January 29, 2008 10:57 AM
Most of you know that Long Island was the target of a week-long series of raids by ICE last September that terrorized local Latino communities. Well, even larger raids took place in New Jersey. More than 2,000 people were arrested in raids in that state.
Different state, but same ICE approach. ICE barged into houses without warrants, questioned anyone who looked Latino about their immigration status, and then claimed they had rounded up gang members and gang associates.
Well, the law school at the local Catholic university, Seton Hall, has begun taking a look at the raids. Contrary to ICE’s claims of disrupting gang activity, Seton Hall found that ICE's own stats told a far different story. Of those arrested, 87% had no criminal records. Seton Hall's legal program is suing Homeland Security to get the records relating to the raids.
It will be interesting to see what they find. When folks in New Haven got access last week to records on a large scale raid over the summer in that city, they found e-mails indicating that the raids were payback by the Feds. The raids came just a week after the city adopted an open-door policy towards immigrants.