Bruce Tefft
Fri, 03 Nov 2006 06:38:45 -0800
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=86922
Girl Sues Immigration Agents A 15-year-old girl from South Georgia came to Atlanta Wednesday to sue the federal government, sounding, when she spoke-- as one might expect --like she's from South Georgia. She is from Reidsville, after all-- born and reared in the U.S.A. But she looks, she says, like her Mexican ancestors; and her name reflects and honors her heritage-- Marie Justeen Mancha. And Justeen stood outside the Russell Federal Building on Wednesday with her U.S.-born mother and a lot of others, to say how, one morning in September, as she was getting ready for school, her life changed. Her faith in her government-- shaken. Federal immigration agents, she said, raided her home, without a warrant. "And one was holding a gun," Justeen said. "And that really scared me. And they were screaming, 'Illegals,' and 'Mexicans,' and stuff like that. And they asked me if I was illegal, and I said, 'No.'" Justeen and five other U.S.-born residents of South Georgia are suing the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency, claiming that agents conducted raids in three counties in September that targeted anyone of Hispanic descent-- countless innocent citizens --in order to catch all the illegal immigrants they could. "They came in my house," Justeen said. "I mean, I'm legal. I'm from here. And they came in my house. That's what scares me, you know, that they can just go in anybody's house, even though you're from here." But the feds were quick to pounce on the allegations in the lawsuit. Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, told 11Alive News, "The suggestion that this was a random sweep intended to drive poor Latinos out of Georgia is absolutely false." Boyd said agents arrested 125 suspected, illegal immigrants during the Southeast Georgia operation in September, and "not a single, U.S. citizen" was arrested. "It was not a 'campaign of terror,' that's ridiculous." The Southern Poverty Law Center is representing Justeen and her mother and the four other plaintiffs, claiming that federal immigration agents conducted unconstitutional dragnets in the three, Southeast Georgia counties, detaining and questioning U.S. citizens as if they were suspected illegal immigrants, simply because the citizens look like illegal immigrants from Mexico, or have Hispanic names. "These plaintiffs are all United States citizens who were detained, harassed and terrified solely because of their appearance," said Mary Bauer, lead attorney on the case, who is the Director of the Immigrant Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "The defendants engaged in a Gestapo-like campaign designed to terrorize and intimidate the Latino community in South Georgia," Bauer said at the news conference outside the federal courthouse. "This campaign was based largely on racial and ethnic profiling, in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution." But ICE spokesman Boyd said the operation was "carefully planned," during months of investigation and "extensive research" prior to the arrests. "We had names and addresses of people violating U.S. immigration laws," Boyd said, and agents did not commit any racial profiling against any legal or illegal residents. Of the six, U.S.-born plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, five are of Hispanic descent. The sixth is of Anglo descent, David Robinson of Metter, GA. Robinson is a landlord who rents homes to workers of Hispanic descent, and told reporters he has "no way to check" whether his tenants are U.S. citizens. Robinson said immigration agents damaged his rental properties while looking for illegal immigrants during the raids. He said the monetary loss was minor compared to what he claims the agents were doing to the U.S. citizens. "They're just going to have to quit doing this, having all these people's lives on a yo-yo string," Robinson told reporters, and he accused the federal government of timing the raids for political gain prior to the November elections. "I mean that's what I feel like it is," Robinson said, "it's just a yo-yo that, every two years, they make these raids and stuff, and they don't realize that it's human beings involved. And if they're going to enforce the immigration laws, they need to go ahead and do it, and do something, but just quit with this playing around with people's lives." Dean Boyd of ICE said the agency is going to take a close look at specific allegations by U.S. citizens against ICE agents. "We take all such allegations seriously," he said, "and the Office of Professional Responsibility will look at each and every allegation." Outside the federal courthouse, Justeen embraced her mother, rarely letting go of her hand, sometimes wiping tears from her eyes, and recalled that about two dozen agents surrounded her home that morning. She said that after she insisted that she's a U.S.-born citizen, the agents asked her if her mother, who was about to return home from a brief visit to a nearby grocery store, was in the U.S. illegally. "I was scared that they were going to take her," Justeen said, "even though she's from here, you know, I didn't understand." Justeen's mother, Maria Christina Martinez, said she still wonders, "Why our house, you know?" She said no one with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or its Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch, has answered her question. "To me, it was very unfair what happened to us," she said. "And, yes, you know, I felt like they violated our rights. We are U.S. citizens, you know, and we are like everybody else, pay taxes, and stuff. And, to me, just because they see Mexicans, Hispanics, skin color, they think, you know, everybody's [illegally] from Mexico." The six plaintiffs are Marie Justeen Mancha and her mother, Maria Christina Martinez, of Reidsville; Ranulfo Perez of Adrian; Maria Margarita Morales and Gladis Alicia Espitia of Oak Park; and David Robinson of Metter. The defendants are the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; six administrators of ICE, Julie L. Myers, Marcy Forman, Kenneth A. Smith, Gregory Wiest, John P. Torres and John Mata; and up to 30, unnamed ICE agents who participated in the operation. The lawsuit asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, and for a court order stopping the government from conducting similar raids from now on. So, Justeen and the others are placing their faith, now, in the courts of their government. "I hope that, you know, this never happens again to anybody," she said. After the plaintiffs' news conference in Atlanta, ICE in Washington released this statement: In September 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents lawfully arrested more than 125 illegal aliens in southeast Georgia as part of a months-long investigation of individuals who used fraudulent documents to illegally gain employment at a local poultry plant. These enforcement actions were conducted in accordance with constitutional principals that govern all law enforcement activities in the United States. Factors such as race or ethnicity played no role in the enforcement actions. ICE agents made these arrests based on specific information they had developed on the names and addresses of individual immigration violators in these locations. As they carried out these targeted arrests, ICE agents encountered other illegal aliens who they arrested. All those arrested were in violation of federal immigration laws and were afforded the opportunity to appear before an impartial Immigration Judge. In cases where pressing humanitarian concerns were identified, ICE used its discretion to allow the alien to appear in court at a later date. ICE takes seriously any allegations of wrongdoing by its employees and its Office of Professional Responsibility thoroughly investigates such allegations. ICE plans to review the lawsuit carefully. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/