Feds admit mistakenly jailing citizens as illegal immigrants

[flashl]

Source: Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official acknowledged Wednesday that his agency has mistakenly detained U.S. citizens as illegal immigrants, but he denied that his agency has widespread problems with deporting the wrong people.

Gary Mead, ICE's deputy director of detention and removal operations, testified during a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing that U.S. citizens have been detained on "extremely" rare occasions, but he blamed the mix-ups on conflicting information from the detainees.

...

The testimony before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law came after immigration advocates told McClatchy that they'd seen a small but growing number of cases of U.S. citizens who've been mistakenly detained and sometimes deported by ICE. They accuse agents of ignoring valid assertions of citizenship in the rush to deport more illegal immigrants.

Unlike suspects charged in criminal courts, detainees accused of immigration violations don't have a right to an attorney, and three-quarters of them represent themselves.

Houston Chronicle

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5540262.html

---

The joint forces of ICE and local LEOs are in a frenzy conducting raids mainly in the south. Unreported is the number of children entering :shudder: the foster care system who have been separated from their families. Of course separating the family is not always the case, we have Camp Hutto. At Camp Hutto, we 'detain' entire families.

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[pattmarty]

2. Camp Hutto; sounds realllllllllllllly nice for the family.

[flashl]

4. Sure......

Texas became home of Americas concentration camp when Williamson County’s T. Don Hutto Correctional Residential Center, a private detention facility in Taylor, Texas, became the newest facility for Homeland Security that would house “immigrants not from Mexico, but caught in Texas.” It was reported that around Christmas time, that T. Don Hutto Residential Center was housing 400 immigrants, and out those, 200 of them are children.

VIDEO

Concentration Camp Update: The Imprisonment of Innocent Children

[Steerpike]

3. We do not have "widespread" problems...

Cheese words.

[primavera]

28. This has been going on since 9/11

It's been one of the Patriot Act's many fundamental flaws: articifically linking terrorism to national security and then recruiting every Tom, Dick, and Harry to enforce immigration law as a way of expanding the war on terror. The problem is, determining someone's citizenship and/or immigration status isn't as simple a matter as some might imagine. There are lots and lots of different lawful immigration statuses as well as complex citizenships, such as dual citizens. It can get surprisingly complicated. The only way people have of proving their lawful presence is through the documents our government provides them with, of which there is an equally baffling variety, all of which are legitimate and the only proof people have of their status. This is why immigration officers undergo extensive training to be able to make determinations on who is and who is not lawfully present. But Patriot empowered local level officials, with no training, guidance, or supervision, to go out and start randomly enforcing immigration law about which they knew nothing. The prevailing policy climate has also pumped up the enforcement mentality and dismissed due process priorities, encouraging even those officers who possess training to, whenever in doubt, detain and deport. Predictably, it's been a disaster, with all sorts of innocent, lawfully present foreign nationals, as well as permanent residents, and, as this article describes, even some citizens, being inappropriately detained and even deported in some cases.

But that's the price of living in a police state. REAL ID authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security, or his/her designated representatives, i.e., Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, to waive any law, deemed necessary, in his or her sole, unreviewable, personal discretion, to preserve the integrity of the border. According to that language, they can commit pre-mediated, first-degree murder and it would be perfectly legal.

[gratuitous]

5. Let me take a wild guess

How many of those detained have the last name "Bush"? Or have white skin? And if there were any number at all that fit into those two categories, would Mr. Mead still say that there were no "widespread" problems? Ponder, ponder.

[The Croquist]

11. Thomas Warziniack looks white

There is a picture of him here:
http://www.newsobserver.com/859/v-pop_gallery/gallery/902651.html

People have been falsely accused of being criminals for centuries. Sometimes there are honest errors, sometimes it is deliberate. It is for the courts to try to sort it out. The article mentions that there have been over 1 million people detained over the last 4 years. It doesn't should like there is a systematic problem.

[Occulus]

14. Even one legal US citizen being detained represents a severe systematic problem n/t

[closeupready]

18. Absolutely. NO CITIZEN should EVER be detained like that, and

if I was on a jury deciding a case brought before the courts, there is no way I could not find for the plaintiff.

[flashl]

15. This is an excerpt from one story of one raid ...

March 8, 2007

BOSTON --Gov. Deval Patrick urged federal authorities to not move any more factory workers detained in an immigration raid out of state until their children are located and arrangements are made for their care.

"I urged the federal government to stop all flights out of Fort Devens immediately until we can be assured that all parents have been identified and appropriate arrangements made for their children and dependents," Patrick said at a Statehouse news conference.

Federal authorities postponed a third flight that was scheduled to depart at noon Thursday after Patrick twice called Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff seeking better cooperation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at Fort Devens.

"What we have never understood about this process is why it turned into a race to the airport," Patrick said. "There are families affected, there are children affected."

...

Children affected by the raid included a 27-day-old infant, Massachusetts Department of Social Services spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said. She said one woman was released Thursday night to nurse her 7-month-old infant, who was hospitalized in New Bedford for dehydration because the baby rejected formula.

Federal immigration officials have allowed state social workers to travel to the out-of-state detention centers "and identify some of the people they took too early before we got to interview them," Monteiro said.

...

There are other children who are either adolescents or had keys to their homes "and went home with no one there," Bigby said.

"They have not self-identified themselves. We have no idea how many that is," she said.

...

About 90 people were flown from the former Fort Devens military base to a detention center in Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday. Some 116 others were flown to Albuquerque, N.M., on Thursday, Raimondi said.

The detainees remaining in Massachusetts have been transferred to local jails, except for those who have been released on humanitarian grounds, and the Devens facility has now been vacated, Raimondi said.

Patrick wants detainees from immigration raid kept in Mass

What are the children suppose to do while its being 'sorted out'?

[ElboRuum]

6. Anybody see Born In East LA?

Yeah. That was a comedy. So, apparently, is real life.

[ElboRuum]

7. Anybody see Born In East LA?

Yeah. That was a comedy. So, apparently, is real life.

[ElboRuum]

8. Sorry for the double post, but something seems wonky with the site.

[Gman]

26. What made that movie so funny

was that it was absurd to think a citizen could be deported, but if it did happen this is how it would be. Of course except for maybe Paul Rodriguez, only Cheech could have done it so well.

[nealmhughes]

9. Back in the day when I lived in NYC I was riding the train with my best friend and his nephews.

All born in NYC, and me in Alabama. We were taling in Spanish about a movie that was stupid in its stereotype of Spanish-speakers, showing clearly Mayan actors as the parents of a character who was supposed to have been from Cuba. Someone boarded the train and said as an aside to all there, "Jesus! Why don't you people go back from where you're from?"
Ruben looked to him and said in a deadpan Brooklynese voice, "I am there. My friend was born in Birmingham and my nephews in Manhattan, along with their parents. My parents were born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA. My friend's ancestors have been in the US since colonial times."
The guy shut up, changed cars and we went back to "chattering" in the best street Nuyorkeño we could muster.
That was back 20 odd years ago before people had a fetish about "ferrnurs". . . imagine what it is like now with the fetish and not in New York?

[EFerrari]

22. We could write a book about these stories.

lol

I get to say, "I'm from Oakland, CALIFORNIA. That's across the bay from SAN FRANCISCO. I was born in PERALTA Hospital and grew up in the SANTA CLARA Valley."

:hi:

[Ian David]

10. "Mistakenly" my ass. They're doing it on purpose. n/t

[pleah]

12. They always blame the victims.

Classic bushco. :sarcasm:

[closeupready]

13. This country is so going down the crapper, this is just another sign of that.

Wow, I'm just amazed how bad things have gotten when citizens are being treated as criminals unless they cough up documentation ("are your papers in order?"). :mad:

[flashl]

16. That's what REAL-ID is about...getting 'our' papers in order. nt

[closeupready]

17. Yep absolutely. It certainly is.

n/t

[Sequoia]

21. Ihr Papier bitte

[blondeatlast]

19. "Unbelievable" is my first reaction--but really, in a government whose modus operandi is "CYA",

all too believable.

Sickening.

[seafan]

20. Dept of Homeland Security: ENDGAME: Office of Detention and Strategic Removal Plan

ENDGAME: Office of Detention and Strategic Removal Plan, Department of Homeland Security

pdf


Discussion in this thread.

Feds admit mistakenly jailing citizens as illegal immigrants, February 14, 2008 Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official acknowledged Wednesday that his agency has mistakenly detained U.S. citizens as illegal immigrants, but he denied that his agency has widespread problems with deporting the wrong people.

.....

...First they came for the http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/12/pentagon_domestic_spying.html">Quakers and other anti-war activists... then they came for Governor Siegelman.... then they came for Ben Kuehne... then they came for undocumented immigrants..... then they came for the citizens.



Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country.

[barbtries]

30. thank you for the links

i opened the pdf and was nearly knocked off my chair. this is public policy?

once again, amazed, outraged. another surpise. no matter how well informed i seek to be it seems that almost daily i learn of another outrage of which i was previously unaware.

want my country back!

[KamaAina]

31. ...then they came for a two-week-old baby who had a heart condition...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2852835&mesg_id=2852835

[williesgirl]

23. So it's the citizen's fault for providing confusing information? Bullshit. rec'd

[happygoluckytoyou]

24. IN A RELATED STORY...... SENATOR CRAIG DEPORTED

SENATOR LARRY CRAIG HAS BEEN DEPORTED FROM STALL NUMBER 5 AT THE MINN AIRPORT TO CELL NUMBER 5 AT THE LOCAL DRILL-N-FILL PRISON.

[Beam Me Up]

25. Everyone knows this is just "practice" -- warming up the system -- right?

First you start with the people no one cares about or who are in some legal gray area.

When the time is right -- that is, after the appropriate provocation which puts the whole society on a military footing -- then you begin the real culling of the herd. That is, you begin to look for the dissidents. Of course they aren't called that. The provocation has to imply that they are somehow 'domestic terrorists' or what have you.

That's people like US, folks.

[Gman]

27. The government has essentially declared war on anybody who's last name

is Rodriguez, Gonzales, Gonzalez, Gonzaba, Salazar, Ruiz, Garcia, Garza, Espinoza, Valenzuela, Contreras, Montalvo, Montelongo, Bautista, Becera, Dominguez, Chavez, Fuentes, De La Garza, Jiminez, Longoria, Luna, Martinez, Nava, Quinones, Rojas, Santiago, Tamez, Uriegas, Vargas, Vasquez, Ximines, Yzaguire, Zapata and anything in between and/or not included above.

The main thing is the government does not want these people to vote.

[flashl]

29. And, there are questions about ICEs data mining and sharing info ...

A government program that is stymied by data errors and isn't designed to stop fraud is the keystone of enforcing the nation's laws against employing undocumented workers.

The online system, called the Basic Pilot Program, automatically matches names and Social Security numbers when people apply for jobs. But the 11-year-old system is hardly foolproof.

...

Examinations of the voluntary federal system have raised a string of objections about data mistakes, misuse of the system and civil liberties concerns about aggregating personal information in Homeland Security databases. The system cannot stop illegal workers from using fake identification or unscrupulous employers from ignoring it. In addition, there are fears that identity thieves could steal data.

Feds' immigration database wrongly flags 18M workers

[seafan]

32. Do not forget: Monica Goodling named many of her unqualified pals as IMMIGRATION JUDGES.

From Brooks Brother Rioter to Judge, May 25, 2007





Good thing Halliburton built all those shiny new detention centers all over the country, just in case there are *lots of detainees* all of a sudden.


What is happening in this country is a gut screaming nightmare.

[flashl]

33. Please do not overlook GEO detention centers

The GEO Group Announces Agreement for the Housing of Immigration Detainees at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 2007--The GEO Group, Inc. (NYSE:GEO) ("GEO") announced today that the LaSalle Economic Development District (the "LEDD") has signed an Intergovernmental Service Agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") for the housing of up to 1,160 immigration detainees at the GEO-owned LaSalle Detention Facility (the "Facility") located in Jena, Louisiana. GEO will house and manage the immigration detainee population at the Facility pursuant to an agreement with LEDD.

GEO Announcement

---

May 2000
Locked Inside A Nightmare
Wackenhut's Private Prisons Scrutinized

(CBS) When 14-year-old Sara Lowe was arrested, her parents thought it was a blessing. They thought she was going to a new kind of juvenile detention facility - a private prison offering counseling that could turn her life around.

...

"Jena was designed to be a model correctional facility for young people," says Mark Doherty, a New Orleans judge, who had been relieved to finally have a place to send kids who desperately needed help. "Specifically they were to have a first-rate substance abuse treatment program with trained substance-abuse counselors."

...

The U.S. Department of Justice investigated Jena and found that youths were subjected to "cruel and humiliating punishments," and guards "routinely used excessive force." The report says that "the Jena Center is a dangerous place to be."

60 Minutes

Note: Inmates transferred from NOLA after Katrina to the empty LaSalle Center in Jena, filed the same type of complaints alleging "cruel and humiliating punishments".

[seafan]

34. Many are not even aware of these centers. This is not our America. n/t