Thursday, October 4, 2007
Immigration Raids: Citizens Caught in the Crossfire
We reported earlier in the week that federal immigration authorities had conducted raids in New York and Los Angeles. The N.Y. Times reports that citizens have been caught in the cross-fire and has an editorial today condemning the raids:
"[U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement] is catching modest numbers of undesirables, but also a much larger by-catch of peaceable immigrants. Its agents have set off waves of fear and outrage, not only among illegal immigrants, but among citizens whose privacy and security they have violated, through unchecked aggression, carelessness and incompetence.
Last week, dozens of federal agents fanned out across Nassau County, Long Island, to execute warrants on accused gang members. County Executive Thomas Suozzi and Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey were so dismayed that they have refused to cooperate on further raids until ICE gets its act together.
They described a seriously botched “cowboy” operation by dozens of ICE agents — some in cowboy hats — who had not trained together, used inappropriate weapons and mistakenly drew them on Nassau officers. They said that ICE misled them — that what was supposed to be a targeted gang crackdown was actually something much more sloppy and indiscriminate. They said the agency ignored repeated invitations to check its list of targets against Nassau’s up-to-date gang records and ended up raiding many wrong homes."
KJ
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2007/10/immigration-rai.html
Comments
'That would be good if Immigration and Customs Enforcement were carefully extracting the dangerous criminal sliver from a population of 12 million illegal immigrants.'
The NYT's true feelings: there's no such thing as 'good' immigration law enforcement. There will never be any immigration law enforcement 'careful' enough for us, the ACLU, transnational Latino interest groups, etc. One can only wonder what level of crime you have to commit to earn 'dangerous criminal sliver' status but I'm sure it's really high. And, in total contempt of the rule of law, they fail to acknowledge the right of a sovereign nation to deport ANY alien who is in violation of a statute which makes them subject to removal. Oh, and by the way, enforcement was part of the so-called 'comprehensive immigration reform' they claimed to support. Is there anyone foolish enough to believe they would do a complete 180 on enforcement and support it the second CIR passed?
Posted by: Jack | Oct 4, 2007 6:01:57 PM
I believe that much of the fault lies with New York State for offering sanctuary to illegal aliens over the past 2 decades. They let these folks, even those who are known to be in gangs, blend in with citizens such that when crackdowns occur, innocent citizens get caught in the crossfire.
As NY is nowhere near a South American border, it is shocking that there are nearly a million illegal immigrants here.
Posted by: Emma | Oct 18, 2007 2:20:29 PM
'That would be good if Immigration and Customs Enforcement were carefully extracting the dangerous criminal sliver from a population of 12 million illegal immigrants.'
The NYT's true feelings: there's no such thing as 'good' immigration law enforcement. There will never be any immigration law enforcement 'careful' enough for us, the ACLU, transnational Latino interest groups, etc. One can only wonder what level of crime you have to commit to earn 'dangerous criminal sliver' status but I'm sure it's really high. And, in total contempt of the rule of law, they fail to acknowledge the right of a sovereign nation to deport ANY alien who is in violation of a statute which makes them subject to removal. Oh, and by the way, enforcement was part of the so-called 'comprehensive immigration reform' they claimed to support. Is there anyone foolish enough to believe they would do a complete 180 on enforcement and support it the second CIR passed?
Posted by: Jack | Oct 4, 2007 6:01:15 PM