Vol. 73/No. 50      December 28, 2009

More than 400 ICE agents, U.S. marshals, and local cops joined the three-day sweep in California. ICE said that more than 80 percent of those arrested had “prior convictions for serious or violent crimes” but did not release a list of those detained or what they were charged with. Nor did it give out any information on the other 20 percent of those who were picked up.

At least 17 of those caught up in the sweep have been charged with “illegal reentry” into the United States after a formal deportation, a felony that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

ICE chief John Morton claimed that “these are not people we want walking our streets.” Most of those arrested are from Mexico and Central America.

The Barack Obama administration has stepped up enforcement of immigration laws while downplaying the use of high-profile factory raids, which have often been met by protests. Many working people hate the way immigration cops have raided factories and don’t see working without proper papers as a crime. By going after alleged criminals, ICE hopes to undercut opposition to deportations.

At a December 9 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano boasted about the 387,000 undocumented workers deported this year. Some 359,000 were deported in 2008.

The biggest part of the increase is from the deportation of undocumented workers who finished serving prison time or are accused of criminal offenses: 136,000 in 2009, up from 97,000 in 2008. Until 2006, many workers without papers in federal prisons were released after serving time. Now virtually all are automatically deported when their sentences end.

Napolitano also said that E-Verify, a program that allows bosses to check on the immigration and work status of potential and current employees through the Internet, is expanding by leaps and bounds. More than 175,000 companies at 600,000 work sites now use the system and thousands more companies continue to join every week.

The stepped-up government attacks on undocumented workers are putting wind in the sails of anti-immigrant groups.

Ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan wants Washington to go even further. In a December 8 column titled “Why import workers now?” Buchanan scapegoats immigrants for high unemployment in the United States. He calls on Congress to impose a moratorium on legal immigration and on the Obama administration to resume factory raids.  
 
 
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