Tagged: us immigration and customs enforcement

The ACLU and the Michigan Immigrants Rights Center have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Luis Valdez and his mother Telma Valdez. Telma was born in Guatemala but is a legal, permanent U.S. resident. Her son Luis is a U.S. citizen.

The lawsuit alleges ICE agents illegally detained the two in February of last year when Valdez and his mother pulled up to a relative’s home in Grand Rapids for a visit. He says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers approached them with their guns drawn.

It’s alleged the agents illegally detained and interrogated the two; even after they produced proof they are legal U.S. residents.  

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested 3,168 people for "egregious immigration law" violations as part of a six-day enforcement operation.

The Detroit Free Press reports 67 were arrested in Michigan:

• 21 in metro Detroit,
• 19 in the Grand Rapids area,
• and 27 others around the state.

From the Freep:

According to ICE, the Michigan arrestees were primarily men from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Iraq, El Salvador, Bosnia-Herzegovinian, Cuba, Ghana, the U.K., Haiti and Lebanon.

ICE Director John Morton said in a press release:

"The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system. Because of the tireless efforts and teamwork of ICE officers and agents in tracking down criminal aliens and fugitives, there are 3,168 fewer criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators in our neighborhoods across the country."

U.S. ICE officials released this video of arrests made in metro Detroit:

Advocates for a Detroit woman held a rally today urging the federal government to scrap its plans to deport her to Mexico this week. Hours after the demonstration, immigration officials announced they would stop Leslie Hernandez’s deportation and release her.

Hernandez is – by her family’s account – exactly the kind of immigrant for whom the Obama administration says deportations should be halted.

Hernandez came to the U.S. as a child and has lived here longer than she ever lived in Mexico. She has a clean record, and three young children.

"She’s not a criminal, and it wasn’t her fault that she was brought the United States when she was a minor," said Hernandez’s sister-in-law, Cecelia Manquera.

President Obama wants immigration agents to focus enforcement efforts on removing immigrants convicted of crimes.

A spokesman for the Detroit immigration enforcement office says Hernandez will be released under federal supervision.

Activists and families packed a school lunchroom in southwest Detroit to vent their frustrations with immigration and border enforcement in that part of the city.

U.S. Representatives John Conyers and Hansen Clarke convened the forum in the wake of complaints about immigration enforcement near schools.

That’s prohibited by Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy. And Conyers says the head of ICE, John Morton, has expressed his commitment to making sure it’s enforced:

"He has acted as if he wants to correct this, and that he’s sincere about it. So I am still hopeful that we will be able to make more progress than we have so far."

A standing-room-only crowd packed a union hall in Dearborn tonight for a rally to protest what they call harassment by immigration officials. Hundreds of people poured into UAW Local 600 to hear activists and politicians discuss allegations of wrongdoing by Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or ICE – agents.

Complaints include warrantless searches, racial profiling and enforcement actions near schools and churches.

Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez says anecdotal reports suggest the problems in Detroit are more widespread than in other parts of the country: