The human face of immigration raids in Bay Area

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/27/7 | Tyche Hendricks

[SmithL]

Arrests of parents can deeply traumatize children caught in the fray, experts argue

-- Immigration agents arrested siblings Victor and Elvira Mendoza, 21 and 17, when it turned out the fugitive they were looking for no longer lived at the Mendozas' home. Officers detained 6-year-old U.S. citizen Kebin Reyes for 12 hours when they arrested his father as an illegal immigrant.

These and many other families across the Bay Area and the nation were turned upside down this year by Operation Return to Sender, a federal immigration crackdown begun last May. The raids focus on illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders, but 37 percent of the 18,149 people arrested nationwide through Feb. 23 were not wanted fugitives.

Mental health experts say the raids are traumatizing children. Legal scholars and public officials are raising constitutional questions about the way the raids are carried out and about their impact on communities as a whole. And immigrant advocates say changes in immigration law -- including tougher provisions enacted in 1996 -- leave little room for illegal immigrants to correct their status.

"They (the raids) are putting some teeth back in immigration law," said Tim Aitken, deputy director for detention and removal operations in the San Francisco office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. "Our focus is, we want to go after the worst of the worst. ... But we can't be blind to someone who doesn't have lawful status in the United States."

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights sued federal authorities in San Francisco on Thursday on behalf of Kebin Reyes, now 7, saying agents violated the child's civil rights when they took him into custody. Attorneys charge that the federal government violated Kebin's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to liberty...

[SmithL]

Kebin Reyes stands with his father, Noe Reyes, in San Rafael. Kebin was detained for hours when his dad, now free, was arrested.

[Brilliant]

It’s the survival of the fittest in San Francisco.

[SmithL]

Kebin is the ACLU's (and the Comicle's) new poster child for their attack on America's borders: Child's civil rights were violated during immigration raid, lawsuit says

[massgopguy]

I thought it was SEPARATING the children from their parents that traumatized them?

[End Times Sentinel]

And immigrant advocates say changes in immigration law -- including tougher provisions enacted in 1996 -- leave little room for illegal immigrants to correct their status.

 

Seems to me that we're helping the to "correct" their status by sending them back to where they belong.

Owl_Eagle

If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.

And immigrant advocates say changes in immigration law -- including tougher provisions enacted in 1996 -- leave little room for illegal immigrants to correct their status.

[AmericaUnited]

I guess brainless wonder Tyche Hendricks doesn’t understand that when parents break the law, it might not turn out being “happy time” for their children.

[Basheva]

When someone commits a robbery and is convicted and sent to jail - that person is separated from his/her children (if any) for the time that person spends in jail.

When a person illegally crosses the border and trespasses against our laws and is caught - we should let them go because they have kids?

HUH?

[keepitreal]

Here's just another human face of illegal immigration: ,br> Donna Wilson did not think she was going to die last summer.
The 47-year-old Mt. Juliet woman was on her way to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, hoping to be declared free of the cancer that had invaded her body six years earlier.
With her husband, Sean, at the wheel of their silver Buick, the couple drove along Old Hickory Boulevard. Headed their way was a multiple DUI offender, Gustavo Garcia Reyes, with a blood-alcohol content of 0.34 percent, more than four times Tennessee's legal limit.
The head-on collision with Reyes killed the Wilsons.
On Monday, Gustavo Garcia Reyes, 29, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, reckless aggravated assault by a motor vehicle and evading arrest with risk to other motorists. He received a 25-year sentence and will have to serve 30 percent of it, or about 7½ years, before he's eligible for parole.
"What she thought would be a new day of beginnings was the last day of her life," Heather Steffek said as she sat in a witness seat beside a picture of her parents. "She did make it to Vanderbilt that day, but in the back of an ambulance clinging to her life. And her beloved husband, Sean, he lay dead in their car on Old Hickory Boulevard."
Reyes' case generated a firestorm of hostility after authorities revealed he was a Mexican in the country illegally, had been deported in the past and had been arrested on at least 14 different occasions, including for numerous drunken-driving charges. He has three DUI convictions.
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070410/NEWS03/704100350/1017/NEWS

[ladyjane]

It is interesting that the author of this article is a direct decendant of the Forbes family that made its billions in the slave trade and later the opium trade.

BTW, the old Boston Forbes family is not related to the nouveau Forbes of magazine fame.

[Vigilanteman]

I’d like to see anecdotal articles on how the lives of American construction workers were turned upside down when they were replaced by two illegals because the contractor could hire them for less.

[ChocChipCookie]

You can’t establish POLICY based on anecdotes. There will always be sob stories, VALID sob stories. Policy-making requires looking at the much bigger picture, which, unfortunately, doesn’t get the flashy headlies. Make and enforce the policy and THEN include tightly structured loop-holes.

[ladyjane]

I guess brainless wonder Tyche Hendricks doesn’t understand that when parents break the law, it might not turn out being “happy time” for their children.

I'm not sure if her ancesters broke the law when they were slave traders. I think they dropped that part of their business when it became unpopular and found opium to be a more lucrative commodity than humans.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If they were not here illegally they would not have been arrested.

[mutantcoil]

“Mental health experts say the raids are traumatizing children. Legal scholars and public officials are raising constitutional questions about the way the raids are carried out and about their impact on communities as a whole.”

Oh I see, so it is INS fault these people are breaking the law. Maybe we shouldn’t arrest the thieves and rapists either. It may upset their little kids too. Brilliant!

[Tarpon]

If they were to go back to Mexico they would not be arrested. What’s so hard to understand about that. Illegal alien means illegal alien, i.e. you get arrested.

[GingisK]

All they have to do is take the whole family back to Mexico before anyone in the family gets arrested.

[SmoothTalker]

“Arrests of parents can deeply traumatize children caught in the fray, experts argue”

So can the arrest of parents for other crimes. If illegals don’t want to face the specter of arrest and the consequences of arrest for their families they shouldn’t break the law in the first place.

[Kellis91789]

“flashy headlies”

I like that. Very descriptive of the liberal press. Truth is a foreign concept to them. “All the lies that are fit to print” with a “flashy headlie” to get people’s attention.

[LibKill]

This whining elicts no sympathy from me.

I say make it real hot for illegals. If we make it hot enough they will self-deport.

[Redleg Duke]

"Mental health experts say the raids are traumatizing children."

And this is whose fault?