LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cook Rosa Maria Salazar’s eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.
“We’re terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us,” she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly.
The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.
So you mean to tell me that illegal immigrants are actually afraid of being deported? That people breaking the law are scared of the consequences? I say that it is about damn time! I don’t care if you are making corn tortillas stuffed with beans and pork grease. I don’t care whose lawn you are mowing. I don’t care what meat packing plant employed you. If you are here without a visa you are here illegally and as such you ought to be afraid of what will happen if you are caught. The feds are finally cracking down but it’s too little too late. Unless they keep up the pace it won’t change anything. The criminals will go back to being complacent and won’t worry about the fact they are breaking our laws daily. They have no respect for our laws, culture, or our people. They only want what they think is best for them. They are selfish and they are criminals. They are humans and deserving of love but they also must face the consequences of their actions. It is not loving in the lest to allow someone to have no consequences at all for their actions.
The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed “Operation Return to Sender,” targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called “criminal aliens” into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.
Federal agents from seven teams also fanned out in local communities, where they nabbed 338 undocumented immigrants, more than 150 of whom were classed as “immigration fugitives” — foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders.
The raid was the latest in a series of get-tough enforcement measures by ICE in the United States, but the largest action of its kind in California, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.
You will note the name of the operation “Return to Sender”. This name is because the people that the raid targeted are in fact repeat offenders. Sure the net caught first time offenders as well but that is as it should be. I say we implement the three strikes law and upon catching a third or more time offender we give them their wish. They get to spend the rest of their life right here in the US courtesy of the federal prison system. We do it for much smaller offenses why not this one? With the current political climate I don’t see that happening. I see us, as a country, about to embrace these criminals and welcome them with open arms ignoring the fact that they have already broken multiple laws by the time we catch them.
“We hadn’t seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock,” said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
“The police didn’t just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody … guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant … and now people are afraid to go out,” he added.
And this article doesn’t mention how many of these people were actually innocent and released. I wonder why the media doesn’t bother with those figures at all? I don’t see anyone complaining about being innocent and caught up in the raids. This is strange as we usually see cries of racism and the rights of innocents being trampled. We aren’t seeing that this time. I find that very interesting. I know what conclusion I draw from this but I will leave you to your own conclusions.
The high-profile sweep netted mostly Mexican nationals, but included people from 14 countries including Ukraine, Japan, Poland and Trinidad.
It culminated on Tuesday, when President George W. Bush gave a State of the Union address that ranked immigration legislation among his top domestic priorities.
Bush called for “comprehensive immigration reform,” combining a guest-worker program with tougher workplace and border enforcement.
I wonder if this new border enforcement will actually include our agents on the border actually being allowed to fire their weapons when confronted?
He remained vague, however, on the thorny issue of how to deal with the 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows, more than 2.5 million of whom live in California.
It looks like they already know how to deal with it. Just keep up the raids and the deportation. It’s really that simple.