Posted on 03/30/2002 11:05:34 PM PST by sarcasm
SAN FRANCISCO, California - Recent raids on California airports that have resulted in the arrest of hundreds of immigrants, mostly Hispanics, have drawn criticism from human rights groups.
"To ask individuals to identify themselves just because they look, act or behave like immigrants is illegal and it creates panic in our community. We are not going to keep quiet about it," said the chairwoman of the Los Angeles Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Angelica Salas.
Salas said the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is using racial profiling in the arrests, which is illegal in the United States. More than 300 people demonstrated on Thursday against the raids in Los Angeles
"First, they came for the Muslims, the Arabs. Now, they go for Latinos and other non-white immigrants," said National Lawyers Guild spokesman James Lafferty of the some 1,200 arrests, mostly of Muslims and citizens of Middle Eastern countries, made after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Of those detainees, 327 continue in prison. Some 250 people were arrested as a result of recent raids on 11 airports nationwide.
In airports of San Francisco and San Jose, California, immigration officers required employees and legal residents to identify themselves.
Fifty-five people have been arrested since Monday in northern California and will be deported, said INS San Francisco office spokesperson Sharon Rummery.
She said the arrest and deportation of janitors, porters and kitchen helpers at the airports are measures to combat terrorism, as immigrants are vulnerable to eventual pressure from terrorists. Charges against the undocumented include using fake social security cards and lying about their backgrounds in job applications.
"It is an extremely dangerous situation for all. Terrorist groups learn about the status of these people and could force them to do things they don't want to do at the airports," Rummery said on behalf of the INS.
The INS also reported the arrest last week of 183 Mexicans and a Guatemalan citizen.
Thomas Schilgen, director of INS in Los Angeles, denied the airport raids targeted people who looked like immigrants or Hispanics. He said that INS acted based on intelligence reports that said immigrant traffickers were using U.S. airports and flights to ply their trade.
Also, the federal government could deport 66 undocumented immigrants, most of them from Mexico, arrested in an early March dragnet in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport of North Carolina.
The Kosovo Serbs used to love all that cheap Albanian labor, and thought that open borders were a swell idea.
I agree. I find it interesting that liberals portray illegal alienage as a race. They also describe "Mexican" as a race rather than a nationality.
LOL! Are there a disproportionate amount of Hispanics in CA?
Common sense writer/no/sarcasm off!
And patriotic Americans are not going to keep quiet about our disdain and contempt for individuals like Angelica Salas. The United States has the right to enforce it's immigration laws and the use of profiling is a very important part of the enforcement process. And no, Ms. Salas and the editorial staff of the Mexico City News, racial profiling is not illegal in the United States. If it was illegal, no police department could do their job because a suspect's race is a very important factor that police use in tracking down criminals. If I tell the police that a white man just robbed me at gunpoint, the police are going to be on the lookout for a white suspect in trying to make an arrest. That is racial profiling and it is perfectly legal.
If they are dark, they can look like Middle East people. Due to 9-11 it is logical that some would get checked out as possible terrorist.
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