STANDING UP FOR FREEDOM
ACLU Obtains Key Documents Showing Most People Arrested |
For Immediate Release: PHOENIX – Documents made public today by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona provide new evidence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeted immigrants with no criminal records during immigration raids held in Northern Arizona in November 2008, and suggest that the agency ignored its stated mission of arresting and deporting dangerous fugitives through its fugitive operations teams, despite receiving millions in congressional funding to do so. "Contrary to assertions from Department of Homeland Security officials that they are focusing on apprehending criminal fugitives, these documents demonstrate that they are continuing to round immigrants who were not previously ordered deported and who pose no threat to the public safety,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. The documents provide a snapshot of 618 heavily-redacted pages that were provided to the ACLU of Arizona, the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council and the Flagstaff New Day Peace Center in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed in February about the so-called “Return to Sender” operations conducted in Flagstaff, Sedona and Prescott/Prescott Valley. ICE joined with the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office and Prescott Police Department to conduct the raids, which were intended to focus on apprehending 125 specific fugitive targets. The Coconino County Sheriff's Office and Flagstaff Police Department did not participate in the sweeps. The documents show that instead of apprehending fugitive aliens, only 14 of the 80 arrests were of people who had previously been deported, and only 2 out of these 14 had prior criminal histories. Forty-three of the 80 arrests seem to have been the result of local law enforcement efforts that would have proceeded without the raids. At least 23 of the 80 arrests were for people that ICE calls “incidentals”— people who happened to be present at a residence or workplace when authorities showed up looking for someone else. These documents mirror earlier findings by the Migration Policy Institute revealing that the percentage of criminal fugitives arrested through the program (as compared to the total number of arrests) has steadily decreased over time. In 2003, criminal fugitives accounted for 32 percent of the total arrests. By 2007, that figure was 9 percent. The remainder of the arrests are typically of “ordinary status violators” believed to be unlawfully present in the country. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank attributed the increase in arrests of people with no criminal records to a 2006 arrest quota system implemented by ICE. In August, ICE officials announced they were replacing the annual arrest quota with one that prioritizes arresting dangerous fugitives. Some of the most disturbing documents obtained from the Northern Arizona raids reveal that ICE relied on extremely outdated addresses to look for fugitives. More than 50 of the addresses they used were more than 10 years old, and a few even dated back to 1990. This predictably led to many families receiving unwelcome visits to their homes by law enforcement looking for people that had not lived there for a very long time. “It is unacceptable that millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent this way,” added Meetze. “It resembles recent sweeps and raids in Maricopa County that routinely target non-criminal undocumented workers.” The ACLU also said that cases of ICE agents using deception and sometimes force to get into homes of perceived immigrants have been well documented. Residents are then pressured into answering questions, and if found to be undocumented, frequently told that the only option is to sign a voluntary removal agreement. Numerous lawsuits have been filed alleging constitutional violations in the way that fugitive operations are conducted. In response to these types of practices, the ACLU of Arizona released a handbook earlier this year outlining immigrants’ constitutional rights during workplace raids, including the right to demand to see a court warrant or the right to remain silent when being questioned by authorities. Rights of Immigrants in a Workplace Raid: A Resource for Communities Before, During and After a Raid. Read the original FOIA request.
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