Immigration Crackdown Also Snares Americans

A growing number of United States citizens have been detained under Obama administration programs intended to detect illegal immigrants who are arrested by local police officers.

In a spate of recent cases across the country, American citizens have been confined in local jails after federal immigration agents, acting on flawed information from Department of Homeland Security databases, instructed the police to hold them for investigation and possible deportation.

Americans said their vehement protests that they were citizens went unheard by local police officers and jailers for days, with no communication with federal immigration ins agents to clarify the situation. Any case where an American is held, even briefly, for immigration investigation is a potential wrongful arrest because immigration agents lack legal authority to detain citizens.

“I told every officer I was in front of that I’m an American citizen, and they didn’t believe me,” said Antonio Montejano, who was arrested on a shoplifting charge last month and found himself held on an immigration order for two nights in a police station in Santa Monica, Calif., and two more nights in a teeming Los Angeles county jail cell, on suspicion that he was an illegal immigrant. Mr. Montejano was born in Los Angeles.

This year the immigration agency has been rapidly extending its leading deportation program, known as Secure Communities, with a goal of covering the whole country by 2013. Under that program, fingerprints of every person booked at local jails are checked against Department of Homeland Security immigration databases. If the check results in a match, federal immigration agents can issue detainers, asking local law enforcement authorities to hold a suspect for up to 48 hours.

Detentions of citizens are part of the widening impact on Americans, as well as on immigrants, of President Obama’s enforcement strategies, which have led to more than 1.1 million deportations since the beginning of his term, the highest numbers in six decades.

John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency gave “immediate and close attention” to anyone who claimed to be a citizen. continue reading .......Immigration Crackdown Also Snares Americans

Suicide of 18-year-old Linked to Immigration Policies

Joaquin Luna, an 18-year-old high school student, shot and killed himself on November 25, and letters recovered after the suicide stated Luna wanted his death to serve as a call to action for immigration reform.
Dressed in a suit and tie, Luna kissed family members then went into a bathroom and shot himself in the head at about 9 p.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, according to KGBT.
Born in Reynosa, Mexico, Luna grew up in the United States and was a student at Benito Juarez-Abraham Lincoln High School in Mission, Texas, according to the Washington Times. His brother, Diyer Mendoza, told KGBT, the local CBS affiliate, that his brother got good grades and aspired to be an engineer, but felt his dream was hopeless due to his citizenship status.
Speaking to the Washington Times, Mendoza said his brother had some college prospects, but because he was undocumented, he was ineligible for some scholarships and felt he would not be able to embark on a successful career.
"He was actually doing this for the cause, mainly the Dream Act," Mendoza told the Times, referring to his brother's death. "He was doing this to show politicians, to show that something had to be done because there are a lot of kids out there in the same situation."
The Dream Act was federal legislation designed to give illegal immigrant students like Luna legal residency status and the opportunity to attend college. It passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 but was defeated by a Senate filibuster.
In the absence of national immigration reform, states have begun moving forward with immigration laws. In October, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill dubbed the California Dream Act, which allowed illegal immigrants to access state financial aid for college. Texas allows illegal immigrant students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges, which is a policy that the state's governor, Rick Perry, has had to defend on the campaign trail for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

Source: Suicide of 18-year-old Linked to Immigration Policies