Feds arrest 64 in raids (The State News)

Feds arrest 64 in raids
Immigration officers on prowl for illegal immigrants living in the Lansing area

By Abby Lubbers
The State News
Published: October 27, 2008

A sign reading “Now hiring experienced servers” in the window of El Azteco serves as a quiet reminder of what happened at the East Lansing restaurant 10 days ago. Four people were arrested Oct. 19 at the restaurant, 225 Ann St., Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman Mike Gilhooly said.

The arrests, which were part of a National Fugitive Operations Program initiative, aimed to apprehend people illegally working in the U.S.

Sixty-four people in the Lansing area were arrested during the Oct. 17-20 initiative. Among those arrested, 40 were targets who had warrants out for their arrest, Gilhooly said.

Immigration officers arrested four people at El Azteco at about 11 a.m. Oct. 19. The officers were looking for three targets, and arrested another person who was identified as an illegal alien after attempting to flee, Gilhooly said.

One of the people arrested had worked at El Azteco for 18 years and another person had been there for 10 years, said the restaurant’s owner, Arturo Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz said the men, to his knowledge, were U.S. citizens, and he had helped the 18-year employee with immigration papers.

“They were model citizens. They paid their income taxes, they paid social security — one was even in the process of buying a home,” he said. “They were part of the economy.”

The four employees were initially handcuffed with zip ties, and told to sit against the trash bin behind the restaurant, said Steven Knapp, a waiter at El Azteco. The detainees were later chained together, he said.

“They treated them like dogs,” Santa Cruz said. “If I shackled an animal like that, I’d be in trouble. Something’s got to be done so this is done in a humane way.”

Josue Guillen works at El Azteco and arrived at the restaurant after the deportation arrests.

“It was really morbid,” Guillen said. “It was really slow; nobody wanted to do anything. People were really sad.”

He had worked for about six weeks in the kitchen with one of the employees who was arrested.

“He was the one who showed me what to do, and how to handle certain situations,” he said.

The El Azteco staff said there are a number of open shifts, and the atmosphere in the restaurant has changed since the arrests.

“It’s hard to replace them; it’s hard to fill their space — even with experienced people,” Knapp said.

Chicanos y Latinos Unidos, or CLU, an MSU Hispanic student organization, discussed the El Azteco arrests in its meetings, and its members are working to educate the MSU community about immigration issues, said Gabriela Alcazar, the group’s finance committee co-chair.

“It’s happening everywhere, it’s happening all the time,” she said.

“I don’t think people realize how much it affects our community every day.”

During the past year, 33,997 people were arrested nationally by ICE fugitive operations teams.

Gilhooly said the immigration arrests are not targeted at specific businesses, but at particular fugitives. The officers are given information about the fugitives from “basic police investigative techniques,” he said.

“Their mission is to seek out those individuals who have failed to follow the immigration order of a lawful judge,” Gilhooly said.

But members of the Hispanic community think ICE could adopt different methods of enforcement.

“We’re going to continue the fight to end it,” said Alcazar.

“It’s inhumane. It violates human rights.”

CLU is planning a fundraiser during the four days leading up to the Nov. 4 election. Volunteers will be fasting, and people can commit $5 to each participant, Alcazar said.

The money will go to cover legal and travel expenses for the East Lansing deportees’ families.

“If one person has to leave, you have a whole family that has to stay here without (financial) support, or they have to go back,” Alcazar said.

Family members of deportees are expected to pay for their travel home, even if the breadwinner is out of the country, she said.

CLU also will be hosting a community-wide meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Northstar Center, 106 Lathrop St., in Lansing.

“Everybody (in CLU) is ready to take whatever action is necessary, and also to support these families that are being torn apart,” Alcazar said.