America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/25/09 at 10:24am

First ICE Raid under Obama: Continuing Failed Bush-Era Enforcement Tactics?

prison graphicEven as President Obama delivered his first up-beat address to the nation, the Seattle Times' Lornet Turnbull was reporting the first workplace immigration raid under the new administration. It happened in Bellingham, Washington, last night, and served as a sad wake up call to immigrant communities:

Immigration officers today raided an engine remanufacturing plant in Bellingham, arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began processing them for deportation.

This week, we wrote about the costly misplaced priorities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), arguing that they don't come cheap:

Murderers and corporate criminals get off scot-free while immigrant workers are rounded up in large-scale raids, separated from husbands and daughters, sentenced to jail, deprived of basic human rights while incarcerated, and hopelessly separated from American-citizen children and spouses through the final act of deportation.

Even as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency's budget spiked to $218 million last year (up from $9 million in 2003), report after report on horrendous ICE detention conditions continued to surface as people died and jails were forced to close.

While we came to expect these failed tactics from the Bush Administration, we do not expect an Administration that campaigned-and won the lion's share of the Latino vote-on a platform of Hope and Change to continue them.

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