Napolitano orders review of Bellingham ICE immigration raid

[babylonsister]

Napolitano orders review of Bellingham immigration raid
JOHN STARK - THE BELLINGHAM HERALD


Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a review of a Tuesday, Feb. 24, raid at Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham that resulted in the arrests of 28 workers believed to be in the country illegally.

Napolitano told lawmakers during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday that she did not know about the raid before it happened and was briefed on it early Wednesday. She has asked U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which conducted the raid, for answers.

"I want to get to the bottom of this as well," she said, adding that work-site enforcement needs to be focused on the employers.

Rosalinda Guillen, an immigrant rights advocate who is executive director of Community to Community Development in Bellingham, said she was encouraged by Napolitano's attitude.

"That's what we would have expected from the Obama administration," Guillen said, adding that the tactics in Tuesday's raid were unnecessarily traumatic for workers, their families and their employer.

"We're concerned that Homeland Security is enforcing immigration law without any respect for local communities and local economies," Guillen said. "They just want to enforce the law regardless of the impact on us here. ...

"We know there's going to have to be some type of enforcement, but this is not it. It's a war on immigrant workers and local economies that we just can't ignore."

more...

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/102/story/808563.html

[getthefacts]

1. These raids make no sense

whatsoever. We should be spending that same amount of time and money looking for criminals instead.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. The owner of the company IS a criminal. n/t

[getthefacts]

3. You know, this whole fear instilling

mantra that company owner's who employ undocumented migrants are criminal is used way too often and I don't think it represents the whole truth.

I'm not saying that there aren't employers out there salivating to benefit from the service of some poor bastard that has no legal documents. I've heard many stories about the immigrant who was suddenly getting discounts on his paycheck and told not to say anything because INS could knock on his door anytime. Yes, these SOBs fit my description of criminals.

In my view, however, there are also many employers out there who employ immigrants, documented or not, because they think they are hard workers and because they know is a win-win situation for both parties. The truth is that years ago, there were not enough people to fill the jobs available. This created a whole cycle of employers hiring undocumented, who kept coming in to fill more jobs, and on, and on. The raids won't break the cycle or solve the problem. It will just separate families, create unnecessary backlogs in our court system and damage the economy further.