Immigration Officers Arrest School Children

Federal immigration agents arrested 51 illegal immigrants during a targeted sweep Thursday and Friday, according to a spokeswoman with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

ICE agents arrested 49 Mexican nationals and two people from El Salvador, all of whom were under court orders to leave the United States, said Virginia Kice.

"The people we're targeting are people who have had their day in court, had their due process, and been ordered to leave," said Kice.

Three of ICE's "fugitive operations" teams conducted the sweep in cities across the county, in many cases making arrests before dawn.

ICE is the enforcement arm of the agencies created from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security.

In two instances, agents seized children off school buses before or after arresting their parents.

In Firebaugh, two unmarked ICE vans pulled up alongside a school bus on Friday morning around 6:30, said Brian Walker, superintendent of the Dos Palos Oro Loma Joint Unified School District.

One van drove in front of the bus, forcing the driver to stop. Agents approached the bus, but the driver, following protocol, refused to open the door.

After agents flashed badges and the driver noticed agents were carrying guns, he let them on the bus. They removed three children and put them in a van.

The driver, worried about the children, followed the vans to a residence where he witnessed agents handcuffing people who appeared to be the students' parents, said Walker.

School officials said they were puzzled by the timing and method of the arrests.

"As a school district we don't have any jurisdiction or any right to tell them what to do or how to do it," said Walker. "But we want to share with them that it can be a traumatizing experience for students to be pulled over. We don't want to get in the way of them doing their job, but we think it could have been handled differently."

Walker said school counselors at Oro Loma Elementary were ready to talk to children about the experience and that the principal had called parents to let them know what happened.

Walker said he had called ICE officials to discuss how arrests could be handled in the future.

In Merced, agents found two students from Franklin Elementary School on a bus after arresting their parents.

In all cases, the children were American citizens.

"There was no intention to target the children," said Kice. "We were arresting their parents. The parents were concerned about the kids coming home to an empty house. We didn't want to separate a family."

Although the wave of arrests capped a week of nationwide and local protests about proposed immigration reform laws, ICE's Deputy Field Office Director Timothy Aitken said the timing was a coincidence.

"We do this every day," said Aitken, who runs fugitive operations teams from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. "This had nothing to do with the protests or the bills in the House and the Senate."

The sweep could send shock waves through an already fearful community of undocumented immigrants, according to service providers who work with recent immigrants.

Rattled immigrants could keep children home from school, skip clinic appointments and stop using services that provide free food for low-income families, said providers.

"When rumors come out that they're deporting people the fear grows," said Martin Diaz, a program manager with Golden Valley Health Centers, which provides medical services to recent immigrants. "It's really sad. They're already not going to services that are there for them, and when the fear increases they end up hurting themselves."

Diaz said his program workers already face difficulties gaining the trust of recent arrivals. When they show up at residences wearing name tags and looking "sort of official," no one will answer the door.

News of the arrests could push an already marginalized community further into the shadows, he said.

But ICE officials said that the immigrants targeted for arrest were all aware that they had been ordered to leave the country or had committed a crime.

In the past, said Kice, people would receive deportation orders, then "fly under the radar."

ICE's 31 fugitive operations teams were created in March 2003 to focus on locating, arresting and removing illegal immigrants and "criminal aliens," foreign nationals who, in addition to immigration violations, also have prior criminal convictions.

Local law enforcement agencies were not formally involved in the sweep, but the Merced County Sheriff's Department helped with at least one arrest, said Aitken.

An estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, with 2.45 million in California, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

"I think we need to let people know, this is very much a part of the way we do business," said Kice. "All of this is geared toward restoring integrity to the immigration system."

"It's very likely that our fugitive operations team will be conducting future operations in Merced. If you ignore the court's order there are going to be consequences. One morning there's likely to be a knock at the door."

[The original of this article can be found at http://www.mercedsun-star.com/local/story/12014235p-12773261c.html]