they're held 
under conditions "as bad as or worse than those faced by imprisoned 
criminals." They're kept in three types of facilities:

-- ICE owned and operated Service Processing Centers (SPCs);

-- privately run Contract Detention Facilities (CDFs); and

-- Intergovernmental Service Agreement Facilities (IGSAs) holding 
two-thirds of detainees - mostly state or county jails plus a small 
number in US Bureau of Prisons or other facilities.

Since 1992, immigrant detentions have increased from 6,259 to 20,000 
in early 2006 to the current 31,000 total - a number that continues 
to grow due to policies discussed above.

NILC learned that detention standards are poorly regulated and that 
government efforts to monitor compliance have been "woefully 
deficient and in need of a major overall." Testimony obtained from 
ICE employees revealed that monitoring is understaffed. Before 
inspections, facilities get at least 30 days notice to fix or cover 
up problems and abuses in advance. Multiple review levels are used, 
yet headquarters rarely requires violations to be corrected and often 
gives facilities "higher overall assessments than the review team's 
original ones."

Systemic problems were also uncovered pertaining to annual review 
procedures and their inadequately identifying and correcting 
noncompliance with acceptable standards. ICE plans to let private 
contractors monitor compliance, yet current failures suggest that new 
management will let a broken system fester and worsen as the 
detention population grows and overcrowded facilities get further stretched.

Despite repeated calls for reform, greater transparency, 
accountability, and better controls, "the government has not taken 
effective measures to ensure that even its nonbinding standards are 
met." It shows an appalling indifference to some of the nation's most 
vulnerable people, no match against a system in place to repress them.

Currently, numerous violations are systemic, serious, and numerous. 
They include:

(1) Visitations by family, lawyers and others

Detainee visitations are severely restricted in violation of clear 
constitutional and statutory rights, especially to free access to 
counsel and close family members.

(2) Recreation

Standards require safe recreational time for physical, mental and 
emotional well-being, including for those with special needs or in 
segregation. Yet they're routinely denied or offered at the 
discretion of facility staff. In addition, programs are way 
inadequate, and many detainees get limited or no access to outdoor 
recreation and a chance to interact with others in a natural environment.

(3) Telephone access

Many facilities didn't comply with standards. Monitoring of 
confidential legal calls was conducted, and restrictive time limits 
were imposed. Numerous facilities also prevented detainees from 
contacting courts, consulates, and getting access to free legal 
service providers.

(4) Access to Legal Material

Immigration law is so complex that good counsel is essential. Yet 
it's expensive and few detainees can afford it. Instead they must 
rely on pro bono help if available or their own resourcefulness. 
Standards require facilities to have a law library and an adequate 
environment to research and prepare legal documents. Yet numerous 
facilities have none, and the limited information on hand is 
inadequate and outdated. Still other facilities require specific 
document requests, even though detainees have no way to know what 
applies to their case.

(5) Group Presentations on Legal Rights

Facilities are required to let authorized attorneys or 
representatives, on written request, conduct immigration law and 
detainee rights presentations. Few do it, and individual counseling 
is also limited.

(6) Correspondence and Other Mail

Most facilities restrict access, monitor incoming and outgoing mail, 
and confiscate items at times. As a result, confidential 
correspondence is compromised. At times, identity documents are 
destroyed. Detainees miss court deadlines, and they're intimidated 
from freely sending and receiving mail.

(7) Administrative and Disciplinary Segregation

It's supposed to be non-punitive isolation to ensure detainee safety 
or facility security. Instead it's done punitively for extended 
periods for even slight rule infractions. Reports also uncovered 
severe privilege restrictions, unsanitary conditions, and poor health 
care protection for segregated detainees and the entire facility population.

(8) Disciplinary Policy

They're supposed to protect detainees from arbitrary disciplinary 
actions with rules conspicuously posted so they're known and can be 
obeyed. Yet most facilities don't do it.

(9) Detainee Handbook

Facilities are required to develop and make available a 
"facility-specific handbook" covering policies, rules, and 
procedures. However, those having them "presented an inaccurate or 
incomplete picture of facility policy" because important information 
was missing, erroneous, incomplete, or inappropriate.

(10) Hold Rooms in Detention Facilities

Physical space requirements and design specifications are supposed to 
be followed and monitored. Yet poor compliance was found, including 
inadequate toilet facilities and detainees held there too long in 
violation of rules requiring a maximum of 12 hours.

(11) Detainee Grievance Procedures

They're to assure detainees can file grievances with uninvolved 
officers without fear of retaliation. Widespread noncompliance was 
found, and most often facilities don't inform detainees of their rights.

(12) Detainee Transfers

Procedures are to protect their security in transit and make a 
traumatic experience easier, especially when to locations remote from 
their families. Transfers also interfere with attorney-client 
relations and harm constitutionally protected due process rights.

(13) Funds and Personal Property

Rules are supposed to safeguard detainees' money and personal 
property with written procedures for receiving, processing, storing, 
and returning them. Evidence showed instances of theft, forfeiture of 
funds and property, and failure to conduct audits to assure none of 
this would happen.

(14) Admission and Release

Official procedures protect the health, safety, and welfare of 
detainees. Most facilities don't do it, including providing proper 
medical care and personal hygiene considerations from admission to 
the time of release.

NILC concluded that "the nation's immigrant detention system is 
broken to its core (and) reveals pervasive and extreme violations of 
the government's own detention standards as well as fundamental 
violations of basic human rights and notions of dignity."

On August 6, the Obama administration announced remedial plans 
amounting only to a cosmetic fix for a dysfunction system. A day 
ahead, The New York Times headlined "US to Reform Policy on Detention 
for Immigrants" and called the effort "an ambitious plan....to 
overhaul the much-criticized way the nation detains immigration 
violators, trying to transform it (into) a 'truly civil detention system.' "

According to ICE Assistant Secretary, John Morton, ICE will create an 
Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP) effective immediately. 
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said:

"This change marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to 
enforce immigration laws smartly and effectively. We are improving 
detention center management to prioritize health, safety and 
uniformity among our facilities while ensuring security, efficiency 
and fiscal responsibility."

What's planned, in fact, is more centralized control and better ways 
to track, process, incarcerate, and/or deport growing numbers of 
undocumented immigrants - not treat them humanely as international 
law and DHS/ICE regulations stipulate.

The Obama administration has expanded and intensified the same harsh 
Bush administration policies, and ICE's August 6 announcement 
signifies nothing more than a cosmetic repackaging of a broken system.

In May, the Obama administration asked Congress for a 30% funding 
increase to expand the controversial Bush administration Secure 
Communities program (begun in December 2007) to identify, arrest, 
incarcerate, and deport undocumented immigrants, mostly Latinos from 
Mexico and Central America.

In declaring "zero tolerance" for undocumented immigrants, he'll also 
keep building the $8 billion virtual border fence, planned for 
hundreds of miles, and will continue the same harsh Bush 
administration policies.

On August 4, the Immigrant Solidarity Nework said that despite early 
pledges that he'd moderate them, Obama "is pursuing an aggressive 
strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies 
significantly on programs started by his predecessor."

They call for "no-nonsense immigration enforcement" followed later in 
the year or early next year by immigration legislation to create a 
new bracero program, among other harsh measures, that immigrant 
rights group oppose. They also include extensive employee paperwork 
audits, an expanded (and much criticized) program to verify worker 
immigration status, and greater cooperation between federal and local 
authorities while rejecting proposals for legally binding rules 
regarding detention center conditions. Non-binding Bush 
administration ones still followed hold no one accountable and let 
detainees be treated harshly under a system described above.

In response to Obama's decision, the National Lawyers Guild's 
Paromita Shah, associate director of its National Immigration 
Project, said the government is "disregard(ing) the plight of the 
hundreds of thousands of immigration detainees" by continuing a 
dysfunctional system. DHS "has demonstrated a disturbing commitment 
to policies that have cost dozens of lives" and shows an appalling 
indifference to the fate of defenseless people.

Highlighting the plight of immigrants, the National Immigrant Justice 
Center's Mary McCarthy described the current detention system as a 
"human rights nightmare. The past administration created this, and 
now we need to dismantle it." Instead, Obama officials plan to make a 
"broken system" worse, then harden it with discriminatory immigration 
reform legislation later in the year. According to University of 
Houston immigration law Professor Michael Olivas, "We literally have 
the worst of all worlds," and nothing is being planned to improve it.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on 
Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at 
lendmanstephen at sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman,blogspot.com and listen to The 
Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday 
at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with 
distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are 
archived for easy listening.








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