Immigration Enforcement Run Amok: Chapter 1001

The N.Y. Times reports that Nassau County officials today will call for a federal investigation into a series of “antigang” raids last week that resulted in the arrests of 186 immigrants on Long Island. They said that the vast majority of those arrested were not gang members and that local police were misled and endangered by the operation.

Yesterday afternoon, Peter J. Smith, a special federal agent in charge of the operation, said the raids, conducted by federal agents from all over the country, were a result of a two-month investigation based on a list of possible gang members supplied by state, county and local officials. “The county gave us a list of more than 2,000 suspects from Nassau that we vetted jointly,” Mr. Smith said. “They should be happy we’re taking these people out, that we’re making their streets safer.”

But Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner, and Thomas R. Suozzi, the county executive, are disputing the figures supplied by the federal agency and criticizing the tactics and practices used in raids at Nassau County residences. Their complaints include that the vast majority of those taken into custody were NOT criminals or gang members, just undocumented immigrant workers, and that the local police had been duped into participating. The police commissioner told AP on Friday that his officers would not cooperate again in such an operation.

Mr. Smith, of the immigration agency, said that of the 186 arrested, 28 had been identified as “gang members” and 129 as “associates of gang members.” Asked how the agency defined “associates of gang members,” he replied, “If you’re hanging with gang members and you’re eating with gang members, there’s an affiliation there.”  Sounds like the age-old guilt by association to me.  What is a parent is eating dinner with a son who is a “gang member”?

One of the arrests that drew protest was of the father of a 4-month-old whose mother was at work. Mr. Smith said that the father was not a gang member, but that another man living in his apartmenty had been convicted of a robbery. He said when the father was taken into custody, he voluntarily left the baby in the care of others until his wife’s return.

UPDATE:  The L.A. Times reports that more than 1300 immigrants have been arrested in the last two weeks and that 90% had criminal records.  The article states that   

“The enforcement is the latest example of the how some local law enforcement agencies are cooperating with federal authorities to ensure that criminals are identified and deported, rather than simply released from jail. ICE recently created a 24-hour command center, complete with a specific e-mail address and phone number, where local law enforcement officers can exchange information with immigration agents to identify possible deportees.”

KJ