Raids Round Up 'Fugitive' Immigrants

(AP)  At about 5 a.m., loud banging on a front door quieted a chorus of crickets on a pine-ringed road in this Atlanta suburb.

"Police! Policia! Open the door!" shouted the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The raid, part of a new push to round up immigrants who have been ordered deported for criminal convictions or visa violations, was targeting a man from El Salvador who had repeatedly been busted on drunk driving charges.

They came away instead with two brothers from Mexico, one of whom has the same name as the fugitive, who said they came illegally and will likely face criminal prosecution after officers found a handgun and a rifle in the house.

The new Atlanta-based fugitive team is one of seven the government is rolling out this week in an effort to show Congress that officers are aggressively going after illegals.

Other Fugitive Operations teams are operating out of Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, N.J., Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, N.C., bringing the total number of teams nationwide to 45.

The teams focus on fugitives who are threats to their communities, such as convicted drunken drivers and gang members, though they also arrest non-criminals and any other illegal immigrants they find during raids.

"These are individuals who had their day in court," said Larry Orton, the supervisor for the Atlanta-based team, as he waited at dawn Tuesday for a man from Mali, ordered deported in 1999, to get dressed and be escorted out of his brick suburban house. "They've had their opportunity."

Combined with thousands of National Guard troops at the U.S.-Mexican border and dramatic increases in bed space at detention centers, the teams fit President Bush's pledge to beef up enforcement.

They also are changing the odds for illegal immigrants, who until recently ran little risk of being caught after they established themselves in communities far from the border.

"Once a judge issued an order of removal, it was an honor system," said Victor Cerda, former head of detention and removal operations for immigration enforcement. "We're light years ahead. The message is getting out there that it isn't a free ride."

While the backlog of "fugitives" — immigrants still here after their final deportation orders — is more than half a million, the teams are beginning to change the perception that those orders were somehow optional.

The first highly trained, often-bilingual teams were created in 2003 and will more than triple to 52 this year. The officers now make about 1,000 arrests each week, said spokesman Marc Raimondi.

In 2003, officers arrested only 4,000 people. This year, they're up to 20,121, of which about a fifth have criminal records and 5,700 were not the target of an investigation but were found during raids, according to government figures.

Some immigration rights advocates argue that current law makes it harder on enforcement officers because it doesn't distinguish between dangerous immigrants and those who might have been convicted for minor crimes like shoplifting or might never have gotten deportation orders.

"They shouldn't waste their time going after busboys. Some people are really bad out there," said Benjamin Johnson, director of the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center.

The seven men arrested Tuesday in suburban Atlanta — only the one from Mali had been a target — told officers they had no idea why they were being detained, even after some admitted they were in the U.S. illegally. They refused to speak with The Associated Press.

The Mali man's request to stay in the United States had been denied nine years ago, according to federal records. One of the men who was from Guatemala was caught twice by the Border Patrol in Arizona. Another man, from El Salvador, had failed to renew his temporary protected status since 2005.

"If you're illegally in a country, there's always the expectation you could be held accountable one day," said Raymond Simonse, the chief of the Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina teams. "There may be individuals who are seeking to make a better life, and people who recognize they've broken the law."

[Leahnoriega]

My husband is Cuban he has been here in the USA since 2000.
We have a 1 ? yr old daughter.
2 weeks ago immigration came and took him out of our home while he was taking care of our daughter.
Our daughter has suffered dramatically, crying for no reason wont let any one get close to me. She?s afraid there going to take her mommy away to. After they ripped him away from our home that night she cried for over a hour sitting in front of the door crying papi I tried everything to get her away or take her mind off it she would just try to open the door and asked for her papi. Later when he was able to call me he said they wouldn?t even let him get her water. I was at work an hour away so you can imagine what she went threw all those strangers in her home, also when I got home they had torn my house apart the closets, draws, everything was dumped on the floor and up side down and they put my baby threw that only because her daddy was not born her.
Before he and I got together he had made some bad decisions and has some misdemeanors on his record. One was he found a GPS and instead of turning it in like I know so many that would do the same he kept it and when he got it estimated it came up as a stolen item even thought he found it they gave him a gross misdemeanor and for that he?s still on probation and doing community service remember this happened before we meet and our daughter will be 2 in November so over 3 years ago. For this his name is on the list as a dangerous person even though he has no felony?s, no drugs, and no assaults. They treated and are still miss treating him having him locked up for 4 weeks before the first time his case is reviewed by a judge and then decide if he really is a danger and if all this was the right thing for him or the judge might just dismiss it and all this for what? Making me be a single mom trying to make ends meet and take care of our daughter on my own when I have a husband and she has a dad that didn?t run out on us even threw the hard times has stuck with us and helped in every way he can and should. They are so concern about making America better with out these people in it they are for getting about all the broke homes there leaving behind now who?s going to help me with my daughter? Who?s
going to help me pay all the bills? Now I have to do it all by my self and add on babysitter. I don?t see how this is helping any one infact its hurting everyone. he was doing community service, one less kid raised with out a father in her life, one less single struggling mom. We even had just bought a home take all that away and times that by how many more family did they do this to where they where not felons and they had turned there lives around and started better new one and a family that makes a pretty messed up, broken society. Also if your wondering yes he has his permanent residence card and his visa, passport and everything else he needed to be here legally since 2000 and if some one can answer this why if he was so bad did they wait over 3 years to pick him up after he started a new life and family I would think if some one was that bad they would have deported him back when he was convicted and its not like they haven?t known where he?s been nice he reports to probation every month, make since?