RIGHTS-US/CARIBBEAN: Immigration Body Takes a Beating

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Patrick Smikle

HOLLYWOOD, Florida, May 8 1998 (IPS) - It was the last thing the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) needed, another bruising of its already battered image, but that is exactly what it appears to have received.

Over the past three to four years the INS has been buffeted between a conservative Congress bent on re-writing the laws to make migration to the United States more difficult, anti- immigrant organisations which charge that it is not doing enough to deal with illegal immigration, pro-immigration advocacy groups which criticise it for being too trenchant in its dealings with immigrants, and immigration lawyers who say the agency is corrupt and inefficient.

Now the INS District Office in Florida finds itself the target of a Justice Department investigation and a civil law suit by an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who says she was brutalised during a recent raid to round up suspected illegal immigrants.

Ana Ramirez has announced that she is suing the agency. “INS agents struck me and threw me on the floor, and it wasn’t until I told them I was pregnant that they stopped shoving me,” Ramirez told journalists at a news conference at the Dominican-American National Foundation in Miami.

She said she fainted during the attack and has since experienced bleeding which her doctor says could endanger her four-month old foetus.

Acting on a tip that the import-export flower company, First Paragon Floral in Northeast Miami-Dade was employing ‘undocumented aliens’ INS officials backed by their enforcement arm, the Border Patrol, embarked on what should have been “a routine worksite enforcement operation”.

“We got reports of illegal workers at a certain location. We have surveillance, then we go in with a search warrant,” said Immigration and Naturalisation Service spokesman, Lemar Wooley. To that extent, according to Wooley’s account, the enforcement was fairly routine, but “one lady was very vocal. She got people outside excited and it got a little out of hand.”

Both management and workers at First Paragon gave a different account.

Wesley J. Allen, vice-president of First Paragon, said INS officers, accompanied by heavily armed Border Patrol agents dressed in black, arrived at the plant in 10 cars and four vans and sealed off the premises, blocking both incoming and outgoing traffic.

They ignored his offer to open his personnel files to show that his workers were legal. “They didn’t want to look at our documents,” he said. “They wanted individuals to produce their own documents.”

He said that although the workers cooperated, the agents “treated them badly, forcing them to sit on the wet floor and pushing some women.”

“These agents were dressed in all black with heavy weapons,” said Allen. “They were dressed to kill. Everybody was scared to death. They pushed women out of their way. Everyone was afraid because these guys were so rough. It was like the Gestapo.”

Lillian Soza, who has worked at First Paragon for several years, says she was taking a break in the company cafeteria when “suddenly, out of nowhere, men dressed in black surrounded us and locked all the doors. No one showed us any identification.

“We didn’t know who these people were. They were shouting at us, get down, get down on the floor now.” Soza admits that even after learning who the agents were, she refused to comply, demanding that she be spoken to politely.

“I am legal and I will sue you,” she says she told an agent who raised his hand and threatened to hit her if she did not obey. “An officer grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the ground and kicked me in the back,” Soza said.

“They all screamed at us. They didn’t know how to treat people. They thought we were animals,” says Sandra Giraldo, another First Paragon worker.

With Allen and other Paragon management personnel complaining that the INS action amounted to an illegal closure of the plant, the Border Patrol agents then moved some 30 people outside.

With some workers still resisting, a general melee developed and Miami-Dade Police were summoned to assist the Border Patrol squad. Twenty-three suspected illegal immigrants were arrested and taken to the INS detention centre at Krome.

“The only injury was one of our officers was bitten,” INS spokesman Lemar Wooley said. And how does he explain Paragon supervisor, Alina Lopez appearing in federal court the following day with her right wrist bandaged?

According to Assistant US Attorney Thomas Mulvihill, Lopez was hurt while struggling with an officer as he tried to handcuff her. He says she pounded on a police car and when an officer tried to stop her, he was kicked and bitten. The officer was in court, his left arm in a sling.

Lopez and another worker, Gerald Benge, have been charged with assaulting, resisting, opposing and intimidating law enforcement officers.

It has not helped the INS case that of the 23 workers taken into custody on suspicion of being undocumented, 13 were found to be legally resident in the country. The others, from Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Honduras and Ecuador, remain incarcerated at Krome.

While admitting that his department had received complaints about the INS officers’ conduct, District Director, Robert A. Wallis initially defended the raid, calling it “routine” and charging that many of the workers used fraudulent documents to get their jobs at First Paragon.

But with the agency drawing fire from a range of groups and individuals, including newspaper columnists, politicians at the local and federal levels, human rights groups and organisations which represent immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua, he has promised “a prompt and thorough investigation”.

“I take these types of allegations seriously and have already referred this matter to the Department of Justice,” said Wallis. “Our employees are held to a very high standard. It is our goal and intention to ensure our standards are never lowered, compromised or jeopardised.”

His statement has not stemmed the tide of criticism.

Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas has asked Chief Carlos Alvarez to conduct an investigation into the role the Police Department played in the incident. “I am deeply disturbed by the allegations of mistreatment and abuse,” Penelas said.

Calling for a Justice Department investigation, Lincoln Diaz- Balart, Miami’s Republican Congressman, described the incident as “improper and unacceptable conduct (that) has shocked our community.” He wants to see “the wrongdoers brought to justice.”

The Justice Department has announced that an enquiry will be conducted. But not even that announcement has deflected the flak aimed at the INS.

Several Hispanic groups held an all-day vigil at the Krome Detention Centre. One demonstrator tied himself to a wooden cross. Another 100 people demonstrated outside INS headquarters.

“We are not protesting because the INS captured our fellow citizens,” said Cristobal Mendoza, president of the ‘Committee of Impoverished Nicaraguans in Exile’. “We are outraged at the way they did it.”

Meanwhile, journalists and leaders of immigrant groups in Florida note that military type INS raids are not new.

Cheryl Little, Executive Director of the Florida Immigration Advocacy Centre, told IPS that she had “a file an inch thick that documents raids.”

“We’ve seen an increasing number of these raids conducted since the new immigration laws passed in 1996. People’s rights are being abused to a greater extent than ever and it’s something we’re very concerned about,” she said.

One Jamaican community leader told IPS that for several months last year, the INS seemed to have been targeting Caribbean events. He said they would arrive in military style, threatening to detain anyone who could not produce a green card.