Iowa ICE arrest raises questions on tactics (Des Moines Register)

Iowa ICE arrest raises questions on tactics

By LEE ROOD • lrood@dmreg.com • August 15, 2009

Hampton, Ia. - It was 6:15 a.m. when Alberto Francisco Tello Casteneda woke his sister to say he was leaving for work. Fifteen-year-old Griselda shut the door after her older brother and then heard: "Stop! Get out of the car!"

Iowa immigration lawyers say they are disturbed by what reportedly happened next on Aug. 6: Casteneda, 17, declined to get out of his family's sport utility vehicle until he could speak to a lawyer. Federal agents allegedly bashed in the vehicle's windows, arrested the teen, drove him to Des Moines and put him on a flight to Chicago before he could speak to an attorney.

On Friday, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official acknowledged in a written statement that the case was being reviewed.

More intense immigration enforcement in the Midwest, including the opening last year of a permanent fugitive unit in Des Moines, has resulted in a sharp jump in arrests, ICE confirmed Friday in response to a Des Moines Register inquiry. ICE has made 1,130 arrests in a five-state region that includes Iowa during the 2009 fiscal year, which began in October. That number has increased each year since 2006 and is almost twice the 660 people arrested then.

Some 470 of the 2009 arrests were of nonfugitive illegal immigrants, those who have not been ordered by a court to leave the country, "who were encountered during arrests of fugitives," according to ICE. In 2009, 42 percent of arrests were nonfugitives - up from 24 percent in 2006.

The increase in arrests, especially of nonfugitives, has brought increased concerns about possible constitutional violations.

"This kind of behavior is more illegal than crossing the border," Des Moines attorney Jim Benzoni contended this week after reviewing Casteneda's case. "You're talking about federal agents violating the Constitution."

The federal agency's Office of Professional Responsibility will review the Casteneda arrest, ICE's statement from spokesman Tim Counts said. An employee who was involved has been reassigned, and until the investigation is complete, the employee will not participate in any fugitive operations.

"All allegations of employee misconduct are taken seriously and will be investigated thoroughly," the statement said.

Fugitive unit's focus has changed, data show

The alleged treatment of the Hampton teen mirrors behavior by other ICE agents documented in a highly critical report issued last month by the Immigration Justice Clinic in New York. The report, based on a review of 700 ICE arrests from 2006 to 2008, alleged that agents routinely violated the U.S. Constitution by entering private homes and property without proper consent.

ICE disputes the study's findings, saying researchers made "substantial inferences" from different allegations by plaintiffs as proof of a nationwide pattern. But the study has intensified questions nationally about the tactics the federal agency uses to crack down on illegal immigration.

The priority of the National Fugitive Operations Program used to be arresting violent criminals and those who already had ignored judges' orders to leave the country, local lawyers said. But in recent years, as more agents have become active in the state, more people who have no criminal records or outstanding warrants are being caught and swiftly deported, statistics show. Some have been in the state for years, lawyers said.

The arrests have created new tensions in towns like Hampton, where an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 immigrants are mixed in the population of roughly 5,700. Casteneda's arrest followed another on July 28. At least seven other people were arrested in Hampton the week of July 22.

For years, some locals say, the town appeared to have a "don't ask-don't tell" policy regarding illegal immigration. More recently, residents have disagreed publicly over efforts to help some longtime residents who have been arrested and over whether the moves to deport immigrants were fair or warranted.

"I tell my own kids that with choices come consequences," said Mayor Diane Weldon, a retired public-health nurse who has seen both the pros and cons of immigration.

Weldon said she is a firm believer that immigrant workers need to be in the country legally. And yet, she said, she cannot help but feel empathy for those locally who abruptly lost loved ones in the arrests.

"Isn't there some better way, some less scary tactics that can be used?" she asks.

Family shaken by teen's arrest

Alberto Casteneda Sr. migrated alone to Iowa several years ago, hearing there was work in Hampton. He was followed shortly after by his wife, daughter and son, who was 11.

Martha Casteneda said her family left Mexico because they lived in a town near Mexico City that was plagued with gangs and violence.

The mother said she never imagined her son, still a minor, would be taken from her when she wasn't home. Crying when interviewed this week, she says she was shaken by the circumstances of her son's arrest.

"There was glass all over the front seat. And her biggest worry was that he was hurt," said Flor Cavazos, a family friend who interpreted for her. "She couldn't believe (family) wasn't allowed to see him."

Griselda Castaneda hid in the home during the arrest, later writing for attorneys what she heard outside. After Alberto Castaneda's arrest, the family contacted Sonia Parras Konrad, a Des Moines immigration lawyer. Konrad said ICE refused to release the teen to an aunt who sought his release in Des Moines.

The lawyer had the mother fill out the necessary paperwork to release the teen. But when Konrad arrived at the federal building in downtown Des Moines by about 1:30 p.m. the same day, agents had already put Alberto Casteneda on a flight to Chicago. He remains there, pending an immigration hearing.

Counts, the ICE spokesman, wrote in his statement that since passage of a 2008 federal law, unaccompanied minors cannot be released to anyone but a parent or legal guardian. The law also requires transfers to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours.

ICE agents use administrative warrants, instead of criminal warrants. That means they have to have a resident's consent to enter a home, or else they're violating the Fourth Amendment constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.

According to Counts, ICE's procedures are the same as for other law enforcement: "If we do not have a criminal search or arrest warrant, we must receive permission before entering private property."

Family members now believe agents intended to arrest Alberto's father, who has the same name.

Benzoni and Konrad both said agents should have realized Alberto Casteneda was a minor. They say they're not aware of any warrant for the son's arrest. Nothing the teen did appeared to warrant probable cause for breaking into the family's vehicle on private property, they said.

Benzoni said he believes such arrests promise to become a greater problem in Iowa if state officials don't intervene.

In 2006, then-Gov. Tom Vilsack wrote a letter to U.S. Homeland Security officials objecting to the way in which a federal immigration raid was conducted at a Marshalltown meatpacking plant, calling it "a total disaster." The December 2006 raid at the Swift plant stirred a national controversy over illegal immigration and its enforcement after six busloads of people were hauled out of town.

Benzoni said he believes Gov. Chet Culver should do something personally to prevent any "further abuse" by federal agents. "Governors can have a great influence on how federal agents behave in their states," he said.

Culver spokesman Phil Roeder said, "We've not had any contact on that particular issue."

Town's residents differ on immigration issue

In the meantime, people in Hampton remain divided over the arrests and what should be done about the number of immigrants who came to the town illegally.

A week before Alberto Castaneda was whisked out of town, ICE agents appeared at the local Fareway store and walked away with Gustavo Sosa, 19.

Brought to the United States by his parents almost a decade earlier, Sosa was not aware he did not have legal status, his coworkers said. He lived with his 16-year-old girlfriend of Hampton.

Linda Leca, the girl's mother, said her daughter had permission to marry the young man, whom she described as polite, hardworking and college-bound. "He was a great citizen. He was ideal for our community," she said.

Leca said that she, like her daughter, was devastated after Sosa's July 28 arrest. "I feel like my heart has been ripped out," she said. "I feel like our government has let us down."

But when Fareway employees took up a collection at the grocery store to help with Sosa's attorney's fees, others in town protested, store employees said. Not long after, the collection jar was removed.

Something similar happened a couple of years earlier - involving Alberto Casteneda.

A gifted artist, the teen painted a school mural that depicted his two heritages, with the flags of the United States and Mexico intertwined. A controversy erupted over whether the mural was appropriate, making the front page of the local newspaper.

Soon after, the mural came down.