Hi Gang:
 
The article I have attached below is significant on a couple of levels.  First of all, illegal immigration is not about Hispanics, it is about the law.  When I was an INS special agent I often investigated and arrested illegal aliens from a wide variety of countries that were not located in Latin America.  To portray immigration law enforcement as purely an Hispanic issue denies the reality of the immigration laws, that people who are not citizens of the United States but are present in the United States are aliens. 
 
Aliens fall into two broad categories, aliens who have been lawfully admitted into the United States and aliens who either entered the United States lawfully and have abided by the terms of their admission into the United States and those aliens who either entered the United States illegally by running our nation's borders, stowing away on a vessel or entering the United States with false identity documents, or aliens who, after lawfully entering the United States, subsequently violate the terms under which they were admitted.  These violations can generally be thought of as occurring in three broad categories.  Aliens become deportable when they are admitted as non-immigrants, that is to say that they are given a limited period of time in which to remain in the United States to be tourists, students or other such temporary visitors, and then they overstay the period for which they were authorized to remain in the United States.  Aliens also become illegal aliens when they accept unauthorized employment.  The origins of this aspect of immigration law enforcement was to protect United States citizens and aliens who had been admitted as resident aliens and given green cards, from losing their jobs to aliens who had no right to work in the United States.  In fact, it was the United States Department of Labor that had originally enforced the immigration laws out of a concern for the well-being of our nation's citizens.  (Imagine that concept!)
 
Finally, aliens, including resident aliens, become deportable when they are convicted of committing a variety of serious crimes.  Again, this is obviously an effort to safeguard citizens and other who are in the United States from those aliens who would create a dangerous situation in our country.
 
The article notes that the employer and his employees who were arrested for conspiracy to commit identity theft. This was obviously done to circumvent the provisions of the immigration laws that make it a crime for employers to knowingly hire illegal aliens.  Identity theft is the fastest growing white collar crime in the United States today.  It is not a victimless crime as anyone who has had this happen to them would certainly attest.  It leaves its victim feeling violated and can create a nightmare for its victim in terms of the financial implications it has for its victim. 
 
The issue of the use of false identity documents or stolen identities raises an issue that I have raised at a number of Congressional hearings when I have been called as a witness.  It is the issue of the guest worker amnesty program that the President is ever so eager to implement for many millions of illegal aliens who would undoubtedly attempt to participate in.  There is absolutely no way that the immigration bureaucracy could effectively determine the true identity of so many aliens who, in many cases, have already established false identities for themselves in the United States.  To provide illegal aliens with official identity documents in names of unknown and unknowable authenticity is to create a national security nightmare for our nation.  I have often said that false security is worse than no security.  When an illegal alien has no official identity documents he is less able to embed himself in the community in which he lives and arouses justifiable suspicion because of this.  If our government was to provide millions of illegal and undocumented aliens with official identity documents that could be used to obtain legitimate Social Security Cards, driver's licenses, credit cards and even library cards, millions of illegal aliens will have been provided with the opportunity to blend into our country including criminals and terrorists who use multiple identities the way that a chameleon uses changes in coloration as camouflage in order to blend into his surroundings. 
 
The reality is that unless we are willing to declare that anyone born on the planet Earth should be declared a citizen of the United States, then our nation needs to effectively secure its borders and the immigration system.  The fear that the raids apparently engendered are not a bad thing, but actually a positive effective of the law enforcement actions that were taken by the special agents of ICE, assisted by the local police.  That fear of getting caught and punished is at the root of all law enforcement activities and is known as deterrence.  It has been said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  When law enforcement is able to deter illegal conduct, the result is that ounce of prevention.  Illegal aliens would not be charging across our nation's borders and otherwise entering our country in violation of law if they felt that there was a good chance that they would be detected and prosecuted and/or removed from the United States for violating our nation's borders and immigration laws. 
 
It is not coincidental that there are more illegal aliens present in the United States today than at any other time in the history of our nation. There are two reasons for this.  First of all, the Amnesty of 1986 sent out a very dangerous message to people all over the world.  The message was clear; if you violate the immigration laws of the United States and manage to hide long enough, not a difficult prospect given the virtually nonexistent resources available at the agencies involved in the enforcement of the immigration laws, then you too will ultimately receive lawful status for violating the laws.  Second, the President has repeatedly made a mockery of the immigration laws and our borders.  He has made speeches where he compared the immigration laws to Prohibition.  We all know what happened to Prohibition- it was abolished!  Every time the President has given a speech and talked about his guest worker amnesty program, the next day apprehension rose dramatically along our nation's southern border.   
 
There are billions of people inhabiting our planet who live in abject poverty, indeed squalor.  Our nation cannot invite all of these people to come to the United States to seek a better life.  That sort of effort would end disastrously!  It is time that our nation to encourage other nations, especially those that send us the greatest number of illegal aliens, to do a far better job of providing economic opportunities for their citizens to live better lives within their own countries.  Mexico is a case in point.  Mexico is the wealthiest nation in all of Latin America, yet an estimated 10% of Mexico's citizens live in the United States and send money back to Mexico.  Those remittances are the greatest source of income for the Mexican economy.  This is not acceptable. 
 
The United States has an obligation to its own citizens to provide secure borders and an immigration system that possesses true integrity, especially as we wage a war on terror and more and more violent gang members enter the United States in increasing numbers, creating a nightmare scenario for the citizens of the United States.
 
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
 
-michael cutler-
 
 
 
 
http://www.gazetteextra.com/immigrants_wwpolice111206.asp

 
Monday, November 13, 2006  10:54:53 AM 
 City police say federal authorities handled immigration enforcement

(Published Saturday, November 11, 2006 10:43:43 PM CST)

By Mike Heine
Gazette Staff

WHITEWATER-Events the morning of Aug. 8, 2006, sent shockwaves through a small college city in Walworth County's northwest corner.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents, local police, county sheriff's deputies and officials from the Social Security Administration raided Star Packaging, searching for evidence of identity theft and undocumented immigrants.

The business' owner, Allen L. Petrie, and 25 Mexican employees were arrested.

Since that day, members of the Hispanic community have been frightened of police, and leaders of Latino groups have expressed outrage at the detention of people who were working one minute and facing deportation the next.

Police stand by actions
Whitewater police maintain they were investigating identity theft and that only ICE officials investigated immigration issues. The agencies shared a search warrant to simultaneously conduct the investigations, Whitewater Chief James Coan said.

Petrie was charged with conspiracy to commit identity theft. He allegedly told employees to use fake names and Social Security numbers to maintain their employment.

At least 10 employees, according to police reports, admitted to using false identities. The District Attorney's Office is reviewing the reports to determine if further charges are warranted against those employees.

ICE detained 25 employees suspected of living in the U.S. illegally.

Despite a rift in the community that's become more apparent since the raid, Coan said he supported the police actions that day.

"I stand by the operation," Coan said. "What I do regret is the feelings that are engendered in the community-the after-affects from it. It was not motivated by prejudice or bias or anything of that nature, but people believe or wish to believe that it was. That's not the case."

A profiling problem?
Some people still believe that racial prejudices steered the police department and lead investigator Larry Meyer, who in September retired from the force after more than 33 years.

Petrie's defense attorney, Frank Lettenberger, and Star Packaging's attorney, Mark Olm, have accused Meyer of racial profiling.

So has David Duran, vice president of Latinos United for Advancement and Change.

"I think the officer initiated all of this and just decided to target Latinos," Duran said of Meyer. "He followed them to work and took their license plate numbers down, then harassed the employer to get information together to find a wrench that he could use to get rid of those particular Latinos."

The police department overstepped its bounds by using the identity theft investigation as a way to bring in immigration agents, Duran said.

"They're going to have to really stop lying about the reasons and how they proceeded in their investigations," Duran said.

"The community and everyone agree that the police department is out to investigate those crimes that are crimes. Being undocumented is not a crime," he added. "It is not a felony. It is nothing more than an administrative citation."

The American Civil Liberties Union is investigating the department to see if it overstepped its bounds.

According to the search warrant affidavit for the raid, Meyer said he told Petrie to not hire people with Social Security numbers that weren't their own.

"It's their attitude of overreaching their jurisdiction by even telling employers who they can hire or not hire," Duran said. "That's not the responsibility of the police department. That's the sole responsibility of federal immigration services and federal agencies, not the local police department.

"If it's identity theft, they should investigate identity theft and concentrate on that scope of the investigation and that's it, rather than calling in immigration."

Treading a fragile line
The statements from police and Latino leaders reflect the tension that was outlined in a report by the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law.

The report focused on new legislation that allows local police to access an immigrant's citizenship status via the National Crime Information Center database, an FBI-maintained computer network that contains criminal histories for millions of people.

Proponents of having that information in the database argue it allows for increased authority in arresting and deporting suspected terrorists and immigration violators.

However, those opposed have warned that it "threatens to undermine the often delicate relationships of police departments with immigrant communities, divert scarce police resources from fighting crime and heighten the risk of civil rights violations such as racial profiling."

That's why local officers stuck with investigating identity thefts and left the immigration issues to ICE authorities, Coan said.

Coan would not say how or when ICE became involved in the investigation, but he admitted that the police department's actions-sharing a search warrant and assisting ICE agents with arresting suspected illegal immigrants-could be viewed as carrying out immigration enforcement.

"I can see why people in the community might think or believe that," he said, noting the department will help other police agencies when asked. "We do not actively investigate immigration issues. It's a federal responsibility.

"At the local level, we do not have the resources to devote to that anyway. We have other kinds of issues without having to go look for illegal immigrants."

Coan didn't waiver in his defense of Meyer's tactics or character.

"I strongly believe that Investigator Meyer was not motivated by any prejudice or bias or anything like that in conducting the investigation," he said. "He recognized there was a violation of law and was merely investigating and addressing those violations."

Mending the tear
What's done is done, and fixing the community's torn fabric is on many people's minds.

The police department is continuing its Hispanic outreach programs, which it started more than four years ago, Lt. Lisa Otterbacher said. The goal is to educate Latinos about laws, police responsibilities and resources in the city.

Hispanics need to learn America's culture and laws, but at the same time, Americans should understand why immigrants came to the United States, said Margarita Garfias de Christianson, a bilingual specialist with Rock-Walworth Comprehensive Family Services.

"All of these people that were marching this year in spring and early summer are telling us that they're here working, they're here for a real life, and they're hear to give to this country," she said.

The police know that, Coan said, and are there to make sure everyone has those opportunities.

"We still are a law enforcement agency," Coan said. "We have a moral obligation to enforce the law. When people are victimized, whether they're Caucasian or Hispanic, it's our job to enforce the laws of the land."