Burning Atlanta

This is SO sickening. The pro-illegal lobby doesn't want to see ANY enforcement including the removal of CRIMINALS. Hey, criminals have families, too. So sad, too bad, throw their asses out. Notice the textbook boo-hoo rhetoric.

Boo-Hoo

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 25 illegal immigrants throughout the Bay Area Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, including five in Watsonville and two in Capitola, an ICE spokeswoman reported Wednesday.

A San Francisco-based ICE fugitive operations team arrested illegal immigrants who failed to comply with a court order for deportation, according to Lori Haley, an ICE spokeswoman in Laguna Niguel.

Six of the people arrested had criminal convictions, said Haley, and three were sexual predators. Haley could not immediately identify those arrested.

So far, in fiscal year 2008, the three San Francisco-area fugitive operations teams have made 1,620 arrests, 300 of which are "criminal aliens." According to ICE, fugitive operations teams give top priority to aliens who pose a threat to national security and community safety, including members of street gangs, child sex offenders and aliens with convictions for violent crimes. There are currently 75 fugitive operations teams nationwide. They made 30,408 arrests during fiscal year 2007.

"As you can see from the arrests we made, a lot of these people, in addition to being in the country illegally, are actually criminals and they have no business being here," said Haley.

But local immigrant rights advocates responded angrily to the raids Wednesday, saying the raids cause people to live in fear, affect the local economy and don't just target criminals. Some advocates said plain-clothes agents arrived at houses in unmarked cars.

Karen Mallory, an organizer with Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action, or COPA, said she was working Wednesday with the wife of one of the men who was arrested in Capitola. Mallory said agents weren't looking for the woman's husband, but took him because he was undocumented and living where the wanted man had lived previously.

"It makes it hard to be proud to be an American the way we're taking people out of their homes, away from their families," said Mallory.

"I'm just concerned that there's going to be panic again amongst parents, workers, families and children," said Madrigal, a member of a countywide committee called Stop the Raids. "Our local economy can't continue to take these kinds of hits."

This is the second string of raids to occur in the area in less than two years. Raids in September of 2006 resulted in the arrest of 107 illegal immigrants in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Hollister.

Totally mind-blowing. They don't even want criminals removed and think that illegals should be treated better than citizens. If I were a wanted fugitive then I could expect the authorities to arrest me at any time.