US Wanted Visas Based On Skin Color, Ethnicity

US 'wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas'

Matt Weaver
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.

In talks with the British government, the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, called for British Pakistanis to apply for a visa before travelling to the US, according to the New York Times.

The newspaper claimed that US officials were concerned about the number of terrorist plots in Britain involving citizens with ties to Pakistan.

But today the Foreign Office made it clear would resist the idea. It said it would oppose any attempt to exclude particular ethnic groups from the US visa waiver scheme that allows citizens from 27 countries, including the UK, to travel to the US without a visa for up to 90 days.

A spokesman said: "We are in close touch with the US about entry clearance, and they are aware of our view that changes to the visa waiver programme could cause economic damage to both our countries without materially enhancing the security controls over immigration."

He added: "The Muslim community in the UK, including those of Pakistani origin, are an important part of our society and we would oppose strongly any proposal to single them out in response to the actions of terrorists. Furthermore, we will oppose any measure based on broad categories of religious, ethnic or other criteria, and will continue to emphasise the importance of the current risk-based approach."

Mohammad Sarwar, the Labour MP for Glasgow Central, described the proposal as "unbelievable and shocking. Every British citizen must have the same rights. I don't think America has any right to interfere in this way."

Mr Sarwar, who was born in Pakistan and became Britain's first Muslim MP in 1997, urged ministers to reject the idea.

Ahmed Versi, the editor of Muslim News, agreed. He said: "They [the Americans] are trying to paint the whole Muslim community with the same brush. It's racist. There would be a huge outcry from all Muslims whether they are Pakistani or not."

He pointed out that many British Muslims were already put off from the travelling to the US for fear of the unwelcome reception they would receive.

The report of America's concerns follows the conviction earlier this week of five British men for planning a series of attacks across the UK. Four of them were of Pakistani origin. But according to the New York Times, talks on travel restrictions for British Pakistanis have been taking place for some "months".

Last month, Mr Chertoff held talks with the home secretary, John Reid. It is believed they discussed the visa waiver scheme that allows citizens from 27 countries, including the UK, to travel to the US without a visa for up to 90 days.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the talks, Mr Chertoff said: "We need to build layers of protection, and I don't think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here."

At the time he did not mentioned restrictions on British Pakistani, but he expressed concern that the terrorist such as the July 7 bombers, three of whom were of Pakistani origin, could have used the visa waiver scheme to enter America.

Citizens Who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid

March 12, 2007

WASHINGTON, March 11 — A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.

Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia have all reported declines in enrollment and traced them to the new federal requirement, which comes just as state officials around the country are striving to expand coverage through Medicaid and other means.

Under a 2006 federal law, the Deficit Reduction Act, most people who say they are United States citizens and want Medicaid must provide “satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship,” which could include a passport or the combination of a birth certificate and a driver’s license.

Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.

“The largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens,” said Kevin W. Concannon, director of the Department of Human Services in Iowa, where the number of Medicaid recipients dropped by 5,700 in the second half of 2006, to 92,880, after rising for five years. “We have not turned up many undocumented immigrants receiving Medicaid in Waterloo, Dubuque or anywhere else in Iowa,” Mr. Concannon said.

By ROBERT PEAR

--MORE--

A big win for the LA 8

Tue Jan 30, 2007

Judge Einhorn of immigration court rendered his decision on Tuesday January 30, 2007 in (LA 8) case. The court “finds that the government has failed to carry its burden of proving respondents deportable based on clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence. Therefore, the proceedings against Hamide and Shehadeh are TERMINATED.) The decision said.

Please visit our web site for more information. Please click on the word decision in the body of the article to read the decision. [Editor's note: See article below]

Thanks to all who helped in this case,

Michel Shehadeh
---

The Los Angeles Eight Case

Government Seeks Deportation for Magazine Distribution in 1980s

^{When Administration defenders claim that "there have been no abuses" of the Patriot Act, ask them about the case of Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh. The government seeks to deport these two long-time permanent resident aliens under the Patriot Act for having distributed magazines and raised humanitarian aid in the 1980s in Los Angeles. It seeks to punish these men, neither of whom has ever even been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime, under a law enacted in 2001 for conduct engaged in fifteen years earlier, at a time when the conduct was perfectly legal. And it seeks to deport them for classic First Amendment activity ? the distribution of a magazine.}

^{The case of Hamide and Shehadeh will prove a critical test of the limits of the expansive amendments to immigration law made by the Patriot Act. And because the activities for which the government seeks to deport Hamide and Shehadeh are protected by the First Amendment, it also will prove a test of the scope of immigrants' First Amendment rights. This is the first case in which the government has sought to deport anyone under that Act for distributing literature, and one of the first in which the government has invoked the Patriot Act's "material support to terrorist organization" grounds. It is also one of the longest-running immigration cases in the United States, having begun 18 years ago, in 1987, under an anti-communist immigration law dating back to the 1950s. The case, a kind of modern-day Bleak House, has generated several landmark judicial opinions, and been up to the Supreme Court. It is now back in immigration court, where trial is set to begin July 13, 2005, before Immigration Judge Bruce J. Einhorn.}

^{Born in the West Bank, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh came to the United States in their college years and have now lived here thirty four and thirty years, respectively. They are lawful permanent residents and hard-working fathers--Hamide, father of three U.S. citizen children, supplies luxury coffee shops; Shehadeh, father of two U.S. citizen children and married to a U.S. citizen, works as a freelance writer and lives in Oregon.}

^{They are now charged with being deportable for having provided "material support" to a "terrorist organization." The organization is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a faction of the PLO headed by George Habash. The government claims that Hamide and Shehadeh provided the PFLP with "material support" in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s by distributing its magazine, and by holding two community dinners at which they helped raise money for political activities and humanitarian aid. The money went to support political work in the United States in support of Palestinian self-determination, and humanitarian aid to various social service groups in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza. But the government claims that the recipients were tied to the PFLP, and that therefore Hamide and Shehadeh are deportable.}

^{The case began in 1987, when immigration authorities arrested seven young Palestinians and a Kenyan woman--dubbed the "LA 8" by the media--on charges of being affiliated with the PFLP. At that time, the oovernment claimed that they were deportable for being affiliated with a group that "advocated the doctrines of world communism," a deportable offense under the McCarran-Walter Act, a law enacted in 1952, at the height of the McCarthy era. At the time, FBI Director William Webster testified before Congress that the eight "had not been found to have engaged themselves in terrorist activity." Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Nomination of William H. Webster to be Director of Central Intelligence, 100th Cong. 1st Sess. 94-95 (April 8, 9, 10, May 1, 1987). Mr. Webster further admitted that they "were arrested because they are alleged to be members of a world-wide Communist organization which under the McCarran Act makes them eligible for deportation ... if these individuals had been United States citizens, there would not have been a basis for their arrest." Id.}

_{In 1989, a federal court declared the McCarran-Walter Act charges unconstitutional. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Meese, 714 F. Supp. 1060 (C.D. Cal. 1989). The court ruled that the First Amendment protects all persons within the United States equally, whether citizens or foreign nationals, and that deporting foreign nationals for their political associations violated the First Amendment. The following year Congress repealed that McCarthy-era law. The government nonetheless pursued deportation under new charges.}

^{In 1995, the same federal court blocked the deportations under the new charges from going forward on the grounds that the government, in violation of the First Amendment, had selectively targeted the group for constitutionally protected political activities. The court reviewed 10,000 pages of evidence submitted by the government, but found evidence only of constitutionally protected political activity. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Reno, No. CV 87-2107, at 32 n.14 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 29, 1996).}

^{In 1996, however, Congress stripped federal courts of authority to hear such selective-enforcement challenges to deportation, and in 1999 the Supreme Court ruled that the cases could go forward. Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471 (1999).}

^{The case is now back in immigration court, where trial is scheduled to being July 13, 2005. The government claims that Hamide and Shehadeh provided material support to the PFLP. Hamide and Shehadeh deny providing such support. They admit that they distributed magazines and sponsored two community dinners, but maintain that they raised money only for domestic political activities of the Committee for a Democratic Palestine, a U.S.-based political organization that engaged in political activity in support of Palestinian self-determination ? and for a handful of charitable social service organizations in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. The trial will focus on Hamide and Shehadeh's political activism in the 1980s, and whether it can be seen as "material support" to the PFLP.}

^{Hamide and Shehadeh have challenged the retroactive application of the Patriot Act to their conduct, engaged in twenty years ago. They also argue that their activities were protected by the First Amendment, and that they did not support the PFLP.}

Detainee DNA may be put in database

Posted 1/19/2007 1:35 AM ET

By Richard Willing, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The federal government could add DNA from tens of thousands of immigration violators, captives in the war on terrorism and others accused but not convicted of federal offenses to the FBI's crime-fighting database under a plan being finalized by the Justice Department.

Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, confirmed the plan, which hasn't been publicly disclosed, and said details are expected to be completed soon.

Proponents of the plan, including U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio, say taking DNA from federal detainees would solve many crimes committed by illegal immigrants and make it easier to identify and track potential terrorists.

Opponents, such as Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office, say such mass seizures of DNA violate privacy and do little to improve law enforcement.

Fredrickson says the law that defines federal detainees is so broad that it could apply to hikers stopped by park rangers or airline passengers selected for screening. Authorization for taking the DNA was included in a bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act that President Bush signed last year.

The DNA samples, which contain an individual's unique genetic code, would be compared against genetic profiles from 3.9 million criminals and 157,000 unsolved crimes held by the system of federal and state DNA databases that the FBI administers. The FBI says its system has aided more than 41,000 criminal investigations since 1990.

DNA from federal arrestees and detainees would be held on a computer index, enabling law enforcement to track illegal immigrants who return after being expelled from the USA or who commit crimes after being released. War-on-terrorism detainees, who often use aliases, could be positively identified by DNA and linked to evidence seized at suspected terrorist sites.

"We know from real-life examples that a database of arrestees can prevent many future offenses," Kyl said in a statement.

The plan would greatly increase the pool of DNA profiles available to law enforcement. In most states, a person must be convicted of a crime before his DNA is added to the national system, which the FBI calls CODIS. In seven states, DNA can be taken from suspects after they are arrested and formally charged.

The new plan would apply to "any person arrested under federal authority and from any non-U.S. person who is detained," according to the Violence Against Women law. Each year, the greatest number of those are illegal immigrants caught at the border or rounded up after entering the country.

DNA from immigration violators would remain on file permanently. Genetic profiles from people arrested for federal crimes could be removed from the database if they are not convicted.

Law enforcement authorities say illegal immigrants commit crimes out of proportion to their numbers. A Justice Department study of 100 illegal immigrants arrested and released by local authorities in 2004 found that 73 were later rearrested. "To me, it's a no-brainer," Arpaio says. "Regardless of how you feel (about illegal immigration), nobody wants criminals to get a free pass to come in here." Fredrickson says collecting DNA from anyone detained by a federal officer would clog the system to "where it becomes useless."

Immigrants Mistreated, Report Says

Immigrants Mistreated, Report Says

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 17, 2007; A08

U.S. authorities mistreated suspected illegal immigrants at five prisons and jails nationwide, violating federal standards meant to ensure safe and humane custody, according to a government report released yesterday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and contractors denied timely medical treatment to some of the immigrants, failed to disclose and justify disciplinary actions against them, and improperly limited access to relatives, lawyers and immigration authorities, according to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general.

Detention officers failed to establish a system to report abuse and violated health and safety rules by neglecting to monitor prisoners on hunger strikes or suicide watches and by serving undercooked food, the report said.

The report comes amid a sharp increase in illegal immigrants in U.S. detention as Congress and the Bush administration debate an overhaul of immigration laws and promise tougher enforcement of existing laws. Civil liberties and immigrant advocacy groups are stepping up scrutiny of conditions. Jorge Bustamante, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights of immigrants, has asked to visit U.S. detention centers next month.

Critics of the agency called the report disappointing, contending that it watered down recommendations and ignored the most serious allegations of abuse collected since June 2004, which they said included physical beatings, medical neglect, food shortages and mixing of illegal immigrants in administrative custody with criminals.

"It took two years for them to come out with this? It's incredibly disappointing," said Judy Rabinovitz, a lawyer with the ACLU immigrants rights project.

Eric Lerner, a spokesman for the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee, called the report a "whitewash" that was delayed to suppress controversy. Bryan Lonegan, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in New York City, said that DHS has not designated 38 detention standards implemented since 2000 as federal regulations, making them unenforceable.

A spokeswoman for Richard L. Skinner, the DHS inspector general, said the report was delayed because its scope was reduced.

In a written response to the report, DHS Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers concurred at least partly with nine of 13 findings and promised changes. But she said they "do not indicate any systemic failure" at nearly 400 facilities where ICE is authorized to house as many as 27,500 people a night, because they were based on individual allegations at a small sample of sites.

ICE operations are "generally in compliance with its National Detention Standards," Myers said.

The audit examined the U.S.-owned and operated Krome Service Processing Center in Miami, a contract Corrections Corporation of American facility in San Diego, and local jails and prisons in Berks County, Pa., and Hudson and Passaic counties, N.J.

In December 2005, ICE ordered all suspected illegal immigrants removed from the Passaic jail in Paterson, N.J., after a string of critical news accounts, including the disclosure that guards used police dogs against prisoners. DHS has since barred that practice.

Although illegal immigrants are held on administrative grounds and are supposed to be segregated by high, medium and low risk, authorities often house them together with criminals, the report said.

Many contract and state and local correction officers were unaware of separate U.S. standards for detained immigrants, the 54-page report noted. ICE itself overlooks violations in annual inspections, the report said. "A final rating of Acceptable was given to all five detention facilities," the report said. "However, our review of the five facilities identified instances of non-compliance . . . that were not identified during the ICE annual inspection."

Concentration Camps: First they came for the immigrants...

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Privatized Immigrant Detention Facilities for Families Revealed to be Modern-Day Concentration Camps

One of the more disturbing stories that surfaced after the Swift meat plant raids was how too many children were left without a parent and/or farmed out to friends and families with no immediate word on how they will be reconnected with their mami and papi.

But if news filtering out of one of the newly designated immigrant detention centers for families is any indication, no undocumented parent is going to open their mouth and claim their children if the whole family is going to be subjected to what is becoming known as the first known concentration camp on American soil in the 21st Century.

The T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas (on the outskirts of Austin, Texas) is a private detention facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America. It and a smaller center in Pennsylvania are the only two facilities in the country that are authorized to hold non-Mexican immigrant families and children on noncriminal charges.

What does this mean?

It means that at the Taylor facility of the 400 people "held" there, 200 are children. And all are families that can be held there for whatever length of time without due process conducted in a timely manner.

To top it off, as long as the men, women and children are held there, the facility's operator draws a daily profit - per person.

The children range in age from infants on up.

According to the lawyers who have visited their clients in the facility, the children receive one hour of education, English instruction, a day and one half hour of indoor recreation.

Jeans and t-shirts have been replaced with jail uniforms; children are issued uniforms as soon as they can fit into them — and everyone must wear name tags, even the babies.

Lawyers are reporting that thefamiliess are receiving substandard medical care and becoming ill from the food being served them. Children are losing weight and people are complaining of migraine-type headaches.

Those clients who are asylum seekers, say the lawyers, are continually suffering trauma on top of the trauma they've already undergone in their home countries - all without receiving any kind of pyschological treatment.

Originally, the detention facilities were touted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a way to keep families together while waiting for their cases to come up for court review.

Well, they are accomplishing that goal - to the exclusion of being allowed any outside contact with the rest of the world, aside from those who have lawyers.

The plight of these families caught in a government-sanctioned Hell is slowly spreading (Texas Civil Rights Review, Austin's American Statesman Editorial,American Statesman article) but with Christmas less than a week away these families truly need a miracle to let them know that the outside world knows that they are there not to mention, the children who need to know that Santa or Los Tres Reyes, or the other Holiday entities observed by those who are not Mexican or Latin American, will know where to find them.

The detention for a prolonged period of any child, regardless of whether or not they are with family members, is beneath what the United States used to stand for.

As of late, the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the direction of Homeland Security, has had too many people - on both sides of the immigration debate - shaking their heads as to what our government is capable of subjecting the children of these immigrants to.

We have felt helpless and too many times my Inbox is filled with emails of "What can I do?" or "Where do we go from here?"

There are few issues that demand immediate action, and when children are concerned, it most always warrants as one of those issues.

For children to be held longer than three days, receive but one hour of instruction and only a half hour of recreational play, to be made to feel like criminals by wearing jail jumpsuits and name tags and not have any contact with anyone outside of the facility is a serious violation of the public trust we have in our government, and how we value children in this country.

What can be done?

As cliche as it sounds, it's time to contact our government officials:

Homeland Security

The White House

Members of Congress

Corrections Corporation of America

Yet, the secret of doing something, that the blogosphere discovered long ago, is that you don't stop with one email, one posting or one phone call.

The issue must be talked about and circulated until there is action, positive change and the day when all these families can see that they are not alone.

DHS is a run by pieces of shit. You know it. I know it.

Today’s Rationale?

Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 7:49 am

Nine days until Christmas…and Mommy just got dragged away in handcuffs for a bunch of show arrests. Nice.

The shifting rationale for the ICE raids on the Swift Meatpacking plants is making me very peeved. What began as a "raid on illegal immigrants" has morphed into an "identity theft ring" justification in the last 24 hours. Except, the numbers as released thus far, do not hold up for that justification: (H/T to TPMMuck)

Announcing the success of its massive "Operation Wagon Train" yesterday, DHS officials insisted the raids that netted nearly 1,300 arrests were about busting up an identity theft ring. The stats tell a different story.

According to DHS' own tally, only 65 of the 1,282 arrests were for criminal violations, including identity-theft related crimes. That means that over 1,200 of the people arrested had no connection to any identity theft rings, and were guilty only of run-of-the-mill immigration violations. That didn't temper the agency's rhetoric.

Of course the DHS didn't temper their rhetoric. Michael Chertoff is, and always has been, about the PR aspects of his job — the actual DOING of the job being the irritating side thing that he'll get to after the latest presser at some point.

Latina Lista has even more on this, including questions as to why, if identity theft is such a huge priority for the DHS, that college campuses across the nation haven't been raided as well for all those fake IDs.

The Denver Post speculates that these raids are an attempt by the Bush Administration to pressure the incoming Congress to deal with immigration issues early in the term — guess Bush is desperate to be able to sign something, anything, that gets the GOP back on track with latino voters. Maybe it's just me, but arresting parents and leaving their nursing babies behind is not exactly the way to build good will among any particular community, now is it?

Nice that these families lives get to be ripped apart right before Christmas so that Bushie can put on a good show, isn't it?

And what about those kids left behind when their parents are dragged off without access to counsel for…well, for more than 24 hours now in a number of cases? (Never mind that a lot of these folks likely have English issues and were pressured to sign off on documentation without the advice of legal counsel which will be difficult to revoke now.) Authorities in Texas, at least, appear to think it's not their responsibility to help out:

Late Tuesday in Dallas, agency spokesman Carl Rusnok, asked about delays in getting the workers access to lawyers, said agents at the scene "still have to process the people they have arrested."

The union also had located at least 35 children in the nearby communities of Dalhart and Stratford whose parents were in custody. Mr. Rodriguez did not know how many children were stranded in Cactus and Dumas, a city about 15 miles from the plant.

Any of the children born in the United States are U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents' immigration status.

In neighboring Randall County, Sheriff Joel Richardson said he was prepared to hold about 50 federal detainees for up to six months. "I just brought an extra person into booking," he said. "Otherwise, we were ready."

Under a contract, the U.S. government pays the county $47.73 daily for each federal inmate.

Federal agencies hadn't asked Texas officials for help with the workers' children, said Greg Cunningham, a spokesman for Texas Child Protective Services in Amarillo. "It's our understanding that there's a mechanism in place with the federal officials to take care of these types of situations," he said.

So, let's see what we have here: a meat-packing company with a history of skating immigration laws (and allegations of them having some sort of scheme to import illegal workers from Guatamala) skates out of this scot free thus far.

Meanwhile, a mere nine days away from Christmas, these kids get the present of their parents being seized and hauled away, unable to contact them to let them know they are okay — with no time to make arrangements for their children's care.

And, in one case, a mother who was nursing her child is dragged off and cannot be located, while the child is left to deal with the consequences of being weaned against it's will by governmental agents. Which, as someone who has breastfed a child, is not something that should be done aburptly — and can have serious health consequences for the child, considering those first few months of breastfeeding provide the best portion of immunity protection and DHA for the child's developing brain. It can be incredibly difficult to get a nursing child to switch to a bottle — which can result in very adverse health consequences for the baby at a time when nutrition is crucial. Plus, if the mother and child are not reunited, and soon, the mom's milk will dry up — not exactly an easy, pain-free process, let me tell you, when you have to deal with an abrupt change like this — and the potential for her being able to even nurse her child after a few days of this goes down substantially. Stress can also have substantial adverse consequences.

Family values party, my ass.

If they were truly concerned with these childrens' welfare, they would have coordinated with local authorities and social services supervisors so that mechanisms were in place for temporary foster care placements and other service implementation, including the mound of paperwork that will now need to be processed to get these kids medical cards, temporary food and clothing assistance and other help — because they are US citizens and CHILDREN, and ought not be simply left standing outside their homes with no one to care for them. That is unconscionable and yet another example of piss poor planning by the DHS. Heckuva job, Mikey!

Beyond that, though, background checks, priors checks and other considerations will need to be taken into account for adults who are, at least temporarily anyway, caring for these children who have been left behind. The last thing you want is for these kids to be taken in by some seemingly caring adult…who happens to have a long history of pedophelia or violent tendencies or what have you. (Yes, I have been down this road before in abuse and neglect cases…and you do not even want to know what can happen to children in a placement that turns out to be a nightmare.)

That authorities in Texas are saying "Not my problem. The Feds are going to have to deal with this." is frightening — because the Feds are likely passing the buck right back to the locals. Which means the kids have had to scramble to find an adult to care for them on their own…and that can often lead to the very thing that no child should ever — EVER — have to survive.

And that is just for starters. According to the Dallas article, Texas authorities have no idea how many children may actually be stranded and/or affected by this. Well, that's encouraging, isn't it?

I have very little patience for folks who violate the law — and that includes the meat packing plant which clearly has a "don't ask, just git to work" policy when it comes to its own hiring practices. But it is apparently too much to ask that the Federal authorities at the Department of Homeland Security stop and say to themselves, "Should we make an utter wreck of these children's lives a mere nine days before Christmas without making some provision for these families somehow — some show of decency and compassion to ease things a bit for all of these children?"

Apparently so.

The next person in the Bush Administration who parades around their compassionate conservative "Christian" values is in for a serious bout of shit from me. Ebenezer Scrooge had nothing on these people.

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By: Christy Hardin Smith

American felt like an ''illegal alien'' in her homeland

Federal raid puts families in limbo

Immigration agents looking for stolen IDs detain scores in Hyrum

By Jennifer Sanchez, Dawn House and Kristen Moulton The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:12/13/2006 12:44:14 AM MST

HYRUM - If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an ''illegal alien'' in her homeland - the United States of America. She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets. The rest, mostly Latinos with brown skin, waited until they were ''cleared'' or arrested by ''la migra,'' the popular name in Spanish for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employees said. ''I was in the line because of the color of my skin,'' she said, her voice shaking. ''They're discriminating against me. I'm from the United States, and I didn't even get a blue bracelet.'' Maria was one of hundreds of plant employees targeted by federal agents. But she and her husband were the lucky ones - later Tuesday, they returned home to their three sons. The federal agents raided the Swift & Co. meat processing plant early Tuesday morning after arrest warrants had been issued for 60 workers, part of "Operation Wagon Train," a nationwide investigation involving undocumented immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens to gain employment. The northern Utah plant is among six Swift facilities that were raided by immigration agents in Cactus, Texas; Grand Island, Neb.; Marshalltown, Iowa; Worthington, Minn.; and at the company headquarters in Greeley, Colo. In Utah, ''Operation Wagon Train'' started in August at the Swift plant, formerly owned by E.A. Miller, when the company complied with a subpoena asking for a list of about 1,200 employees, according to an arrest warrant filed in 1st District Court in Logan. Federal investigators compared the list with documents from Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, California and Puerto Rico. In October, agents snapped photographs of license plates of all vehicles parked at the plant and compared vehicle registrations with the suspect target list and documents. Swift has more than $9 billion in annual sales and is the world's second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork. Swift President and CEO Sam Rovit said operations at the six raided facilities have been suspended. He denied the company knowingly hired illegal workers. On Tuesday, as early as 8 a.m., agents began taking employees, many of them undocumented workers, away in white and black buses. Most were being held at a federal facility in Ogden. Federal officials declined to disclose the location of the facility or the number of actual detainees. In Cache County, minorities make up 12 percent - Latinos are 8 percent - of the population of 98,000 people. Women were crying as they were handcuffed with plastic ties and put on the buses. Some weren't allowed to get their belongings from their lockers. Maria, who declined to use her last name, argued with an agent because she was getting the coat for her 34-year-old niece, Blanca, who was arrested. ''She [the agent] told me, 'Do you think it's going to be cold in Mexico?' '' Maria said, holding back tears. ''I've never seen people get treated como animales.'' Maria was able to give Blanca a goodbye hug and promised to pack up her trailer. Gloria Alvanes looked for her husband at the plant. He called a relative before he was arrested and taken away. She said she is upset because she doesn't understand why the government is treating undocumented workers as criminals when most of them are just here to work. Alvanes has been married to her husband for five years, but he hasn't become a legal U.S. resident because the immigration process is taking longer than they expected. Now, she and her daughter, Marilyn Cornejo, a high school junior, are worried because they have a tight budget, it's 12 days before Christmas and there is no money for an immigration lawyer. "What do they want us to do?" Marilyn asked. "Do they want us to drop out of school and get jobs?" At five schools in Cache County, counselors comforted students who feared their parents had been taken into custody. Some school leaders explained to Latino students what was happening and made sure there was someone at home. Latino leader Rolando Murillo, who happened to be at Mountaincrest High School in Hyrum, talked with about 100 students, including children whose parents are in this country legally but who fear "la migra." "La migra is a nightmare for them," he said. Father Clarence Sandoval of Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church said church leaders called schools and had them give out the church's number if somebody needed help or child care for kids whose parents were arrested. As of Tuesday night, he hadn't received any calls. ''It takes away from being together for Christmas,'' he said of the raid. ''The problem with the raids is they don't [consider] the impact on the families, especially the children.'' After news of the ICE raid broke, U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman called for a meeting Tuesday afternoon with Latino leaders in Salt Lake City. The leaders asked Tolman to expedite the meat-packing plant workers' cases. For Maria, it's not about immigration status, it's about ''being brown.'' She said she hopes the authorities are not targeting Latinos. And she hopes no one ever has to live through an immigration raid, especially on the Day of the Virgin Mary celebrated by Catholics, which fell on Tuesday. ''My mom says, 'The raid was just a way of La Virgin de Guadalupe picking up all her people and taking them home to Mexico, where they'll be safe,' " she said. jsanchez@sltrib.com --- * Tribune reporters JUDY FAHYS and LISA ROSETTA contributed to this story. Where to call * Immigration officials have set up a toll-free telephone number, 866-341-3858, for families to contact for information on where their relatives are being detained. Operators speaking English and Spanish are available.

Federa stormtroopers with machine guns arrest legal workers: Children forceably abandoned

Union: DHS Raids Grabbed Legal Workers
By Justin Rood - December 13, 2006, 9:14 AM

Union officials are outraged over a massive immigration sweep yesterday, which sent 1,000 Homeland Security Department agents -- some in riot gear -- to meatpacking plants in six states to round up immigrant workers suspected of using fake identification, but may have picked up legal workers in the process.

"Stormtroopers came in with machine guns, rounded [the workers] into the cafeterias, separated identified citizens from non-citizens, and then they took away all green cards and put non-citizens onto buses," regardless of the immigrants' legal status, Jill Cashen of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UCFW) told me this morning.

Cashen said that reports from all six states confirmed that legal immigrants were among those taken away, and have not been returned. "We're still trying to find out where the buses went," she said. "Children have been left at church day cares. Nobody knows where these people are."

Recently unsealed court documents show that DHS had identified 170 identity-fraud suspects it wished to apprehend, but that the agency wanted to round up as many as 5,000 other workers because it "further expect[ed] to apprehend persons who are engaged in large-scale identity theft[.]" Union officials say the total number of detained workers may be higher than 5,000. (Update: We've uploaded those court documents to our document collection here.)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released official tallies from the raids, but have promised to do so at a 10 a.m. press conference in Washington. UFCW is holding a press conference at 9:30 to discuss what they believe to be heavy-handed tactics used by the federal government.

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