Vol. 72/No. 41      October 20, 2008

The arrests took place in 53 cities and towns in 28 states. The largest numbers seized were 430 in California and 271 in Texas.

Teaming up with federal, state, and local cops, ICE has conducted Operation Community Shield sweeps since 2005, arresting more than 11,000 people. Although ICE claims the sweeps are aimed at “transnational street gangs,” two-thirds of those taken into custody were charged only with violations of immigration law, with criminal charges filed against the rest. Detainees in both categories face deportation.

ICE chief Julie Myers criticized Houston officials for failing to fully participate in the operation. There were 71 arrested in Houston in this year’s sweep, Myers said, fewer than in smaller cities such as Boston.

Houston police chief Harold Hurtt replied that his cops do not routinely question individuals about their immigration status if they have not been arrested, saying they do not have “adequate resources” to act as immigration police. He noted, however, that Houston cops run the name of anyone arrested through two national databases, and if they discover the individual faces a deportation order or some other immigration restriction, they keep the person in jail for 24 hours so ICE can come get them.

The Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group, released a “study” October 1 titled “Taking Back the Streets.” Funded by the U.S. Justice Department, it urges greater cooperation between ICE and local police, prosecutors, and prison officials. The report makes it clear the main target is not “criminals” but immigrant workers. “Immigrant gang members rarely make a living as gangsters,” it says. “They typically work by day in construction, auto repair, farming, landscaping, and other low-skill occupations.”

In California, ICE cops also carried out a “Fugitive Operations” dragnet against workers facing deportation orders, arresting 1,157 people in the last three weeks of September. Agency officials said it was the largest such operation to date in the state. Similar squads arrested 76 immigrants in New Jersey in the last six days of September.

The Pew Hispanic Center reported October 2 that the number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States had dropped to about 500,000 a year since 2005, from an average of 800,000 a year from 2000 to 2004. It attributed the decrease to worsening job prospects for foreign-born workers as well as record numbers of workplace raids and deportations.  
 
 
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