Mother of 6 tries to avoid deportation (Chicago Breaking News)

Mother of 6 tries to avoid deportation

Antonio Olivo, Chicago Tribune
October 20, 2008 at 12:00 PM

In what may be the first of similar battles in the waning months of the Bush administration, about 30 demonstrators rallied outside a federal immigration office in downtown Chicago today in an effort to delay the deportation of a mother of six.

Francisca Lino, 41, is scheduled to leave the country this week after she was arrested at a hearing in 2006 for what she thought was her application for legal permanent residency.

Arguing that her departure would put severe distress on her family, all of them either U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) filed a petition to delay Lino's deportation for a year.

"They all rely on her to take care of them," Gutierrez said, noting that her husband, Diego, 34, was recovering from a stroke suffered shortly after her arrest.

Francisca Lino works in a chocolate factory in far west suburban Geneva, supporting her husband, her children and her mother-in-law, who has breast cancer, she said.

"I can't believe they could be so stone-hearted to not grant us an opportunity," she said, referring to federal officials.

Illegal Alien Enforcement Unit Activity (WMBB-Panama City, FL)

Illegal Alien Enforcement Unit Activity
10/17/08 - 04:46 PM
Bay County Sheriff Office

Working on an investigative lead from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Illegal Alien Enforcement Unit made an arrest yesterday October 16, 2008, of Phan Van Pham, a man ICE has been seeking for four years.

Pham entered the United States in 1977 as a refugee and applied for citizenship. In 1992 Pham, DOB 8/18/61, of 609 Allen Avenue, Panama City, was arrested and pled guilty to a charge of Purchase of Crack Cocaine. Because of this, his citizenship was eventually denied. The Illegal Alien Enforcement Unit located Pham yesterday and placed him in the Bay County Jail where he awaits pick up by ICE and deportation to Viet Nam.

Today the Illegal Alien Enforcement Unit arrested two individuals after a traffic stop revealed the driver of the vehicle had no driver’s license. Pantaleon Lopez-Santiago, DOB 7/27/86, of 607 W. 11th Street, Panama City, was charged with No Valid Driver’s License. Lopez-Santiago and the passenger in the vehicle, Santos Elias-Calel, were found to be without documentation and in this country illegally. Both are presently in the Bay County Jail and awaiting pick up and deportation by ICE. Lopez-Santiago will be returned to Guatemala and Elias-Calel to Mexico.

Man Wanted For Immigrant Smuggling Caught (KFOX-El Paso, TX)

Man Wanted For Immigrant Smuggling Caught
Jessica Molinar/KFOX Weekend Assignments Editor/Associate Producer

A routine traffic stop ends in the arrest of a man accused of smuggling immigrants according to El Paso Sheriff's Deputies.

Sheriff's deputies stopped a truck in Tornillo Tuesday.

The two passengers were asked to step out of the vehicle while the deputies searched their car.

That's when Sheriff's Officials said Efrian Bernardo Sanchez, 21, ran off.

Officials caught him a few moments later in a dark open field.

He was wanted by the U.S. marshal’s office for alien smuggling and now faces additional charges for evading arrest

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.)

Illegal immigrant picked up for deportation (Milford Daily News)

Illegal immigrant picked up for deportation

By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff
GHS
Posted Oct 17, 2008 @ 11:23 PM

MILFORD — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers yesterday picked up a Brazilian woman in Milford who was wanted on a deportation warrant, authorities said.

The woman, an illegal immigrant whose name and age were not released, ignored an immigration judge's deportation order from April 2006, which led to the warrant, said ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier.

"The next step in her case would be removal from the United States," Grenier said.

With Milford Police assisting, ICE agents picked up the woman sometime after 6 a.m. yesterday at her 7 Genoa Ave. home, Grenier said.

"It was a targeted enforcement action," Grenier said.

The federal agency has fugitive operation teams all over the country.

"Their specific mission is to identify and locate individuals who have already been ordered removed," Grenier said.

The Boston office arrested 1,557 of the immigration fugitives in Boston last fiscal year, she said.

"This is something we do every day," Grenier said.

Yesterday's arrest occurred without incident, she said.