D.C. won’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement (Washington Post)

D.C. won’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement
By Tim Craig, Published: October 19

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray reaffirmed Wednesday that District police and other public agencies will not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leaving it up to federal immigration officials to determine on their own whether a resident is in the country illegally.

The decision reinforces executive orders by past District mayors, but Gray (D) and council members say it goes further by explicitly setting standards for how the city’s criminal justice system will deal with immigrants.

“In the spirit of ‘One City,’ and assuring the equal treatment of citizens and noncitizens alike, I am delighted to sign to this,” Gray said.

Under the new guidelines, which Gray signed while surrounded by Hispanic and African immigrants, D.C. police and corrections officials will not ask those they come in contact with about their immigration status. District police also will not enforce an ICE detainer or warrant issued against someone who has not committed another crime.

Police and jail officials are forbidden from contacting ICE to have the agency investigate the legal status of someone who has been arrested.

Instead, Gray and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said, police will process all offenders in the same manner and leave it up to the FBI and ICE to decide whether to check on their legal status.

For less-serious crimes, such as violating the city’s open-container law, the District no longer collects fingerprints. So the FBI and ICE can’t determine immigration status, officials said.

“Law enforcement agencies that honor ICE detainers help protect public safety,” ICE spokeswoman Cori W. Bassett said.

For major crimes, such as robbery or drug possession, police will continue to collect the offender’s fingerprints and forward them to the FBI. It will be up to the FBI to share information with ICE.

If ICE determines that it wants to detain offenders upon their release from jail, the agency will have only 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, to pick up a suspected illegal immigrant from custody. The city will not hold inmates that ICE wants detained past 48 hours, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander said.

“What this does is makes clear immigration status is not relevant in a criminal matter and makes clear the District will not take any affirmative step to enforce immigration civil matters,” Quander said.

Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. Fraternal Order of Police labor committee, blasted the decision, saying that until now local criminal justice officials were willing to give ICE more than 48 hours to pick up someone it wanted detained.

“Vince Gray right now is under such duress, he is willing to pander and fold to any group in order to take the scrutiny off himself,” Baumann said. “He has now decided to go out and jeopardize public safety. This is not about regular immigrants. This is about hard-core criminals and bad, bad guys.”

In Prince William County, where law enforcement officials check the immigration status of those arrested, Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) called Gray’s move “disturbing and reprehensible.”

“I find it incredibly ironic that the immigration laws of the United States are not even enforced within the boundaries of our nation’s capital,” Stewart said in a statement.

Gray countered that the policy will make the District safer by making someone in the country illegally less afraid to interact with police or report alleged crimes.

Some immigrants and activists played down Gray’s order, noting that District mayors have been distancing the city from immigration enforcement for decades.

“Mayor Gray has implemented and confirmed a policy that was initiated by the Marion Barry administration in 1984,” activist Jose Sueiro said.

But others called it a major morale boost for local immigrants concerned about tough new immigration laws in several states, including Arizona and Alabama.

“It reinforces things for people who are scared,” said Maria Gomez, president of Mary’s Center, an Adams Morgan health center. “And people have been running scared.”

The Case of the Concerned Citizen, the Harmless Korean, and the Port Angeles Border Patrol (Seattle Weekly)

The Case of the Concerned Citizen, the Harmless Korean, and the Port Angeles Border Patrol
By Keegan Hamilton
Thu., Oct. 20 2011 at 9:00 AM

Hung Han was helping his elderly parents pack up their produce stand at the Port Angeles farmers market on the afternoon of Saturday, September 3 when he was approached, seemingly at random, by a pair of Border Patrol agents. The slender 37-year-old became "visibly nervous," as the agents later noted in their report, when they asked him for proof of citizenship. He replied in broken English that all he had was a Washington ID. A crowd of onlookers gaped as Han, wearing slacks and a button-down dress shirt, was then handcuffed and taken away in the back of a Border Patrol SUV. He spent the next 45 days locked up in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

As the Peninsula Daily News later reported, the crowd at the farmers market was "shocked" by Han's apparently unprovoked arrest. It was the reportedly the first time the Border Patrol ever visited the twice-weekly market, and Han was the only person they questioned.

But according to documents obtained by Seattle Weekly, Han was targeted because an anonymous "concerned citizen" called to report an illegal immigrant from Korea "hanging around" the farmers market. Han's family has sold sushi and vegetables from their garden at the market for the past three years, and their son routinely lends a hand, a family friend said after Han's court hearing on Tuesday in Tacoma.

Though they had no proof that Han was actually undocumented -- save for his poor command of English and nervous mannerisms -- the agents detained Han and the Department of Homeland Security set his bail at $60,000. He has no criminal history, his mother is a legal permanent resident, and his father and sister are U.S. citizens. His only previous run-in with the law was a speeding ticket.

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not return a request for comment on Han's case.

Han's arrest and lengthy detention are the latest in a recent series of controversial actions by the Border Patrol outpost on the Olympic Peninsula.The agency is building a new $5.7 million headquarters on the outskirts of Port Angeles, and some residents -- including the mayor -- have complained about the agency's aggressive tactics and alleged racial profiling. In May, a 42-year-man drowned while attempting to run away from the Border Patrol in nearby Forks, and three months later whistleblower agent Christian Sanchez told reporters that the area's agents have "no purpose, no mission," and are wasting taxpayer dollars.

On Tuesday, an immigration judge reduced Han's bond amount to $1,500 after hearing the evidence in the case and testimony from his attorney that Han helps care for his ailing father and has "strong ties" in the community, where he has lived for more than eight years. His parents paid the money, and Han was released later that afternoon with orders to appear at another hearing that has yet to be scheduled.

Han was represented by Jorge Barón, director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Barón believes the case is further proof that many of the record number of immigrants detained and deported over the past year are not threats to public safety, despite the government's claims to the contrary.

"ICE is saying we're focusing our resources on people who are dangers to the community," Barón says. "That's certainly not the case, at least not in our region. What you hear coming out of Washington, D.C., is not the reality -- or at a least it's not a fully accurate portrait -- of what's happening on the ground."

Teen cartel killer’s mom sentenced in immigration case (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Teen cartel killer’s mom sentenced in immigration case
Written by Morgan Lee
7:57 p.m., Oct. 18, 2011

SAN DIEGO — The mother of a 15-year-old San Diego-born boy convicted this year of killing on behalf of a Mexican drug cartel has been sentenced to one year in jail on immigration charges, officials said Tuesday.

Yolanda Lugo Jimenez, 44, pleaded guilty in February in U.S. District Court to being in the country illegally after being deported to Mexico because of a 1997 felony drug conviction. She was sentenced Monday by Judge Roger Benitez.

Lugo was detained by federal agents outside her Logan Heights apartment on Dec. 6 — four days after Mexican soldiers captured her son, Edgar Jimenez Lugo as he prepared to board a flight from central Mexico to Tijuana in hopes of reaching his mother.

Edgar was convicted in July of homicide and organized crime charges in the beheading of four men and is serving a three-year sentence in a juvenile detention facility in Mexico. The August 2010 killings ended with mutilated bodies being strung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a tourist destination just south of Mexico City.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on Yolanda Lugo that would turn her over to immigration officials once her sentence is completed in December, said agency spokeswoman Lauren Mack. A previous conviction makes it likely Lugo will be deported.

She might seek to defer deportation, said her attorney, Jack Boltax, who declined to specify on what grounds.

Lugo’s husband, an undocumented immigrant with no criminal record, also was arrested on Dec. 6 and was returned to Mexico. The couple have two elementary school-aged daughters who were born and raised in the United States. Edgar is Lugo’s child from a previous relationship.

Monroe college student faces deportation back to Poland (Stamford Advocate)

Monroe college student faces deportation back to Poland
Vinti Singh, Staff Writer
Published 10:30 p.m., Friday, October 14, 2011

MONROE -- There was nothing "voluntary" about it, but 19-year-old Paulina Krynska felt as if she had no other choice. If she didn't sign the voluntary deportation agreement, she would have to go into hiding, constantly dreading the day Immigration and Customs Enforcement tracked her down.

She signed the document. But it was a decision she would come to regret -- just a few hours later.

Krynska's father, Dariusz, and mother, Ewa, first came to the U.S. on tourist visas on the advice of relatives in New York and moved into an apartment in Queens. Krynska's father then obtained a work visa and her mother a student visa. The family moved to Monroe in 2005.

Krynska came to the U.S. from Poland on a tourist visa when she was 11, but never returned there. She has a Social Security number that she got when she was issued a work permit for her first high school job. She used that to get a driver's license and pay taxes on the wages she earned working at local coffee shops. She was able to extend her stay in the U.S. when she was granted dependent status, but she has been here illegally since the extension expired in 2006, according to documents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent her.

When DHS sent her a letter that said she was "removable," her family hired a lawyer who helped them navigate the immigration court system. In August, he told Krynska she had little choice but to sign the voluntary departure.

The car ride to Hartford on the day she went to sign the agreement was mostly silent, she said. Her lawyer asked her if she was sure of her decision. It was highly unlikely she would be allowed to return to the U.S. unless it was as a fiance to an American citizen, she was told.

"Mostly, I was just like sad," Krynska said. "I wanted to cry."

She signed the document on Aug. 18 at 8:30 a.m. She agreed to leave the country no later than Dec. 16. But what she didn't know was on that very same day, President Barack Obama announced he was establishing a new process to handle deportation cases. His administration would focus more effort on deporting criminal immigrants in the country illegally. The president said in May that immigration officials would focus on violent offenders and not families or "folks who are looking to scrape together an income."

Krynska graduated from Masuk High School and attends Naugatuck Community College as a liberal arts and science major. She plans to transfer to Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and get a degree in business or marketing. Krynska feels she qualifies as an immigrant in good standing.

Her lawyer, Crescenzo DeLuca, sent in paperwork to have her case reopened, but in September, Krynska was notified her appeal was denied. DeLuca could not be reached for comment. The Krynskas said he was very diligent about letting them know the consequences of Paulina signing the deportation agreement.

Krynska came to the U.S. to join her parents who had settled here in 1998. Her parents wanted to get established before bringing her over. But when Krynska was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and spent three weeks in a Warsaw hospital, her mother decided she should come to the U.S. as soon as possible.

"I was little, and obviously an 11-year-old isn't going to understand the immigration system," Krynska said. "I had no clue what was going on. I thought, I'm moving to this country, I'm going to be with my parents, I'm going to be happy."

Krynska and her parents have stayed in the country on various extended visas and has applied for a green card more than once, but her application was always rejected. Her family said they got bad advice from previous immigration lawyers.

It's not uncommon for immigrants to be swindled by lawyers who prey on their lack of knowledge about the complex immigration system, said Wayne Chapple, director of immigration services at the International Institute of Connecticut and a private immigration attorney.

Krynska has many concerns about returning to Poland. She is worried that if she is deported, it will be difficult for her to afford insulin and blood tests for her diabetes care. Also, Krynska said she can speak Polish, but cannot read or write in the language, so it would be difficult for her to attend school or find a job.

Krynska has only enrolled in two classes this semester -- English and U.S. history-- because she does not want to pay too much in tuition if she will have to leave.

Krynska's friend, Sarah Magilnick, has started an online petition to garner support for her case. She has collected letters from friends and acquaintances on Krynska's behalf. On Wednesday, she planned to mail copies of the letters to 20 state officials including U.S. Rep. Jim Himes and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

"I'm usually the type of person who sits back and lets people be pushed around, but it would be like losing a sister if she has to leave," Magilnick said. "I know she's so happy here and everything she has is here. It's like helping family."

Krynska said she got advice from the daughter of Tomasz Kocab, another Polish immigrant in Monroe who was on the verge of removal, to contact U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., because he was able to help her family.

"What we want to get out of it is to reopen my case and see if I do qualify under the new policy," Krynska said. "I do want to stay here and go to school. Maybe they can give me a student visa and give me a green card."

While Krynska is pinning her hopes on Obama's new immigration policy, Chapple says she shouldn't count on it to help her because it is not yet an official policy and could change.

Chapple said at best, all Krynska could hope for is an extension of her deportation case so she could go to court with her parents.

"You never know about new immigration laws, and let's face it, no one is agreeing on anything in Washington and immigration is not a high priority when you're looking at jobs, economy, and the national budget."

But there have been various cases around the country that have been excused under the new order.

ICE would not comment on Krynska's case.

"In accordance with the DHS privacy policy, in most immigration cases ... ICE will not discuss specifics except to confirm a detainer, arrest or removal of an alien," ICE spokesman Chuck Jackson said.

Krynska's parents are scheduled to appear in court in May. Their lawyer told them they have a better chance of being allowed to stay, since they have been in the country more than 10 years and they have a second daughter, who was born in the U.S. five years ago.

Cousin: Man dies after abandoned by smugglers (AP via KTUL)

Cousin: Man dies after abandoned by smugglers

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) - The Border Patrol says that an illegal immigrant has died from exposure in the southern Arizona desert over the weekend and that two others were rescued before succumbing to the heat.

Border Patrol spokesman Brent Cagen said Monday that agents in Nogales found a 26-year-old Mexican man unconscious in the desert on Friday afternoon. He was airlifted to a nearby hospital but died Saturday.

Cagen says the man's cousin was with him and didn't need medical attention.

The cousin told agents that smugglers abandoned the pair when his cousin couldn't keep up.

On Sunday, agents in Casa Grande also saved a 39-year-old woman who was lost in the desert and called 911 and a 38-year-old man suffering from severe dehydration and heat exposure.