Novato, California USA

Elder Andy Shelton reports, “Many of our immigrant friends were terrified earlier this year when their neighborhoods were the targets of raids by federal agents brandishing semi-automatic weapons. In many cases our friends were arrested even though they weren't named in any warrant and they had no criminal record.”

“Raoul” responded to a knock on his door and was startled to see a team of immigration officials with drawn weapons. They demanded entrance to his home, but Raoul knew the law.

“May I see your warrant?” he requested.

“Warrant?” said the leader. “We don’t need warrants. We’ve got guns!”

Novato, California USA

A documented immigrant reported this incident to one of our elders in Novato:

When I came back from the store, the agents were coming back from the manager's office, and they saw me. They asked for my driver's license. Then they called to check to see if my license was legal. The officer said, "I know you don't have papers." And I said, "I do have papers."

They were looking for Raul Diaz and that is not my name. They said, "Maybe you changed your name." They showed the photo of the guy they were looking for and he did look a little like me.

Then they said, "Do you want to talk here, go to San Francisco, or talk in your apartment?'

I said, "Go to San Francisco." I said, "I won't open my apartment."

They wanted to come in to see if Raul Diaz was there. They put me in handcuffs and walked me to my apartment. When I was in front of the apartment, I told my renters to show their faces in the window so the agents could see that they were not the person the agents were looking for. I did not open the door. Then they grabbed me hard by the arm and took me to the street, forcing me into the car. There were four agents, two women and two men. One of them spoke Spanish. It was very demoralizing. They talked on the phone and wrote while I sat in the car for about 30 minutes. Then they said, "Cooperate and open the door next time we come." Finally they let me go.

Novato, California USA

A member of the Fijian Community of San Rafael First United Methodist Church was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. In actual fact, they were not interested in her, but in her boyfriend. They were waiting outside her house in the Ignacio Blvd area of Novato. Neomai left the house with her six year old son. The ICE agents stopped her on the street and demanded to see her ID and passport. When they found out that her visa had expired they handcuffed and arrested her. Her son witnessed all this, and they left him on the street as they took her away. He went back to the house where Neomai's boyfriend was.

Neomai has three children in this country, who are legal citizens through their father. Neomai has never been in trouble with the police. Neomai is being detained in San Francisco, and is awaiting a hearing. The bail is likely to be set at $20,000. The whole Fijian community is now living in fear.

Seattle, Washington USA

One of the differences between immigrants and criminals, is that criminals are allowed to make a phone call and the law mandates that they have access to a lawyer. That is not the case with immigrants. No legal advice is provided, if they can’t obtain their own lawyer and pay for him/her. Few lawyers are available to immigrants on a pro-bono basis. In the Seattle detention center, the Washington Immigrant Rights Project, a non-profit organization created and manned by lawyers, comes in on a weekly basis to provide legal advice to those facing court dates, and sometimes will take a case where the inmate is mistakenly identified as non-documented or has a chance to fight deportation. They have succeeded in advocating for release on several occasions.

Because of the overload on our courts, there is no guarantee as to when an inmate will go to court. A court date may be set three weeks to several months away, but the volume of persons being processed through the courts can change that. Consequently, many are held long past their original court date. The lack of a specific ending to the detention sometimes causes inmates to despair and attempt suicide. An elderly Russian immigrant in a wheelchair managed to partially hang himself on his bunkbed, and came close to dying before he was found. Another had managed to cut himself about 40 times, including the wrist arteries, and was found in a pool of blood barely alive. It took multiple sutures to save him.

All the detention centers across the U.S. are owned and operated by independent contractors on a for-profit basis. Inter-cooperation exists among the centers, and there is no guideline on where an immigrant must be housed during detention. Thus, inmates can be moved from Washington to Florida on a moment’s notice. This could occur because the facility is overflowing and there is space in Florida. But sometimes it occurs because someone is fighting deportation in the courts, is likely to win, and some supervisor decides to put a halt to the possibility by sending the person to Florida. There is no regulation on this, and no recourse. Because immigrants are denied the right of habeas corpus, they remain in custody in Florida, unable to return for court proceedings. The case is thrown out, due to their non-appearance. In this way, individuals who might otherwise prove their legal right to live in the USA have been deported. (Reported to Susan Skoor by a guard who has worked for two years at the Seattle detention center.)