IMMIGRATION INS Ups the Ante
Bosniak, Lindie
"The U.S.-Mexican border has become a hot spot for armed political unrest and violent drug trafficking. Because of the threats of violence, the U.S. government has put its border S.W.A.T_...
...South Texas legal aid attorney Patrick Hughes reports that children in the Laredo center were placed in isolation cells during a recent chicken pox epidemic...
...In one highly publicized case, a Border Patrolman shot and critically wounded a 12-year-old Mexican boy, Humberto Carrillo Estrada, near San Ysidro, California...
...workers...
...Though the agent claimed that Humberto was going to pelt him with rocks, and was accompanied by other rock-throwers, the child was shot in the back...
...The government claims that its actions are covered by a 1984 Supreme Court decision-INS v. Delgado-in which the court held that a typical facJULYIAUGUST 1985 Lindie Bosniuk, a graduate student in Latin American Studies at U.C...
...In each bar, all patrons were declared under arrest, including U.S...
...At the Laredo, Texas Immigration Processing Center, privately owned and run by Corrections Corporation of America, strip searches of women and girls were routine until May, when INS yielded to public pressure...
...Local newspapers and city councils have condemned the raids, while Hispanic groups report that their offices have been flooded with callers concerned about future roundups...
...This amounts to "a twisted and tortured reading of the facts of the case," according to NLG attorneys Claudia Slovinsky and Marc Van Der Hout, given "the presence of agents blocking each exit, armed with badges, walkie-talkies and guns and roving agents in open view questioning workers and taking some of them away...
...government has put its border S.W.A.T_ team on alert...
...They didn't have to treat me that way," Valdez said later...
...At the detention center in El Centro, California, immigrants are reportedly subjected to hazardous sanitary conditions, forced to remain in unshaded, 1 I10-degree sun for hours at a time and are provided with no recreational or reading materials other than the New Testament...
...On May 23, "Jos6 Valdez" approached the San Francisco laundry plant where he worked sorting dirty linen...
...Mothers and fathers were unexpectedly separated from their children for hours artd sometimes overnight .. Mass confusion regarding the right of the INS to conduct these raids resulted in employers laying off or firing Latino workers...
...BORTAC is trained to use heavy fire power...
...The evidence on which the deportation order is based is almost invariably obtained directly from the immigrant, according to Antonio Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Center For Law and Justice, and INS figures indicate that over 90% of arrested undocumented immigrants in 1983 accepted deportation without a legal fight...
...NCIR Inc...
...Meanwhile, tension at the border continues to rise...
...Known as "Operation Jobs," the highly publicized campaign resulted in over 5,400 arrests nationwide, mostly of Latin Americans...
...One also grabbed him by the hair and hit his head against a laundry truck...
...In an era of high unemployment and economic insecurity, public officials and the media repeatedly Haitians in a Brooklyn class...
...This is the kind of battle we face in the coming years...
...Prison conditions for both children and adults are frequently grim...
...According to Carlos Holguin of the National Center For Immigrants Rights, Inc...
...Though BORTAC has not yet been deployed, the Border Patrol is experiencing an unprecedented expansion in funding and manpower...
...The INS defended the agent's actions, claiming they "were justified to protect his fellow agents from grave bodily harm...
...One such operation occurred on the evening of September 8, 1984, in the small agricultural town of Sanger, in California's San Joaquin Valley...
...But conference participants know they face an uphill struggle...
...Created in a climate of heated public debate over U.S...
...According to Hughes, detention capacity for immigrants and refugees in Texas has increased fifLatin American immigrants worship in a Manhattan church...
...offering U.S...
...There have been at least eight border shootings between immigration agents and Mexican nationals in 1985 alone...
...The Crime of Being Hispanic Though largely unfounded, the restrictionists' charges have provided the backdrop for recent assaults on the rights of the undocumented...
...Thousands of Children Held For immigrants who do end up in INS custody, conditions can be both abusive and dangerous...
...CBS News has learned [that] for almost a year the U.S...
...But beyond selectively enforcing immigration laws against Latinos, the raids raised other concerns...
...But even if the courts declare that INS's apprehension techniques are illegal, another 1984 Supreme Court decision REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 10could render such rulings virtually useless for those facing deportation...
...Immigrants are advised of their right to remain silent when approached by immigration officials, and to demand a deportation hearing if taken into custody...
...An INS agent confronted him at the door, demanding to see his immigration papers...
...Several California civil rights, church and farmworker organizations have charged the Border Patrol with "herding" farmworkers toward waterways, forcing them to choose between surrender or an attempt to swim across...
...He also cited two occasions that might have justified deployment of the patrol: the recent riots over alleged electoral fraud in Piedras Negras, Mexico, which led some 100 Mexican citizens to flee across the border, and the incidents surrounding the death of a U.S...
...Border Patrol has secretly been training a special 100-man unit...
...At the request of the California groups, the Organization of American States initiated an investigation into the charges late last year...
...CRLA notes that virtually all the sweeps have occurred on the Saturday evening after the harvest has ended...
...In INS v. L6pez-Menoza, the court held that information obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment by INS is not excludable as evidence from deportation proceedings...
...MALDEF reports that in the San Francisco Bay Area, 462 of the 467 persons arrested were of Hispanic origin, a figure highly disproportionate to the area's estimated ethnic break-down of undocumented workers...
...Six U.S...
...dozens, if not hundreds, of reports were made concerning INS violations of [the workers'] rights...
...Two officers ran up to Valdez, grabbed his arms and twisted them behind his back to handcuff him...
...conducting raids on institutions acting as advocates for the Latino community...
...When MALDEF representatives asked Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Alan Nelson to define an "immigration emergency," he stated only that BORTAC would be activated "when lives and property are threatened...
...Most were held for several hours, denied permission to use the bathroom or to move in any manner...
...Berkeley, will be entering law school this fall...
...Several immigrant workers have also been killed during highspeed highway chases by the Border Patrol...
...Legal challenges to many of these practices are underway...
...The Police Chiefs of San Jos6 and Santa Ana, California have publicly announced a policy of non-co-operation with INS and Border Patrol officials, because, according to the Santa Ana Police Department, "the raids jeopardize community relations...
...Although the stated objective of the sweep was to enforce alcohol, drug and prostitution laws, 295 people "were herded into four buses and transported back to Mexico," according to the Herald News of Fontana, California...
...jobs to Mexicans in an undercover operation known as "cold line...
...Rights advocates argue that as a result, immigrants are afraid to seek medical care and other forms of basic assistance for which they are eligible...
...This and similar sweeps throughout California and Florida have provoked strong public outrage...
...The grossly overcrowded facility mainly confines Haitians and Central Americans...
...Drug Enforcement Agency official in Mexico...
...charge the estimated 2 to 6 million undocumented workers-most of Latin American origin-with taking jobs from U.S...
...Over the past four years, supporters of a series of legislative packages designed to crack down on undocumented immigrants (best known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill...
...In addition, preemptive defense is being organized through "know-your-rights" campaigns around the county...
...INS has also extended its raids beyond the worksite to include whole communities, enlisting the assistance of other law enforcement agencies to do the job...
...INS has deported scores of children to Mexico alone, while close to 2,000 Central American children around the country are being held in immigration detention facilities, some for months at a time...
...You are very nervous," said the agent, who yelled back into the plant for assistance...
...The court ruled that workers had willingly complied with the questioning and were free to leave...
...It is an old story but one made all the more distasteful by the new tactic of masking the raids in the garb of crime-busting," said attorney Steve Teixeira...
...In the Delgado case, as in most raids, INS agents surrounded the factory buildings, blocked all exits and questioned workers inside about their immigration status...
...Though the case represents another major setback, attorneys argue that legal means, though limited, do remain for protecting the undocumented and challenging INS conduct...
...Officers came in like Hitler's police or the police in South Africa," said one tavern owner...
...9tory raid did not violate the workers' constitutional rights...
...CBS News Anchor Dan Rather issued this report on March 8. But BORTAC's operations were first uncovered by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) which learned last November that the elite patrol is being trained to deal with "immigration emergencies" which "pose a lifethreatening situation to officers or citizens...
...Attorneys for CRLA, which is handling the suit, charge that "the Mexican immigrant is "the 'new Jew,' the victim of a government hysteria that ends up costing everyone their rights...
...Roundups Lead to Drownings Workplace raids have had much more serious consequences...
...The National Consultation on Immigrants' and Refugees' Rights...
...Miami immigrant and refugee rights groups charge that rapes and beatings are common at the nearby Krome Detention Center, and medical care there is inadequate...
...Effort to Deny Social Services A most hotly debated aspect of these operations and other recent INS enforcement practices is the agency's increasing collaboration with other law enforcement bodies...
...In recent months, INS has sought to buttress its own deteriorating profile and minimize costs to the employers by instituting an immigrant arrest program dubbed "Operation Co-operation...
...One hundred and fifty law enforcement officials from the INS, the Fresno County Sheriff's Department, the Sanger and Fresno Police departments, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the U.S...
...The San Diego District Attorney's office announced it will not prosecute the agent...
...held in Los Angeles April 26-27...
...INS has extended the scope of its enforcement activities nationally to include entering homes without warrants...
...Co-operative employers are able to significantly reduce work-place disruption, while those who decline to co-operate face surprise sweeps in the future...
...California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) reports that at least 14 farmworkers have drowned in the last decade during Border Patrol roundup operations...
...citizens, depleting public resources and threatening national security...
...Sometimes INS requests employer consent before interviewing employees...
...immigration policy, BORTAC is only one facet of a growing government campaign to defend the nation against "the silent invasion...
...I am a simple, honest worker, not a drug trafficker or an assassin...
...making arrests at soup lines...
...And according to recent polls, U.S...
...and sweeping worksites where undocumented employees are attempting to organize...
...Groups fighting the raid.-or "area control surveys"-say these practices deny workers the right to legal due process and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, as protected under the Fifth and Fourth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution...
...INS quietly notifies employers of an impending sweep, allowing them time to find legal replacements for undocumented employees before moving on the plant...
...This elite group is known as the Border Patrol Tactical Team...
...Last March, Chicago Mayor Harold Washington issued an Executive Order declaring that his city will cease to co-operate with federal immigration authorities...
...have framed their as yet unsuccessful campaign in these same terms...
...This episode is only the latest in a series of workplace raids dating from April 1982, when the INS conducted a week-long offensive designed to "remove illegal aliens from the jobs that would be attractive to unemployed U.S...
...The Civil Rights Act of 1964 [was not] introduced and passed simply due to the good hearts of a few congressmen," says consultation organizer and panelist Maria Kamiya...
...INS has also increased co-operation with state and federal social service agencies, aiming to identify the undocumented and deny services...
...I'm not carrying my wallet," Valdez responded...
...citizens and legal residents, and each was interrogated about immigration status...
...teen-fold since 1981...
...citizens (five of Latin American ancestry) have launched a class-action suit against the INS, claiming that their civil rights were violated during town raids...
...Moves to heighten public awareness of INS abuses are underway...
...And even where such cooperation is not illegal, some municipalities have chosen to restrict the practice...
...According to information released by California Senator Alan Cranston, eyewitnesses to farmworker drownings say the Border Patrol "forcibly restrain[ed] them from saving such victims...
...According to National Lawyers Guild (NLG) attorney Bill Tamayo...
...drew representatives of church, community, legal and labor groups from 16 states...
...public opinion largely supports efforts to seal the nation's borders...
...The group agreed to press for Congressional hearings into repressive and illegal INS practices, to launch a national know-your-rights campaign, to encourage municipalities not to co-operate with INS and to prepare for a National Day of Justice for Immigrants and Refugees this fall...
...The boy was standing on Mexican soil...
...Border Patrol, armed with helicopters, automatic weapons, bullet-proof vests, floodlights, police dogs and several empty buses, blockaded the main street downtown and conducted a sweep of 16 bars frequented by the town's predominantly Hispanic population...
...Getting that act passed was the result of years of hard work, of community organizing and protest...
...The law on inter-agency co-operation in immigration detentions is cloudy, but cases have emerged around the country in which agencies appear to be overstepping legal bounds, according to some observers...
...Several employees were beaten by INS agents, some apprehended were never allowed to see or talk to a lawyer, while others were never even given a chance to show their 'green cards' before being handcuffed and taken away to INS detention centers...
...in Los Angeles, INS has made a practice of arresting unaccompanied minors and not releasing them until their parent, usually also undocumented, turns him/herself in for interrogation...
...INS seized six other undocumented laundry workers that day...
Vol. 19 • July 1985 • No. 4
