Arizona: ICE, Tea Parties Panic Immigrants

PHOENIX, Ariz.--In what immigration authorities called the single largest operation to fight human smuggling in the country, yesterday federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted actions in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and Tuscon, spreading fear and panic among residents.

The enforcement action focused on shuttle services that help smuggle migrants across the border and it came two days after the state legislature approved an unprecedented law that will make the presence of an undocumented person in the state a crime. 

“This operation couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Lydia Guzmán, president of Somos America, a civil and human rights advocacy group. “Here in Arizona, our community is under constant threat of being harassed.”

Confusion about the ICE actions was magnified by the fact that on Wednesday, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced an upcoming crime suppression sweep. Arpaio is known for immigration raids in Latino neighborhoods and is under investigation for racial profiling.

“The rumors run wild, saying that this was a federal raid that was taking place house by house, store front by store front, and people were afraid to go out,” said Guzmán. “Some of the streets where the operations were taking place looked like a ghost town.”

Salvador Reza, an organizer with Phoenix-based human rights group Puente, said the use of media and display of force surrounding the federal operations were similar to that used in Arpaio’s crime suppression patrols. The raids were announced to select media outlets 48 hours before they were launched.

“This is a political and a criminal raid,” said Reza. “They are intimidating Arizona, and they’re intimidating the rest of the country, too.”

Criticism came from out of state too.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) issued a statement yesterday questioning the timing of the investigation. MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz said the action will have a chilling effect on a community that is already hesitant to participate in the 2010 Census and has been driven farther into the shadows by Arpaio’s actions.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary John Morton, who held a press conference in Phoenix, said the operation wasn’t a “federal raid” and denied any connection between the enforcement and Arizona’s current political climate.

“There’s absolutely no truth that this particular investigation or the prosecution was timed on anything other than the merits of a very long criminal investigation,” said Morton.

The investigation that started two years ago extended across the border and targeted shuttle services in the cities of Nogales, Tucson and Phoenix. The companies were accused of providing transportation for human smuggling networks after undocumented immigrants crossed the border evading Border Patrol checkpoints.

“These shuttle companies from their inception were a fraud by organized crime,” said Morton. “We’re trying to take up the entire industry and rip it up by its roots,” he added.

With more than 800 agents, both federal and local, authorities shut down five shuttle companies and arrested 47 people. Seventeen of those arrested were only held for being undocumented immigrants. Morton said some of them were being smuggled into the United States and might be released as witnesses in the case. But it is unclear how many were what ICE calls “collaterals,” or people who are undocumented immigrants living in Arizona whom agents encountered during the operation.

Morton emphasized that the focus was on violent criminal smugglers who have made it a practice to victimize and often hold for ransom the people they smuggle.