wethepeopleofamerica.org

The number of immigrants detained in Orange County has more than tripled in recent months, overwhelming the Mexican Consulate.
The surge comes as Orange County jails and police in Costa Mesa have begun checking the immigration status of inmates.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show 187 immigrants were detained in Orange County for possible deportation in December, 333 in January and 591 in February.

Orange County Mexican Consul Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro said he is regularly called to check local jails for Mexican nationals, determine whether detained immigrants have legal representation and assist family members.

“What we deal with is what no one else deals with,” he said. “Usually, the one they catch is the one who was the breadwinner of the family. No one deals with that problem except us.”

Ortiz Haro said he has recently come across more than a dozen deportees who re-entered the county.

The founder of the Minuteman Project, a group that calls for greater border enforcement, said the re-entries suggest President Bush isn’t doing enough to control illegal immigration.

The re-entries are “a finger in the eye of the U.S. public and elbow into the ribs
of our president to get out of the way,” said the Minuteman Project’s Jim Gilchrist. “We have to get tougher with the employer of illegals.”
Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, attributed the spike in detainees in part to new arrangements with jail officials that call for them to check inmates’ immigration status. She also credited aggressive new federal efforts to find fugitive illegal immigrants and conduct workplace raids.

ICE also recently sent an agent to Costa Mesa’s city jail in response to concern from local officials about immigration enforcement. The city is the only in Southern California to have a permanent federal immigration officer stationed in the jail.

Read Full Story