Feds, Hispanics dispute arrests of immigrants

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has sought to downplay the operation that resulted in the arrests of eight immigrants last month on Witherspoon Street as local Hispanics gathered to protest the action.

The Hispanic community, which held a rally to promote their cause Saturday, describes the Oct. 13 arrests as a raid that has made the entire community anxious.

But the ICE says it was a "targeted enforcement action" that grew out of an investigation into one man who had skipped several immigration hearings.

The dispute underlines a continuing tension in the Hispanic neighborhood on Witherspoon Street, less than a half mile from the University.

While many immigrants are trying vigorously to gain legal status, some acknowledge that they are in fact illegally in this country. And the ICE says it is just trying to enforce the law.

"We enforce national immigration laws and did not write them," said ICE Assistant Director for Public Relations Manny Van Pelt. "We will continue to enforce them because the American people demand us to."

Van Pelt said immigration authorities had conducted surveillance on one immigrant and went to the Witherspoon Street apartment looking for him.

ICE officers asked to enter the apartment, Van Pelt said, and residents agreed. The authorities then had the right to ask for identification from the other men in the apartment, he said.

The residents provided false paperwork, and the officers had the legal right then to check their immigration status, he said.

"As ICE officers, we cannot turn away from the law," Van Pelt said. "We would not have to be there and take them in if they did not violate law. People with illegal immigration status must be detained."

But local immigration advocates disagree with the ICE's view.

"It was a raid," said Ryan Lilienthal, a local immigration lawyer not involved with the immigrants of the ICE action.

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Despite the criminal alien status of one of the eight men arrested, Lilienthal and other Hispanics in the community do not believe illegal immigrants should be considered criminals.

"ICE is playing on the perception that immigrants are criminals," Lilienthal said. "They should be going against the bad guys and not these people."

Pelusa Travel owner Raul Calvimontes, a vocal advocate of this weekend's rally, agrees with Lilienthal.

"A criminal is not someone who comes to this country to work and support their families," Calvimontes said.

Calvimontes also explained that the man with criminal status has been trying for seven to eight years to receive legal standing, but "it is all paperwork and waiting."

Detention

ICE and local Hispanics also dispute the condition of the Elizabeth, N.J., facilities where they are now detained.

In response to allegations by Calvimontes that the conditions in the facility are extremely poor, ICE says strict guidelines are being followed.

Van Pelt explained that each center must follow rigid rules.

"If we feel that detainees are treated poorly, we stop doing business with that particular center," he said.

Looking forward, the immigration action will continue to dominate discussion on Witherspoon Street.

But Calvimontes believes the Saturday rally held on Nassau Street was a success.

"There were lots of people there supporting us," he said. "As a minority group, we support each other, and we had to suffer [the arrests] in order to really support the community."