14 Arrested, 16 Detained In Ellensburg Immigration Raid (KIRO-WA)

14 Arrested, 16 Detained In Ellensburg Immigration Raid

kirotv.com Webstaff
Posted: 6:27 am PST January 21, 2011

ELLENSBURG, Wash. -- Some Ellensburg residents were shaken-up Thursday by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency raid.

The Ellensburg Daily Record reports agents with police and Kittitas County sheriff's deputies using a helicopter served 11 search warrants and made an undisclosed number of arrests.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that they had arrested 14 people and taken another 16 into custody. The 14 arrested were scheduled to make initial court appearances on Friday, homeland security said.

Thirteen of the people arrested are charged with visa fraud and government identification fraud, and three of the 13 have also been charged with a false claim to U.S. citizenship, homeland security said. The one remaining person of the 14 has been charged with re-entry into the U.S. after deportation, homeland security said.

"Those who create and sell fraudulent documents compromise our nation's legal identification system and provide counterfeit identities to those who may otherwise be ineligible to live or work legally in the United States," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Washington. "Targeting those who commit this type of crime is an enforcement priority for HSI."

The 16 others were taken into custody on administrative immigration violations, homeland security said. Three of them were released "for humanitarian reasons" while they await a hearing before an immigration judge, and the rest are in the custody, homeland security said.

Ellensburg School Superintendent Paul Ferris said a number of students were upset when they heard that relatives or friends' relatives had been taken away.

The principal at Ellensburg High School, Jeff Ellersick, told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that the raid affected the parents of a number of his students.

"We have about 100 Hispanic kids. Thirty to 40 of them were scared to death because some of their parents had been taken," Ellersick said. "The scary part about it is that we don’t know if we’ll ever see those kids again."

Ellersick said that even though federal authorities assured the school that no students would go home to an empty house, "In fact, that was not true."

"We really had no idea what was going on," he said. "It would have been nice to notify the local schools because there might be some fallout."

The Daily Record reported that during a Thursday night meeting, many members of the Hispanic community expressed fear and uncertainty. The Record reported that another meeting is scheduled for Friday night.