News Briefs: Detainees on Hunger Strike, More Raids...

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 22 - September 9, 2007

1. AZ: Detainees on Hunger Strike
2. Nebraska: Lawncare Company Raided
3. Arrest Protested in Hartford
4. Florida: 195 Picked Up in Raids
5. "Anti-Gang" Raids in Boston Area
6. "Anti-Gang" Raids: Chicago, North Carolina, Oklahoma

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*1. AZ: DETAINEES ON HUNGER STRIKE

According to information confirmed by Raha Jorjani of the School
of Law Clinical Programs at University of California, Davis, at
least 30 immigration detainees have been refusing some or all
meals at Pinal County Jail in Florence, Arizona. The hunger
strikers are among some 60 detained immigrants who were
transferred on or around Sept. 5 from the Florence Service
Processing Center to the county jail, which has a new contract
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide bed
space for immigration detainees.

The detainees say they were promised they wouldn't lose any
rights or privileges in the transfer. But they were woken up in
the early hours of the morning to be moved out of the Florence
Service Processing Center and many were not allowed to gather
their personal property, including legal documents relating to
their cases. Since they arrived at the county jail they have
apparently been on 23-hour lockdown in 2-person cells, and there
is no outdoor recreation area. There have also been very serious
complaints about food and water quality. In addition, Pinal
County Jail only allows family visitation to take place through
video conferencing; no contact visits are allowed. Some of the
transferred detainees who are facing imminent removal had
planned for what they expected to be their final contact visits
with family before being deported. Now they will be unable to see
their families. (Email message from Raha Jorjani, University of
California, Davis School of Law Clinical Programs 9/7/07)

*2. NEBRASKA: LAWNCARE COMPANY RAIDED

On Sept. 6, ICE agents arrested 19 people who work for Cloudburst
Lawn and Sprinkler in Grand Island, Nebraska. ICE spokesperson
Tim Counts said all 19 people were arrested on "administrative
immigrations violations." Counts said those arrested were being
processed in Grand Island and would be detained in the Phelps
County Jail. He said preliminary indications are that 11 of the
people arrested are from Mexico, six are from El Salvador and two
are from Guatemala. (Grand Island Independent 9/7/07)

According to Counts, ICE agents had gone to Cloudburst intending
to arrest company owner David L. Wortman, but Wortman wasn't
there, and the search warrant gave the agents the right to
question and arrest unauthorized workers who were present. On the
afternoon of Sept. 7, a criminal complaint dated Sept. 4 was
unsealed in US District Court in Nebraska accusing Wortman of
knowingly hiring unauthorized immigrants and paying them in cash.
Wortman turned himself in and was arraigned on Sept. 7 but did
not enter a plea, US attorney Joe Stecher said. A preliminary
hearing was set for Sept. 20. (AP 9/7/07)

The last major ICE raid in Grand Island was in December 2006,
when 261 workers were arrested at the Swift plant there. Only one
of the 261 workers faced criminal charges. ICE arrested four more
Swift employees in Grand Island this past July. (Grand Island
Independent 9/7/07)

*3. ARREST PROTESTED IN HARTFORD

On Aug. 24, 140 people rallied outside the immigration court in
Hartford, Connecticut to demand the release of Said Zaim-Sassi, a
Moroccan-born resident of Wallingford, Connecticut. Marchers wore
T-shirts that said "Keep Families Together" and held up signs
that called for a stop to immigration raids. Zaim-Sassi has been
living in the US for 20 years; he worked for Metro-North,
volunteered to help other immigrants and played soccer. His wife,
Souhair Zaim-Sassi, is a Morocco-born US citizen; the couple has
three US-born children, ages two, four and seven.

Said Zaim-Sassi had been seeking to remain legally in the US, but
had lost a final round in court this past January. Immigration
officials have alleged in court documents that his first
marriage was a sham marriage to obtain citizenship.

After losing his final appeal in January, Said Zaim-Sassi told
immigration he would surrender whenever they required it.
Instead, immigration agents came to his home at 5:45am and
arrested him in front of his family. "It was so horrible,"
recounted Souhair Zaim-Sassi. "I thought they were burglars. They
came pounding on the door and said, 'Open the door or we will
break the door down.' They were screaming and using
profanities. They stripped the blankets off the beds."

"My sister asked for a warrant. They flashed her a piece of paper
but wouldn't let her look at it. There was no need for them to do
it this way. They took him away like an animal in front of his
children," Souhair Zaim-Sassi said. (New Haven Register 8/25/07;
WTNH News Channel 8 8/31/07)

Paula Grenier, ICE's spokesperson for New England, claimed
otherwise: "We were granted consent to enter and when we got
there the family was evasive as to his whereabouts. We found him
hiding," she said. Souhair Zaim-Sassi rejected that statement:
"He was in my bedroom asleep," she explained. According to
Grenier, Said Zaim-Sassi is currently at a detention center in
Rhode Island and will be transported back to Morocco under the
court's decision.

Egyptian-born Khalil Iskarous of New Haven helped organize the
demonstration. "I think the main reason for the recent
(immigrant) arrests has been because immigrants are working
together for immigrants' rights, but we are not going to be
silent any longer." Iskarous said people who fear immigrant labor
will drive down wages do not realize that better
protections and wages for immigrants will raise wages for
everyone. "When we've had amnesty, everybody's wages go up," he
said. (New Haven Register 8/25/07)

On Aug. 31 protesters again marched in Hartford to demand freedom
for Said Zaim-Sassi, and pressed Senator Joe Leiberman to
intervene. Lieberman agreed to look into the case, but he raised
concern about the alleged marriage fraud. "The question is
whether within the law there's any element for mercy here," said
Leiberman, "or if immigration service feels he committed a
fraud... if they have to punish him to make a point." (WTNH News
Channel 8 8/31/07)

*4. FLORIDA: 195 PICKED UP IN RAIDS

ICE announced on Aug. 29 that it had arrested 195 immigrants over
the previous two weeks in the areas of Miami, Tampa and Orlando,
Florida. According to ICE, "dozens" of those picked up in the
sweep had criminal records, and 115 had failed to comply with
deportation orders; the others were presumably merely out of
status. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel 8/31/07)

*5. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS IN BOSTON AREA

On Aug. 28, 29 and 30, ICE agents swept through the greater
Boston area, arresting 36 immigrants the agency claims are
members or associates of the MS-13 street gang. ICE said the
raids were part of ICE's national anti-gang initiative,
Operation Community Shield, launched in 2005. Most of the
arrests were made in Chelsea, East Boston, Everett, Lynn, Revere
and Somerville. Those arrested come from El Salvador, Colombia,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The Boston Globe cited Matthew Etre, deputy special agent in
charge of ICE investigations in Boston, saying that 20 of the 36
immigrants arrested had criminal convictions, and another 14 were
facing criminal charges or outstanding warrants. But ICE's own
news release reported that of the 36 arrested, 27 had merely
entered the US without inspection, four were lawful permanent
residents with criminal convictions that make them subject to
removal, two had re-entered the US after having been deported,
two had final orders of removal from an immigration judge, and
one was arrested on a state warrant. Etre said none of the
detainees were charged criminally in connection with the raids.
Two of those detained on civil immigration violations were minors
who were released to their parents' custody. (ICE News Release
8/31/07; Boston Globe 9/1/07)

According to Etre, local authorities often partner with ICE to
use the immigration status of alleged gang members as a way to
get them out of the country. "When ICE gets involved, we're using
our immigration and customs authorities to make an impact where
maybe local law enforcement can't," Etre said. (BG 9/1/07)

In addition to the 36 people arrested in this operation, ICE said
23 other "gang members and associates" have been arrested by law
enforcement agencies in conjunction with ICE since the beginning
of August in the Boston area. ICE was assisted in the operation
by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the
US Attorney's Office, the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department,
the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, Boston Police
Department, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Police,
Massachusetts State Police and the police departments of Chelsea,
Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville. (ICE News Release 8/31/07)

*6. "ANTI-GANG" RAIDS: CHICAGO, NORTH CAROLINA, OKLAHOMA

From Aug. 26 to 29, ICE agents arrested 58 Mexican men in
Chicago's northern and northwest suburbs. According to ICE, those
arrested have ties to "violent street gangs such as the Latin
Kings, Sureno-13s, and the Latin Lovers, among others." Of the 58
people arrested, 37 are out-of-status immigrants and 21 are US
permanent residents whose criminal convictions make them eligible
for deportation. Six of those arrested had active warrants for
their arrest and will be turned over to local authorities to face
criminal charges. After those charges are resolved, they will be
transferred back to ICE for deportation. Three of those arrested
are being presented to the US Attorney's Office for federal
prosecution for re-entering the US after having already been
deported, which is a felony. The US Marshals Great Lakes Fugitive
Task Force, Lake County Sheriff's Department, and the Waukegan and
Mundelein police departments assisted ICE in the raids. (ICE News
Release 8/30/07)

In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 7, ICE agents and officers from
the Alamance County Sheriff's Office raided homes in the towns of
Burlington and Graham and in rural areas of Alamance County,
North Carolina, arresting at least 19 suspected members of Sureno
13 and other gangs. Officers had expected to arrest only 11
people, but at least seven more suspects turned up at homes in
Burlington, according to sheriff's spokesperson Randy Jones.
Three other people were arrested during the operation who had
nothing to do with suspected gang activity, said Jones. No
charges have been filed against any of those arrested.

The operation was spearheaded by the Alamance County Sheriff's
Office, with support from North Carolina Probation and Parole and
the Gibsonville Police Department. Sheriff Terry Johnson said all
those arrested are Latinos, but he insisted that the arrests were
focused on reducing gang activity, not targeting those present in
the US without authorization. About six months ago, the Alamance
County Sheriff's Office took on the 287(g) program, a partnership
with the Department of Homeland Security that trains and
authorizes local law officers to enforce federal immigration law.
Before the latest arrests, the sheriff's Alamance County Gang Unit
had processed 21 other alleged gang members for deportation.
(News 14 Carolina (Raleigh) 9/7/07; Burlington Times News 9/7/07)

From Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, ICE agents acting in partnership with
other federal and local law enforcement agencies arrested 65
people in a sweep targeting members of street gangs in the
Oklahoma City area. Those arrested were from Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Honduras, Iraq and Mexico. Three US citizens were
arrested by local law enforcement agencies during the operation.
ICE described 42 of those arrested as "known members of local
street gangs"; 15 of those arrested had active warrants or were
arrested on state charges. Some cases are being presented to the
US Attorney's Office for federal prosecution for re-entering the
US after having already been deported. Three immigrants with no
previous criminal convictions who were picked up in the sweep
were voluntarily returned to Mexico. Agencies participating in
the operation included the US Attorney's Office, Western
District of Oklahoma; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives (ATF); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
Oklahoma Highway Patrol; Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office;
Oklahoma City Police Department; and Oklahoma Department of
Corrections. (ICE News Release 9/4/07)

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