Sandra Hines and Mike of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices on East Jefferson in Detroit. The protest was held on Aug. 22, 2008. (Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Metro Detroit area deportations climb 45 percent in one year
Customs officials expel record number of illegal immigrants, creating fear in some areas.
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- A sharp escalation in enforcement of immigration laws is yielding a spike in deportations of illegal immigrants and rampant fear in some Metro Detroit neighborhoods that are home to longtime, undocumented residents.
The Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Detroit increased deportations about 45 percent -- from 5,057 to more than 7,500 -- in the year ending Sept. 30, establishing a new 12-month record.
Federal officials say they are well ahead of that pace for next year, deporting about one-fourth of that record number in October and November alone.
"It might have been a safe bet for them to be here in the years past, but no longer," said Brian Moskowitz, the agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Detroit. "Not as long as Congress gives us more resources.
"Now, were some of them good people otherwise? Probably yes. But we have the absolute right to control who comes into the country, and just because it wasn't done before doesn't mean it isn't being done now."
Much has changed since the failure of immigration reform in Congress in 2005 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The fault line in the debate on immigration runs directly through Latino and Arab neighborhoods in Metro Detroit. Immigrants who entered the country illegally or who overstayed their work and student visas are now routinely deported.
Two decades ago, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service may have had two or three investigators in Metro Detroit for such cases, officials say. Now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has more than 400.
The vigorous enforcement leaves some neighborhoods fearful. Longtime residents who established southwest Detroit as a stable, active neighborhood suddenly flee, leaving their American-born children with family and friends or taking them to poorer lives in lands the children never have known. Neighbors check with neighbors to determine if federal officials are operating in their area. There is fear of a knock at the door. Amid a surge in crime, residents say they are afraid to report incidents, fearful police will ask them for documentation.
Catholic nuns pray in vigil at a Wayne County jail, where many immigrants are detained. Every Friday, about a dozen demonstrators gather at Clark Park in Detroit to protest the crackdown.
Residents and community leaders say what may be lawful is not always just. They point to the abject failure to reform immigration policy and say that, instead, America has become what it never has been -- an expeller of huddled masses.
"If they came to this country, it is because there was a job available to them and they are not criminals who deserve to have their families ripped apart," said Odilia Avellaneda, immigration coordinator for La Sed, Latin Americans for Social and Economic Development. "People are stopped for driving without a driver's license and deported. This has created extraordinary fear and depression."
After nine years in southwestern Detroit, Alicia Hernandez faces a tough decision: Does she banish her American dream to return to Mexico with her deported husband or does she stay, risking arrest, in the hope of providing her young daughters the best possible future?
Deported immigrants can't return to the United States without federal approval.
Hernandez and her husband were in the country illegally. He worked a series of construction jobs before August, when he was caught-up in the crackdown. He said goodbye to his daughters, who are American-born citizens, through a pane of security glass at a Monroe County jail.
"From just one day to the next, you can be a good person and then find yourself under arrest," Hernandez said. "I tell my daughters they will see their father, but I think they think I am lying. When the littlest is by herself on the floor, playing, she says things out loud like, 'Don't do that or you'll go off to jail, like my poppy.' "
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials emphasize that they track down only illegal immigrants who have received deportation orders. They say they do not stop residents at random to challenge their status.
Arab leaders have publicly challenged the effort, saying it targets people of Arab descent. Latino leaders say federal officials work with local law enforcement in raids and sting operations, often without reasonable cause to believe residents are illegal.
"There have been a lot of raids, and a lot of them come in the form of traffic stops," said Elena Herrada, director of El Centro Obrero de Detroit. "I have not heard of a workplace raid in Detroit for quite a while, but raids in people's homes are fairly common."
Residents describe events in which officials knock at the door brandishing warrants for a single individual. Once they enter, anyone present is pressed for their immigration status and detained if they are undocumented.
"It's a safety precaution," said Vincent Clausen, field office director for detention and removal operations. "And if they are illegally there, we have to find out who they are."
Critics say some arrests violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the city's anti-profiling ordinance that prohibits police from inquiring about immigrant status of anyone not suspected of a felony or other limited exceptions. They say Detroit police sometimes conduct stops that lead to deportations.
Daniel Cherrin, a spokesman for Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr., who proposed the ordinance, said that while no one has complained directly to the mayor's office, "we have heard of other people talking about it." The mayor's office has contacted the police commission about the issue, Cherrin said.
"The mayor wants to know immediately if it is occurring," he said.
Clausen said the onus is on illegal immigrants to surrender. When they do, he said, federal officials often cooperate on an orderly process that allows the immigrants to attend to their affairs before they are deported. Some immigration lawyers credit federal investigators with doing precisely that, in some cases.
Alicia Hernandez says she is trying to sell the house she purchased with her husband. She intends to use the money to finance the trip to Mexico for her and her daughters.
"I was led by the American dream, which turns out to be a fantasy," she said, wiping her face with her hands. "I feel that in pursuing the dream, we created the family and now the family is caught in a situation we never had planned, and that is of my doing."
You can reach Gregg Krupa at (313) 222-2359 or gkrupa@detnews.com.
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