ICE conducts “enforcement action” in Quad-Cities (Quad-City Times)

ICE conducts “enforcement action” in Quad-Cities

By Dustin Lemmon | Friday, October 17, 2008 5:27 PM CDT

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was conducting an “enforcement action” in the Quad-Cities area Friday, but no arrests were immediately reported.

Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago, confirmed that an investigation was ongoing and would not release further details.

“ICE is conducting an ongoing enforcement action in (the Quad-City) area,” she said. “I want to emphasize that we are targeting specific individuals and that ICE does not conduct random immigration sweeps. No more details are available at this time due to the ongoing nature of the operation.”

Montenegro said more details will be released when the investigation is finished.

A Moline city official said ICE was performing a door-to-door search Friday at a housing project near the intersection of 41st Street and 12th Avenue. No further information was available.

Moline Police Chief Gary Francque said he had not received any information about the enforcement action.

Lt. William Kauzlarich of the Rock Island County Sheriff’s Department said the department received no information about ICE’s investigation Friday and did not receive any ICE detainees.

“I would think if they were going to bring a bunch of people down, we would know about it,” he said.

Rock Island County Sheriff Mike Huff said federal authorities are pre-authorized to bring up to 15 inmates to the jail. Any more than that requires prior notice.

ICE opened an office at the U.S. District Courthouse in Rock Island earlier this year. A man who answered the phone there Friday would not comment.

Two years ago, ICE arrested 17 people in a sting in the Illinois Quad-Cities. Several were transported to Springfield for deportation proceedings.

Several of those immigrants who were arrested were permanent U.S. residents, but under the law, they could be deported after being convicted of various crimes.

Guillermo Trevino, a former Floreciente neighborhood resident who now attends a seminary in Missouri, said talk about a potential raid had been swirling throughout Moline's Hispanic community all summer and into the fall.

“There have been rumors that (immigration officials) would be coming,” he said. “It's not been if, but when. Usually, the gossip was during Sunday Mass at St. Mary's.”

(Tory Brecht and Barb Ickes contributed to this story.)