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First, a two-day immigration sweep on Aquidneck Island, R.I. is being criticized as an inhumane and deliberate effort to spread fear, which has pushed people into hiding. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, assisted by state and local police, arrested 42 people from Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico in Newport and Middletown, according to Paula Grenier, spokeswoman for ICE in Boston. Agents are accused of going into restaurants, stores and apartments during the sweep, and in some cases targeting people because they appeared foreign and were driving landscaping trucks. “This is nothing less than Gestapo tactics, and it has to stop,” said Alison Foley, a Providence lawyer. She said she and others are trying to get legal aid and other assistance to detainees and their families. She said 21 had ignored final orders of deportation, 12 had illegally reentered the country after being deported, and 9 others were determined to be in the country illegally. Grenier said the agents are members of ICE’s Rhode Island Francesco Hernandez, who owns a landscaping company, said one of his employees alleged that ICE agents took down the license plate number of his truck, when they happened upon it at a local gas station. He said the truck has his company’s name on the side. “A worker for me was driving the truck, and he was putting gas in the truck at the Shell station,” Hernandez said. “ICE came to put gas in their car, too.” Hernandez said his worker told him that when the agents spotted the truck, they got into an argument over trying to figure out “who is illegal” in the vehicle. That’s when one of the agents copied the plate number, Fernandez said. “I was thinking they are going to come to my house,” Hernandez said. “But I have nothing to hide.” In a another case, 28 were arrested when more than 230 law officers swarmed the streets of Mesa, Ariz. with Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies looking for criminals and undocumented immigrants. Local police, officials from the U.S. Justice Department and Arizona Attorney General’s Office along with dozens of activists with video cameras, monitored the deputies. Some routine traffic stops drew a half-dozen law-enforcement vehicles along with the activists and media crews. Thirteen of those taken into custody are suspected of being in the country illegally. The sheriff’s office also took nine suspected illegal immigrants from a Mesa drophouse while assisting federal officials, the sheriff’s office said. Even before Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s sweep began, it had drawn attention from Washington, D.C., to the state Capitol, in part because critics claim deputies in the past have targeted Latino drivers, an allegation the sheriff denies. Meanwhile, Elias Bermudez, a co-founder of Immigrants Without Borders, said his group recruited about 20 legal Hispanics to cruise the streets as potential targets. And Salvador Reza, a leader with the Somos America, said his coalition sent about 40 people onto the streets with video cameras. In April, Arpaio announced he would bring the controversial detail to Mesa at the request of several East Valley lawmakers. Earlier sheriff’s sweeps in Guadalupe and Phoenix triggered allegations of racial profiling and attracted large anti-Arpaio crowds. Gascón and other public officials have criticized the sweeps as a poor use of law- enforcement resources. The chief recently complained that Arpaio failed to give him advance notice. Sources: projo.com, azcentral.com |
