Last March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted Operation Cross Check, the largest sweep in history netting a whopping total of 3,168 people. The operative was meant to identify, detain and deport the most serious criminal aliens.
But, much like other enforcement-only operation and programs, the intended effect of deporting criminals is not occurring. Instead, over half of those arrested under Cross Check did not have any felony convictions.
ICE has a fact sheet accounting for a dozen "Notable Arrests" on their web page. These narratives point the essence of the operation. But one has to ask; what about the other 3,156 people who came under wide net of Cross Check? Chances are that over half of them are like Martin Berrospe Yepez who was detained and arrested in Rancho Cucamonga, California on route to a day laborer center to look for work.
As the Coordinator for the Justice for Immigrants Coalition (JFIC), based in the Inland Empire, I've worked with Martin on a professional level on an array of events and projects. I've also gotten to know him at a personal level as well and become friends within the struggle for immigrant rights. I can attest to his honesty, hard work and commitment to his community.
On the morning of Saturday, March 24, Martin was walking to a day labor site in Rancho Cucamonga, when ICE stopped him. Although ICE could not identify him, they asked him for his immigration status. Martin tells community leader, Emilio Amaya, that he attempted to speak English and explain that he was on his way to work but an officer told him that it was not necessary. After being questioned about his parent's birthplace, the officer assumed that Martin was also from there. The officer stated that he would be deported in a few hours but Martin insisted that he belonged to an organized day laborer group and that he knew his rights. He insisted that he should have the right to see an immigration judge when he was offered voluntary departure at the ICE office in San Bernardino.
Martin's arrest and detention is one that is emblematic of the misgivings of the enforcement-only approach. I was present at Martin's court hearing and the prosecutor representing ICE and the U.S. government acknowledged that they picked up the wrong person and the judge recognized Martin as a "good person."
The Inland Empire is no stranger to encounters with immigration agencies. In this video created by local community organizations in 2009, Border Patrol agents can be seen conducting raids and sweeps at day labor corners and centers in the area.
Many caught under these sweeps or programs are far from dangerous. As detailed in ICE's fact sheet, 1,257 of the 3,168 were either "Immigrant Fugitives" or "Illegal Re-entrants." An immigration fugitive is someone who did not appear for their hearing or trial at an immigration court. An illegal re-entrant is a person who'd been given voluntary departure or deported and later returned without proper inspection. Neither of these categories poses a threat to the security of our local communities. Many of the re-entrants do so because their family and friends are here. Of the 2,834 labeled as "criminal aliens," 1,357 were convicted for misdemeanors which can imply a conviction as minor as a traffic violation. Thus, nearly half had no violent criminal history and were yet caught up in the drag net of this operation.
In the case of Martin, who has lived in California for almost 20 years, he has close ties to the community and is an active participant with the Fernando Pedraza Community Coalition. He has no criminal convictions and poses no threat the society. He was released on May 1 from the Mira Loma Detention Center after bail was met and his case is up for hearing in-mid-June.
DreamActivist, an organizing group led by immigrant youth, has taken Martin's case and created a call-to-action in order to have his case dismissed and halt his deportation. Martin's case is one of few non-Dreamers that are being highlighted on the DreamActivist website. The show of solidarity with Martin as a day laborer, pinpoints to the cohesion of the immigrant rights community with people who strive for the America Dream via education and hard work.
The propaganda war that ICE and the Obama Administration is conducting prevents the advancement of any legislation which would bring a just and humane immigration reform. I am not arguing for, or trying to prevent ICE from removing batterers, gang members or actual violent criminal offenders. I argue that we allow people like Martin to have the opportunity to legalize their status in this country so that he's able to get up on a Saturday morning and go to work without the fear of being torn apart from our community.
He HAS the opportunity to legalize his status right now; he can leave to return to his own nation and then fill out the paperwork and get in line from there.
What he wants is for the dishonest foreign nationals who came here illegally and worked here illegally to get a special, separate process that gives them immediate amnesty as a reward for breaking our laws and freeloading off our economy and our social services.
NO ONE has any right to come here illegally, to stay here illegally, to work or drive here illegally. They have the right to be treated humanely as we identify, detain and deport them and that's all. If they want to live without worry, they need to go home. If they want to have legal status here, they need to go home and apply from there. There are literally millions of people waiting in line to come legally and it's madness for Americans to continue to reward dishonesty and lawlessness. The last set of amnesty programs only brought us millions and millions more illegal aliens. Never again - this time they can leave on their own or get deported. Soon we'll have biometric-based IDs that are connected to databases and that will make forgeries useless. At that point, they won't be able to work and will have to leave on their own. We need to speed this up and stop listening to the whining of the dishonest foreign nationals who came to freeload off us.
Who cares, were they illegally in the country? If yes then they should be deported.
I like the way the UK enforces their law. If you are in the country and don't have a visa, you are deported. If you overstay your visa you are deported, if you have a tourist visa and are working you're deported. If you have a student visa and work over the hours allowed you are deported. They also fine employers $15,000.00 USD per illegal head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WTMshHxNes&feature=related
Attesting to the honesty of someone who has broken multiple laws every single day for 20 years would be perjury.
Just like the other 11.2 million illegals in the USA ~ sending $30 billion USD out of the U.S. Economy, a year, to their citizenship homelands.
How does this help the USA?
Sorry, Martin.
They can't see that the same 1% who rape them are the same 1% who rape the undocumented.
Failed immigration is created and designed by the elite who run both governments. This is no different than failed mortgages, failed health care, loss of jobs, and our failing economy. This insidious 1% causes these failures because they profit at the expense of both the US taxpayers and the Mexican undocumented.
Are American voters really so propagandized that they can't figure out why not one single U.S. politician criticizes the Mexican government for anything? The undocumented would not come or stay here if that filthy, corrupt co-trading partner of the American elite would take care of its own citizens. The majority of undocumented care deeply about their families and would stay at home if they could make a decent living wage working with their families.
Its about bi-national drug profits, trade, oil, remittances, the privatization of prisons, cheap labor, weapons profit, NAFTA, and a 40 year long political platform that only sways back and forth, and never forward.
I invite OWS to embrace the undocumented who are protesting. Shame on both these pitiful governments who fail to address the immigration nightmare that they profit from.
There's a lot wrong with the bilateral relation - immigration and contraband are only the symptoms of some deeper problems at work. We're codependent on each other now - we must find ways to fix the root causes together. But first we have to admit that they exist.
So what? Where in the immigration law does it say "the above shall only apply to convicted felons" or "only to those who pose a threat to security"? Reading your posts, you seem to think aliens have rights which supersede laws relating to presence and that is somehow improper if it is enforced as written and intended by Congress.
Evidently ~ not TOO HARD to become a legal immigrant in the USA
What other country in the world gives Naturalized Citizenship to 1 million a year, since 2001?
In fact, the government often gives illegals a break when they are caught committing felonies by simply having them admit to their crimes, and being deported. An American would have to go to trial or admit guilt and go to prison for the same crimes. Just because they are not committing violent crimes does NOT mean that they pose on threat to our country. By working here illegally, they have committed a crime. By falsifying documents, lying under penalties of perjury, they commt a crime. Unless you wish to get rid of ALL non-violent crimes, they should be veiwed as what they are, CRIMINALS.
Selective moralities are typical of dictatorships where laws are applied on a whim. We are country of laws and to diminish one is to diminish them all. Mr Romero should move to Somalia since he seems to want to live in a lawless society.