Posted by: "shweta parmar" shweta@drumnation.org
*"Operation Return to Sender" Police/ICE Raid Against Immigrants*
*June 18, 2006*
*From: **dorindamoreno@comcast.net*
"Operation Return To Sender" is a team of "POLICE ICE"
has just arrested and deported over 150 undocumented
immigrants . The immigrants are from Vista, Ca.
Police ICE looks for the following:
1. Mexican congregating at local bars speaking Spanish
and no English.
2. Mexicans having a party in large groups and the
undercover police officer hearing ONLY Spanish spoken
about their home country. This is a give away for the
immigrant.
3. They are hitting the apartments where large numbers
of Mexican live and work in the agriculture fields.
4. They hone in on Home Depot areas, 7/11 stores, and
others categorized Mexican corners.
5. Be prepared if they take on the K-12 schools and
colleges.
6. Be prepared if ICE takes on the Mexican patients in
the hospitals.
7. ICE will be targeting Mexicans in any undisclosed
area. The hit will come as a surprise in the early
morning hours and when Mexican least expect the visit.
8. ICE comes in para-military uniforms in white with
black bullet proof jackets. They work in teams of five
to ten to an apartment complex and have their trucks
parked half a block away.
9. This information was on our San Diego local news
and might be in the National News tonight.
10. Being 23 miles from the Mexican border I see all
kinds of Mexican round-ups and massive deportations.
11. What I find most disturbing is that ICE might next
hit our schools in September, 2006. All large cities
with Mexicans populations might see extensive raids.
I hope the immigrant community now start to acquire
their USA documents.
Pedro Olivares
==================================================================
Immigration Sweep Brings Fear to Community
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer
June 18, 2006
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Fewer parents are walking their children to school in this
border city's Linda Vista neighborhood. The crowd of day laborers huddled in
a parking lot outside McDonald's has dropped by half.
A sense of unease has spread in this community of weather-worn homes since
immigration agents began walking the streets as part of a stepped-up
nationwide effort targeting an estimated 590,000 immigrant fugitives. Other
illegal immigrants are being rounded up along the way.
Juana Osorio, an illegal immigrant from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, said
her neighbors have largely stayed indoors since agents visited her apartment
complex June 2.
"People rarely leave their houses now to go shopping," Osorio, 37, said as
she clutched a bottle of laundry detergent in a barren courtyard. "They walk
in fear."
Her husband, Juan Rivera, 29, has stopped taking their two children to the
park on weekends. "We want to go out but we can't," said Rivera, a
construction worker.
In a blitz that began May 26 and ended Tuesday, federal agents arrested
nearly 2,200 illegal immigrants, including about 400 in the San Diego area -
more than any other city.
It was the latest salvo in a crackdown on illegal immigration that has
included arrests of nearly 1,200 workers at a supplier of wooden cargo
pallets and the deployment of National Guard troops on the Mexican border.
Meantime, Congress is considering a broad overhaul of immigration laws.
All this has immigrants on edge, even in places such as San Diego that are
home to thousands of illegals, many of whom have lived openly for years.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said about half the 2,179 people
arrested in the 19-day nationwide raids - dubbed Operation Return to Sender
- had criminal records, including convictions for sexual assault of a minor,
assault with a deadly weapon and kidnapping.
While criminals were targeted, agents also asked neighbors and curious
onlookers about their immigration status and, if they were in the country
illegally, they got hauled away for deportation, too.
"We can't just turn our heads away from people we find along the way," said
Lauren Mack, an ICE spokeswoman in San Diego.
Agents staked out homes to determine when best to come knocking, interviewed
apartment managers and checked credit reports and loan applications.
Since last fall, the agency has increased its fugitive task forces
nationwide from 18 to 38, and plans to expand to 52 teams by the end of the
year. The Bush administration has proposed a total of 70 teams.
San Diego's Linda Vista is a hardscrabble neighborhood of two-story homes
favored by Mexican, Filipino and Vietnamese immigrants. As in other cities,
the fugitive task force arrived in unmarked vehicles and agents were dressed
like civilians. Mack said agents wore something to identify them as law
enforcement, perhaps an agency insignia on a shirt or a bulletproof vest
marked POLICE.
Day laborer Fredy Calleja said his uncle was arrested about two weeks ago
while watering plants outside his home. An agent asked him about someone
suspected of selling drugs in the area. When the uncle said he didn't know
the drug dealer, the agent asked if he was in the country illegally and
arrested him when he said he was.
Calleja said his uncle was deported but then sneaked across the border in
Tijuana, Mexico. He was back in San Diego a little more than a week later.
Since the blitz began, Serafina Morales has been looking for unmarked white
or black vehicles whenever she leaves the house.
"We're all scared to go to school," she said. "Many of us are letting our
children walk alone."
(c) 2006 The Associated Press.
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