ACLU requests records of ICE raid in Flagstaff (Arizona Daily Sun)

ACLU requests records of ICE raid in Flagstaff
The civil liberties watchdog group, charging due process rights were violated, wants to see documents related to an immigration fugitive raid late last year.

By LARRY HENDRICKS
Assistant City Editor
Wednesday, February 04, 2009

In the wake of a November operation conducted in Flagstaff to round up immigrant fugitives, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has filed a request for all records related to the raid.

According to information from the ACLU, the Freedom of Information Act request is being made following reports that ICE and local police agencies violated due process rights of immigrants and residents of northern Arizona. But Flagstaff police and county sheriff officials say they did not actively participate in the operation.

The FOIA request is also being made by the Northern Arizona Interfaith Council and the Flagstaff New Day Peace Center.

The request includes information on:

-- Those arrested and how many homes were entered with or without warrants;

-- Policies regarding the treatment of minors agents came in contact with and methods they made contact with residents in the vicinity where the raids were being conducted;

-- Policies for determining locations for enforcement actions;

-- Methods for entering homes and businesses.

"Today's request is an effort to shine a light on the devastating human toll of immigration raids and to gather specific information about profoundly serious violations of rights to both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike," stated ACLU Legal Director Daniel Pochoda in a press release.

ICE spokesperson Vincent Picard said the operation was being conducted statewide to find undocumented immigrants already adjudicated and ordered to leave the country.

But the reality was that when agents came across people during the raids who were unable to provide documentation as they knocked on doors searching for the fugitives, they arrested those people, too.

"ICE's mission is to enforce the nation's immigration laws,"; Picard said, adding that the agency is charged with removing all unauthorized aliens from the United States. "It's what we're mandated under the law to do."

A total of 16 people were rounded up in Flagstaff, according to jail logs. The statewide sting netted 80 people, of whom 14 were immigration fugitives. Agents returned to Flagstaff in late December to arrest three more fugitives missed in the original operation.

A local activist group went into the neighborhood during the roundups and later protested the ICE presence in Flagstaff.

According to the ACLU, local police officers and sheriff's deputies assisted in the statewide operation.

Not so, in Flagstaff or Coconino County, say police and sheriff's officials.

Deputy Chief Josh Copley said Flagstaff police did not actively participate in the November operation. Officers were only made available to monitor during the operation. No officers knocked on any doors, Copley said.

He added that one officer is detailed to a federal task force, but that officer's role was "peripheral."

Flagstaff police have the policy that they will only ask immigration status of a person upon a criminal arrest.

Gerry Blair, spokesperson for the sheriff's office, said county deputies do not specifically go out searching for undocumented immigrants and were not involved in the November operation other than to jail the people arrested by ICE agents. The sheriff's office, upon determining immigration status after an arrest, will put a hold on undocumented immigrants for ICE to come and get them.

Picard said the ACLU request will be dealt with by the ICE FOIA office.