By Dara Lind, originally posted at the America’s Voice blog.

A pair of stories published last week reveal disturbing new frontiers in immigration enforcement and underscore the urgent need for real reform.

An article by Jacqueline Stevens in the Nationuncovers several “ruse operations,” in which federal immigration (ICE) agents posed as insurance agents, couriers, and even Mormon missionaries in order to collect information on undocumented immigrants or lure them somewhere to be arrested. Here’s one representative example:

“A ruse operation about five years ago still rankles Kentucky attorney Julia Thorne. Thorne received a phone call from a man saying he was with a courier service, wanting to confirm her address. Shortly after that, one of her clients, a Polish horse teaser living in the area since 1993, received a call from a man who identified himself as ‘Bill, the new guy in Julia’s office’ and asked the client to stop by Thorne’s office and sign some papers–despite the fact that Thorne works alone. Two ICE agents were waiting and arrested him in the lobby. Thorne, eight floors above, had no idea until she received a call from her client in ICE custody.

“When Thorne complained to the Louisville ICE office, she was told, ‘No, your client’s making that up. We said we were a courier service.” When she asked, “How did he happen to show up in my lobby when you were there?’ they said it didn’t happen.”

While most of the operations Stevens recounts took place under the Bush administration, she warns that ICE’s current focus on “targeted stealth operations” instead of the highly-criticized workplace raids could make these tactics more common. One researcher quoted in the piece observes that the effect of the ruses is to “send a shudder through the immigrant community, but without the dominant community finding out.”

ICE may have realized that communities don’t take such aggressive tactics lightly. Take San Bernardino, for example, where the Immigration Raids Response Network is calling for Latinos to boycott Greyhound buses upon finding out that the company allows Border Patrol officers to board buses and ask Latino riders for identification. From Stephen Wall’s article for the Contra Costa Times:

Daniel Guzman, a 43-year-old San Bernardino resident, said he witnessed Greyhound security working with Border Patrol officers a few months ago.

When a bus arrived from the border city of Calexico at about 10:45 p.m., Guzman said Greyhound guards closed off the boarding area until passengers were checked by immigration officers and the bus was empty.

“They (Border Patrol officers) shouldn’t even be here,” said Alphonse Romain, a 34-year-old San Bernardino resident. “This is private property. Greyhound has the right to tell them to leave.”

Greyhound says it plans “on reaching out to (immigration) officials for further information.”

Advocates hope the boycott gives ICE agents all the information they need to decide against racial profiling and other disturbing tactics.

These are not insignificant decisions, as the New York Times reports today that federal prosecutions of immigration violators are at a record-high:

Immigration prosecutions were up nearly 16 percent, and made up more than half of all criminal cases brought by the federal government, the report said.

Much of the spike, immigration experts say, arises from Bush administration efforts to increase immigration enforcement and to speed prosecutions. The administration greatly increased the number of Border Patrol agents and prosecutors, and also introduced a program known as Operation Streamline that relied on large-scale processing of plea deals in immigrant cases in some parts of the country.

With immigration prosecutions and deportations on the rise, and distressing reports like these continuing to surface across the country, it is more crucial than ever that the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, indeed moves the ball forward on real, sweeping immigration reform early in the new year.

DHS Secretary Napolitano has reiterated the Obama Administration’s plan to push forComprehensive Immigration Reform legislation early next year, and recently stated that the Administration is:

…committed to reform that includes serious, effective and sustained enforcement, that includes improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm way to deal with those already illegally in the country.

We need to demand responsibility and accountability from everyone involved.  The Department of Homeland Security, our law enforcement partners, businesses who must be able to find the workers they need here in America, and immigrants themselves as we enforce the law moving forward.

Bringing responsibility and accountability to our often-disturbing immigration system is a project we cannot afford to delay.

Categories: comprehensive immigration reform

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