Two Takes On Illegal Immigration

4/7/2009 ACLU attorney Julia Harumi Mass shares what the ACLU has learned from records gathered on the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. ICE agents have been going far beyond the agency's stated priority of targeting "criminal fugitives," instead sweeping up parents walking their kids to school and anyone living in or visiting the home -- or former home -- of a target. Harumi Mass tells the story of what happened to Guadalupe Carreno, a U.S. citizen and straight-A student in one of San Francisco's high schools.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Imagine it's five in the morning. There's a knock at the door; it's law enforcement. You just moved in two weeks ago and they're looking for someone you don't know. You tell them this but they come into your home anyway, wake your children, search your home, and inspect your identification -- all because they're on the lookout for someone who used to live there. Doesn't seem right. And, it's not. If this were police looking for a criminal suspect, it wouldn't happen.

But, for several years, we at the ACLU of Northern California have heard widespread reports of this type of enforcement activity immigrant communities. Reports that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, has been going far beyond its top priority of targeting "criminal fugitives" who pose a threat to national security or community safety, instead sweeping up parents walking their kids to school and anyone living in or visiting the home -- or former home -- of a target. Last year we settled a case involving a U.S. citizen who was six years old when he was illegally detained for ten hours by immigration officials during the course of a neighborhood sweep.

In early 2007, when reports began surfacing of ICE illegally entering and searching homes, misidentifying themselves as local police officers and racially profiling people on the street, 's the ACLU of Northern California requested documents from ICE under the Freedom of Information Act. We only began receiving records after we sued the agency last June.

Based on a preliminary analysis of the records we have received, the vast majority of people arrested by ICE during the neighborhood raids of 2006 and 2007 were not criminals or fugitives. What's even more disturbing is that ICE's common practice of entering people's homes without consent or a warrant that resulted in all those quote-unquote collateral arrests is still going on. In January of this year, it happened to Guadalupe Carreno, a U.S. citizen and straight-A student in one of San Francisco's high schools. Guadalupe's entire family was awakened at 5:30 a.m. by ICE officers, rousted from bed, and held for an hour in their house while immigration agents checked their paperwork. All this without a warrant or consent to enter.

Everyone knows that our immigration system is broken. And ICE's stated goal of focusing on dangerous criminals makes sense. The problem is it just isn't happening. Violating the rights of people to be secure in their homes in order to sweep up undocumented people who don't pose any threat to public safety isn't solving illegal immigration. The government needs to find workable solutions that respect human dignity and constitutional rights so that we can move forward, together.

Julia Harumi Mass is an staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.