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Date Posted: 12:32:27 11/29/07 Thu
Author: JMR (Watch out...)
Subject: Whats next for illegals?

Immigrants arrested by ICE team 'knew this day was coming'
By ELOÍSA RUANO GONZÁLEZ
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

There are pics that go with these but aren't shown here.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement police officer places a man in a holding cell at the agency's Yakima office Wednesday. The man was convicted of child molestation in 1994, which violated the terms of his legal residency, and he will be deported to Mexico. In order to photograph the ICE operation, the Herald-Republic had to agree not to show the faces of ICE agents or arrested suspects without their permission.


GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Immigration and Customs Enforcement police take a man from his West Valley before dawn on Wednesday. The man was convicted of child molestation in 1994, which violated the terms of his legal residency. After numerous court appeals were exhausted, he was arrested Wednesday and he will be deported to Mexico. In order to photograph the ICE operation, the Herald-Republic had to agree not to show the faces of either the ICE police or the man arrested without his permission.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Immigration and Customs Enforcement police officers gather for a short meeting in their Yakima office before Wednesday's operation. To accompany the ICE team, the Herald-Republic had to agree not to show the officers' faces.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement police officer waits outside a West Valley home as other ICE agents arrest a man Wednesday.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
A man arrested for an immigration violation sits handcuffed at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Yakima on Wednesday before he was taken to a detention center in Tacoma.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
A man arrested Wednesday for violating the terms of his legal residency is handcuffed before being taken to a detention center in Tacoma. The man, convicted of child molestation in 1994, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement police at his West Valley home.

With most residents asleep in his quiet West Valley neighborhood, Victor Lopez was startled early Wednesday morning by banging on his front door.


"Police. Open the door, please," a man said loudly, breaking the street's silence at 5:30 a.m.


Lopez opened the door to find a handful of armed Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents in bulletproof vests standing outside his dimly lit home on North 89th Avenue. After making sure the house was safe to enter, four agents arrested and handcuffed the 53-year-old Lopez, who had been ordered to leave the U.S. in February after two appeals of his deportation order had been rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court.


"It's not a surprise to them," ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said about those who have been served with a deportation order. "They knew this day was coming."


Lopez, an immigrant from the Mexican state of Guerrero, was one of two people peacefully arrested Wednesday by the new Fugitive Operations team that moved into the Yakima Valley earlier this fall. The agents mainly search for people convicted of serious crimes who were ordered by an immigration judge to leave the U.S.

However, after scanning the fingerprints of the second man who was arrested, immigration agents discovered he wasn't the person they were looking for -- a man with several criminal charges, including unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon and multiple DUIs. Agents, who asked not to be identified for safety concerns, said the criminal had apparently stolen the second man's identity. It's not uncommon in these sweeps, they said.

The Yakima-based fugitive team is one of three in the region, which covers Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Agents said they travel throughout the Yakima Valley up to the Canadian border to look for undocumented people, particularly those who have been convicted of serious crimes. The other teams are based in Seattle and Portland.

Dankers said the three teams arrested 100 immigration fugitives (people who have been ordered to leave the U.S.) with criminal records and 405 without any criminal convictions during the 2007 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Local statistics weren't available.

Agents arrested nearly 30,400 people nationwide, nearly double the number of arrests from the 2006 fiscal year, according to ICE reports.

There are 75 fugitive teams throughout the U.S., sweeping through homes and some businesses. There were only 17 teams nationwide when the operations started in 2003, according to an ICE report. Immigration officials estimate there are nearly 595,000 immigration fugitives in the U.S.. Not all have criminal histories, though.

Dankers, who rode along with the team Wednesday, said agents prefer to arrest people at home, after they have monitored them. She said it's less disruptive than going to their workplace. But agents will search for people in businesses if they have to, she added.

"We have the authority to enforce the law anywhere and anytime," Dankers said.

Agents had been monitoring Lopez for some time, keeping track of when he left for work and what vehicle he drove. Dankers said Lopez lost his legal residency after violating its terms when he was convicted of second-degree child molestation in 1994 in Yakima County. She said he served 20 months in jail for his charge.

Because of his criminal conviction, Dankers said there was a priority in seizing him.

"There's certain rules they must abide by," she said. "If they chose to violate them, there's consequences."

Although he was ordered by an immigration judge to be deported this year, Lopez said he hired a lawyer to continue to fight for his residency. He said his wife, a U.S. citizen, was hoping to petition for his legal permanent residency.

The arrest was unexpected, Lopez said tearfully while sitting in the agency's downtown Yakima office.

"I thought they were looking for somebody else," said Lopez, who arrived in the U.S. about 28 years ago. "I didn't think they were looking for me.

"I always had faith that God would help me. I never expected this."

Jack Bennett, assistant field office director in the Seattle area, said a child-molestation conviction or any aggravated felony can permanently bar a person from re-entering the U.S. legally.

Lopez declined to discuss any details of the conviction.

Bennett said Lopez was one of 12 people bused to the immigration detention center in Tacoma on Wednesday. The other 11 were arrested by immigration agents while sitting in jails in the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla areas. Further details about those people weren't available.

Bennett said Lopez will be flown to San Diego or a city in Arizona this weekend. Immigration agents then will bus him to the U.S.-Mexico border so he can walk across to Mexican soil.

Although he's not sure what he'll do when he gets there, Lopez said he's more worried about his wife, his 16-year-old daughter and his father. He said his father is dying in Mexico due to complications with diabetes.

Lopez, a Zillah farm manager, said he's the breadwinner in his family and he worries his wife, who works at a fruit warehouse, won't be able to pay for the West Valley home they bought two years ago.

"I don't know what will happen to my home. My wife. My kid. My cars. My job," Lopez said. "I'll definitely lose my job."

Lopez said he doesn't see a possibility of returning to the U.S. or making a living in Mexico, where he hasn't been in 19 years. Although his American dreams have vanished, Lopez said he doesn't blame immigration agents.

"They're doing their job," Lopez said. "They received orders."

Last edited by author: Thu November 29, 2007 12:33:31   Edited 1 time.

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