U.S. Immigration officials announce new gang arrests
Immigration agents have arrested more than 600 gang members with ties to drug smugglers in the past three months, the largest such roundup since 1965, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.
ICE agents, working with state and local authorities in 168 cities, made 678 arrests from December to February in an effort dubbed "Project Southern Tempest," ICE Director John Morton said.
The latest roundup is part of a more than 5-year-old effort aimed at U.S. street gangs with ties to Mexican drug cartels and other drug traffickers.
Morton said Tuesday that nearly half those arrested in the last three months were also connected to street gangs with known ties to violent drug cartels in Mexico. Those cartels are battling each other and the government in Mexico in a struggle that has killed more than 35,000 people since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the drug gangs shortly after taking office in late 2006.
Federal authorities have announced the results of more than half a dozen such operations in the last 2 1/2 years and touted them as blows to Mexican drug gangs. But an Associated Press review of those sweeps last year showed that the arrests have done little to stymie the drug trade or do more than inconvenience the major Mexican-based cartels.
ICE officials did not identify all of the gang members arrested or say which cartels they or their respective gangs were aligned with. But Morton said 13 gangs whose members were caught up in the latest operation are connected to the cartels. As a group, he said, the gangs have ties to all of Mexico's cartels. All told, members of 133 gangs were arrested.
Morton said 447 suspects face criminal charges, while 231 people were arrested on administrative immigration charges.
The announcement of the arrests comes less than a week after agents from ICE, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal, state and local authorities launched a nationwide search for suspects with ties to Mexican cartels.
DEA officials said that effort, which netted more than 650 arrests, was a direct domestic response to the Feb. 15 killing of ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata in a roadside ambush along a Mexican highway.
The arrests announced Tuesday, Morton said, were not part that response. "We're pursuing gangs because they are involved in violent crimes affecting our communities in a big way," Morton said.
He added that U.S. authorities have made it clear they will continue to target cartel members working in the United States and street gangs aligned with those drug organizations.
SOURCE
Controversy in Michigan
Dozens of Latinos and Arab Americans joined faith leaders from around Michigan at the state Capitol Tuesday to call on lawmakers to reject an immigration bill in the state House that is similar to the controversial immigration law in Arizona.
The House Republican proposal would require police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is a suspicion that the person could be an undocumented worker.
Imam Mohammed Mardini of the American Islamic Center in Dearborn says that would divert law enforcement from serious crimes. "Do we really want legalized racial profiling?" he asks.
Mardini says the Arizona law has caused a lot of problems with how to determine who should be targeted. "One Congressman suggested that you could tell an undocumented immigrant by their shoes," Mardini says. "Let us face it - the police aren't going to be pulling over any suspected Canadians."
"There's nothing racist about this bill," says Republican state Representative Dave Agema. "I don't care who you are. They question you have to ask those people who are against this bill, 'What are you hiding? Why are you hiding who you're hiding?'"
"You're going to after anyone who happens to be here illegally and they've already broken a law, that's why the police officer has detained them," he says.
Agema says his proposal would save the state money in health care costs for illegal immigrants, but the protesters say it would cost the state money in additional law enforcement personnel.
Governor Rick Snyder says he wants to bring more immigrants to the state who have advanced degrees.
Opponents of tougher immigration laws from northern Michigan worry about justice, and possible repercussions for farmers.
Josh Wunsch, a cherry and apple grower on Old Mission Peninsula, worries the proposed law could make workers hard to find, particularly in good economic times. He says in 1990s, when jobs were plentiful, farm workers were scarce.
SOURCE
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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