ICE: Mass. Raid Taught Agency Lessons (AP)

ICE: Mass. Raid Taught Agency Lessons
By MARK PRATT - 3/05/08

BOSTON (AP) — Immigration officials have learned humanitarian lessons from a factory raid a year ago that was criticized for separating families and leaving children without proper care, the agency's director said Wednesday.
Most of the 361 workers arrested at leather goods manufacturer Michael Bianco Inc. in New Bedford last year were women from Central America. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sharply condemned the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's handling of the raid.
Although the court said it had no jurisdiction over the case, it ruled that ICE "gave social welfare agencies insufficient notice of the raid, that caseworkers were denied access to detainees until after the first group had been transferred, and that various ICE actions temporarily thwarted any effective investigation into the detainees' needs."
Since the raid, ICE has been accompanied on subsequent raids by officials from the Division of Immigration Health Services, who identify sole caregivers and ask people about medical problems, said Julie Myers, the assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE.
But she also defended the agency's actions during the raid.
"I think the agents in this case acted professionally, and I think we did above and beyond what I have seen done in any other law enforcement action," she said.
About 35 of those arrested who identified themselves as sole caregivers for children were released immediately, she said. More sole caregivers were later released at a detention center at Devens.
Those apprehended were also give access to telephones at Devens and were given information in Spanish and English about how to contact the state Department of Social Services. A toll-free number was set up for people trying to find out the status of a loved one.
Harvey Kaplan, who represented the immigrants in federal court, disputed Myers' assessment of the raid.
"They have whitewashed this whole thing from the start," he said.
Kaplan also questioned why the inspector general of Homeland Security is looking into the raid if it went so smoothly. "The inspector general wouldn't investigate unless there's some smoke there," he said.
ICE is cooperating fully with the review.
Of those arrested, 165 have been deported, ICE officials said. The rest are still making their way through the legal process, and one man remains in jail, although ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said she did not know why.
Myers said the agency is concentrating efforts now on going after employers of undocumented workers, rather than the workers themselves, describing businesses that employ illegal immigrants as "magnets."
"Until we can convince companies to comply and until we can shut off the magnet, people will continue to try to come into this country illegally," she said.
She also said the agency is stepping up efforts to deport criminals, including gang members; identifying undocumented immigrants in jail or prison; and working with foreign governments to dismantle international smuggling organizations.
Myers was in Boston the day before the one-year anniversary of the New Bedford raid, but said the timing was a coincidence. She was invited to speak at Harvard Law School.