More than 1,100 arrested throughout California in immigration raids

By Denis C. Theriault
Mercury News
Article Launched: 09/29/2008 09:28:52 PM PDT

Billing a series of raids as the largest sweep of its kind in California, federal immigration authorities Monday announced more than 1,100 arrests throughout the state this month, part of a three-week effort that saw teams from the Bay Area and beyond knocking on doors in search of fugitive immigrants.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested 1,157 men and women — 436 in Northern California — the latest splash in a five-year push targeting immigrants who have ignored deportation orders or returned to the United States illegally after being deported. The sweep, which concluded Saturday, also produced 420 arrests in the Los Angeles area and 301 in the San Diego area. Those arrested came from 34 countries.

And although ICE officials hailed the sweep as a success, particularly because of the number of arrests, they said it was only the scale of the effort that was remarkable.

"This is something we do on a daily basis," said Craig Meyer, ICE's assistant field office director in San Francisco. "This was just a big surge to get as many boots on the ground as we could."

Teams from Northern and Southern California worked together to rove the state, turning up 595 immigrants with outstanding deportation orders and 346 with criminal convictions. In Northern California, which includes the Bay Area, 185 were fugitives and 92 had criminal convictions, ranging from petty theft to more serious crimes. A breakdown of arrests by municipality and county was not available, Meyer said.

In one case, ICE agents apprehended a Fremont woman who had been ordered deported after convictions for voluntary manslaughter and threatening a witness. The onetime legal resident, whom authorities did not identify, was sent back to her native Portugal shortly after her arrest, officials said.

The sweep marked the first large-scale operation for ICE's months-old San Jose team, one of a handful added this year in California, as ICE continues its five-year crackdown against immigrants who ignore deportation orders. In patrolling Northern California, it joins two teams in San Francisco and one each in Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield.

"It spreads us out a little more, gives us a little more reach," Meyer said of the new South Bay crew. "They know the area better and they can get out there quicker and be on the ground more often."

Nationwide, there are now 95 teams in operation, ICE officials said, with more than 100 expected by the end of the year. In 2003, when ICE's Fugitive Operations Program was created, only 17 teams were in place.

That expansion, along with the establishment of a federal investigation center in Vermont, has led to a surge in arrests. Last year there were 30,407 arrests nationwide, nearly double the year before. This year, ICE agents are well on their way to topping that number, with 26, 945 arrests logged as of Aug. 1.

The crackdown has continued to cut into the number of immigrants nationwide who have standing deportation orders. In 2007, for the first time, the suspected number of fugitive immigrants in the United States declined. The backlog is now down to fewer than 560,000, about 34,000 fewer than on Oct. 1, 2007.

But for Basil Robledo, director of programs for the Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) in San Jose, the latest arrests are one more step on a disturbing path following last year's failure by Congress to reform the nation's immigration laws.

He said federal officials have instead turned to heavy-handed enforcement — a strategy that Robledo says has led to fear and broken families.

"It is a scary situation for folks in the community," he said. "People keep their kids home from school. It creates less of a willingness to talk to police. They see ICE agents and they see a uniformed person, and that blends into all of law enforcement."

Meyer acknowledged the complaints his agency receives, particularly those concerning children and families, stressing that "when children are involved, we're very careful with that."

Still, he said, "these are the laws that are in place. And we're just following through, doing our job."

Reach Denis C. Theriault at dtheriault@mercurynews.com. or 408-920-5035.