LatinaLista — Saturday nights are busy nights for any night club or restaurant in any part of the world. Yet, for 26 such Latino establishments in Dallas, last night wasn’t just busy but chaotic and frightening for workers and patrons.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with, the Dallas County District Attorney, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Dallas Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas raided bars, clubs, restaurants, supermarkets and pool halls in an attempt to crack down on security companies that hire undocumented immigrants as security guards.
A total of 49 undocumented immigrants who worked as security guards were reported arrested.
At 11 p.m. Saturday, teams made up of local, state and federal officers simultaneously hit 26 businesses in the Love Field area, Northwest Dallas, Old East Dallas and Lakewood. No injuries were reported.
Authorities recovered four pistols. Federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing firearms. Those arrested also face charges of being in the country illegally…
Four of those arrested were from El Salvador and the others were Mexican, authorities said. One of the El Salvadorans was in the U.S. legally under Temporary Protected Status, immigration officials said. It’s unclear what charges he faces.
Obviously, the crackdown by ICE at such public places sends a message to the undocumented immigrant community that no place is safe. Yet, the same message is being received by immigrants who are also legally in the United States and know that in the government’s haste to apprehend anyone who “appears” to be undocumented, everyone is presumed undocumented until proven otherwise.
And though the raid targeted only security guards, the obvious intimidation of restaurant and bar staff, not to mention, the patrons, will certainly reverberate throughout the Latino business community and cause yet one more hardship to a struggling sector.
Comment(12)
Jax
Sounds like the kind of efforts to protect our border that law enforcemdent people should be taking.
yave begnet
ICE is out of control. Those who agree might consider supporting the Rapid Response Networks that have been formed in NY/NJ, Boston, Chicago, and LA. These networks are in great need of Spanish-speaking volunteers.
Migrant advocates in TX and the Southwest may want to consider setting up RRNs of their own–events like this one you’ve described, Marisa, demonstrate the need.
laura
Unbelievable.
This event clarifies again the goal of the ICE raids: not to make us safer, but to intimidate us all.
The cowardliness of this strikes me almost as much as the perfidious targeting of undocumented people whose work it actually is to protect other people.
We need to get the big organizations like La Raza to ask the candidates for president: Will you stop the ICE raids ?
And we should call their campaigns ourselves and ask.
Frank
Why shouldn’t ICE go after suspected illegal aliens in this country? Give me one good reason. So what that they target areas where Hispanics hang out or live. Hispanics make up the majority of illegal aliens, duh!
If you are Hispanic and legally in this country you have nothing to fear because you would have proper documents. I swear I don’t understand how any loyal American can object to ICE doing it’s job. I fear for this country with citizens like that in our country who object to laws being enforced.
Irma
Dallas, my home town. These raids
are no surprise – no doubt this was all initiated by an Obama supporter…….
Adelfa Callejo was right .
laura
Dear Irma,
please explain. The Dallas head of ICE is an Obama supporter? The Texas director of ICE supports Obama ?
No entiendo.
The only people I know by name, who have authority in ICE, is the ICE director, Julie Myers, and the Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff.
Ms. Myers is the person who gave an ICE staff member, dressed in a prisoner’s uniform, black makeup, and dreadlock wig, an award for most original costume at the 2007 ICE Halloween party.
Mr. Chertoff is the person who at the highest level managed the response to hurricane Katrina, and who is trying to take the property of Texas landowners for the border wall.
These two individuals are in their positions because of Republican cronyism. If either Obama or Clinton win, they are out.
Do you know anyone else in ICE who support Obama ?
I am asking not because I wish to defend Obama, but because it seems to me, a clear view of who is against us is the first step of taking effective action.
Texas Proud
Frank said:
“If you are Hispanic and legally in this country you have nothing to fear because you would have proper documents.”
So you are saying you walk around with your birthcertificate and social security card, right and maybe your passport? What other proper identification are you talking about? If they are going to be stoping me to see if I’m illegal or not they better be stoping you too. I don’t care that Latinos are the larger minotiry that could be illegal in the US. There are other illegals of different races and ethnicities so ICE better be raiding all those hangouts as well and asking for “PROPER DOCUMENTATION”.
Oh and if you do carry all those documents listed above then let’s hope you don’t ever lose them or get robbed cause someone is going to have a great time stealing you identity.
Irma, last I checked Obama wasn’t in office yet, how can his supporters be involved in these raids? That lady Adelfa Callejo is stuck in the past. Unless we look past people like her we will never get past the racial divides.
Frank
One doesn’t need to walk around with their birth certificate or SS card in their possession. A valid DL is all you need for I.D. purposes but if I were asked to produce the other two documents I certainly could and wouldn’t object to it.
If I were to have those documents stolen or I misplaced them, replacements can easily be obtained.
I don’t object to being questioned about anything by law enforcement as I have nothing to hide.
Horace
They weren’t just migrants picking tomatoes. These were armed security guards. In order to obtain weapons they would’ve had to present ID to obtain a license to carry. Apparently their IDs were fake. How far do these illegal aliens have to go before you consider them criminals? They were working in night clubs, not attending church. It seems to me that you are using hypebole just to sensationalize this, but the case wont gain much sympathy from most people.
EYES OF TEXAS
Intimidation, out of control, racial profiling? It is why ICE was established. To apprehend, detain and deport those that are in the U.S. illegally. It’s called law enforcement and it should become the norm instead of random raids that are basically giving the impression that they are doing their job. Here a raid, there a raid, everywhere a little raid. Step it up, hire more ICE agents and require all city, state and federal agencies to become totally involved. It’s about time.
Publius
It’s utter nonsense to blame ICE for enforcing the law. What next, scapegoating the police for doing their jobs? ICE didn’t do the crime, the illegal aliens did. Using your logic, if murderers, bankrobbers, and drug dealers are arrested for their crimes, the police should be vilified for it. I suggest that you stick with working the political side of immigration, Marisa, because demonizing enforcement agencies makes little sense.
Remember how your advocacy groups keep saying that demonizing people leads to inciting hate and violence? I suggest that you are doing just that.
rt
I think it is ridiculous the way they tear families apart!! Alot of immigrants are here working and are contributing to society!! I would love to see an American worker who can work as hard as an illegal immigrant I have yet to see that happen!! Another thing is why does it seem like hispanics are the only targets why don’t they enforce against every other nationality and not just hispanics!
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