DREAMers tell me that there were home raids as recently as June 2009 - in the state Indiana... So much for Obama wanting to straighten out our immigration policy. At least someone is now willing to say the home raids are illegal. Click here for link to a report on the illegality of ICE Home Raids, published by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
See NYT article below:
New York TimesBy NINA BERNSTEINPublished: July 21, 2009Armed federal immigration agents have illegally pushed and shoved their way into homes in New York and New Jersey in hundreds of predawn raids that violated their own agency rules as well as the Constitution, according to a study to be released on Wednesday by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.The study by the school’s Immigration Justice Law Clinic, backed by several law enforcement experts including Nassau County’s police commissioner, found a widespread pattern of misconduct by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after analyzing 700 arrest reports obtained from the agency through Freedom of Information lawsuits.The raids were supposed to focus on dangerous criminals, but overwhelmingly netted Latinos with civil immigration violations who happened to be present, the study said. Raiders mistakenly held legal residents and citizens by force in their own homes while agents rummaged through drawers seeking incriminating documents, the report said.Acting without judicial search warrants, the agents were required to obtain informed consent from a resident before they entered a private residence. But the study found that in 86 percent of the Nassau and Suffolk County arrest reports that it analyzed, and a quarter of the New Jersey cases, no consent was recorded.“If any local law enforcement agency in the nation were involved in these types of widespread constitutional violations it would prompt a federal investigation,” said Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau police commissioner, who led a panel that guided the Cardozo report. “Federal immigration agents simply need to play by the same rules as every other law enforcement officer.”Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded with a brief e-mail statement defending the conduct of its agents and the home raids — the same kind of response it has made to similar criticism since the Bush administration vastly expanded their use in 2006...link to complete NYT article
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2 comments:
Illegal raids go on all the time. I work at a drug rehab and we have people come here needing help getting off drugs and handling their legal situations. I don't know how many people I've met that have told me about their situations which included illegal activities by the authorities.
If this is happening all the time, why isn't being reported? Are people afraid of a backlash? Or does this mean that our law enforcement agencies function under different rules?
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