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Federal agents assigned to pursue terrorists in the United States have instead arrested and deported thousands of Latin American laborers, only to have some of the laborers sneak back into this country, sometimes even brazenly returning to the jobs they left behind.
One advocate in Central Jersey says almost all of the 100-odd deportees he tracked have returned to the state.
The immigration crackdown known as Operation Compliance, launched in December 2001, was directed at 6,000 foreign nationals from countries considered al-Qaida hubs. All had ignored court orders to leave the United States.
The priority, federal officials stressed, was to expel foreigners who had ties to terrorism or otherwise threatened citizens' safety.
But by early 2003, none of the 1,139 people arrested had been linked to terrorism, according to the 9/11 commission. In ensuing months, Operation Compliance ended up netting mostly Latin Americans, who were also "fugitive absconders" with deportation orders.
In a dramatic departure from past sweeps, which focused primarily on work sites likely to hire illegals, "fugitive absconder teams" are rousting undocumented men in pre-dawn raids on their homes, identifying themselves as police rather than immigration agents. The teams are not only arresting their targeted absconders but also hauling away other illegal immigrants they happen to find, calling these "collateral arrests."
Such arrests are entirely legal, says Amy Gottlieb, an attorney who heads the American Friends Service Committee in Newark, which provides assistance to immigrants.
She acknowledges that many of those already ordered out of the country have exhausted their legal remedies. She is concerned that some of those caught up in "collateral arrests" are being pressured by immigration officials to give up their rights to legal representation and court hearings.
Human rights groups and local activists say that the enforcement teams are going after people least likely to pose a national security threat - immigrants who have built lives here and have come forward to legalize their status.
"This is how their money is being used - picking up pizza deliverymen and nannies and deli workers," said Maria Juega, a Princeton resident and chairwoman of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a group that has been monitoring the raids in Central Jersey.
Dubious enforcement
About 11 million illegal immigrants...