New York, NY —
Last month, 5 domestic flights originating in Los Angeles were met by immigration officials at Newark and JFK airports. Dozens of undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico, were arrested. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez has this report:
On a recent warm and windy Saturday afternoon, dozens of men and women dressed in suits, and high heels packed the aisles of a small Catholic church in Brooklyn. The group was there to baptize their children, mostly toddlers dressed in white from head to toe.
Cousins, aunts, and uncles documented the moment and afterwards the families walked the few blocks home to celebrate and eat. Filli is 30 years old and prefers not to use her full name. She stands in a small kitchen and is timid about talking. Her family and friends are seated nearby at a long rectangular table that fills the entire apartment:
FILLI: Todos que venian iban a llegar a la fiesta. Los extrano, siempre estan aqui en los fiestas que tenemos.
TRANSLATION: Everybody that was coming was supposed to be here today. We miss them, they are always here for the family parties.
Her brother Rafael, a cousin and four others arrived at Newark Airport on April 8th, just in time to celebrate Easter and to attend the Baptism.
Instead, they were arrested at the airport held in detention for over a week and then deported back to Mexico. Rafael is a long time resident of Brooklyn and had been home visiting his wife and kids.
FILLI: El ya habia pasado dos veces antes .y era la tercera vez que iba a venir .
She says he had already made his way back into the country two times before. This trip would have been his third. Others traveling with him were coming for the first time. The route they took is a common one. First they crossed the border illegally, made their way to a travel agent in Los Angeles, purchased tickets to New York City, boarded a plane and were on their way. Six years ago Filli's oldest brother made the same journey. He disappeared and has never been seen since:
FILLI: Bueno nosotros tratamos de mandar a que para pedir informacion en la frontera porque alli es donde saben mas y nunca encontraron nada. Ni vivo, ni muerto, nada
TRANSLATION: We tried to get information from the border because that's where people know the most but they never found anything. They couldn't say whether he was alive, or dead, nothing
On the day Rafael was arrested she was fearful the same thing may have happened again.
FILLI: Ese dia yo me preocupe mucho porque pos no llego. Entonces, comensamos a buscar para preguntar donde estaba ya por fin, nos communicaron, por fin no hablaron.
TRANSLATION: That day I got so worried because he never came. Then we began to look around, ask questions and finally they called.
295 people were arrested in total. 130 were stopped just prior to boarding New York City bound planes in Los Angeles. And 165 were arrested after they had arrived at Newark and JFK airports. The arrests were part of ongoing investigations into smuggling operations. John Torres is with Immigration and Customs Enforcement , also known as ICE, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. He says agents have been putting pressure along the Arizona border and the East Coast arrests stemmed from tips related to this work:
TORRES: Instead of smuggling people through phoenix they will move their human cargo to Los Angeles and take advantage of flights from Los Angeles. So as smugglers react we'll look to also react and move our operations to those areas where the next vulnerability awaits us.
Torres says smuggling operations are a threat to national security and since September 11th, arresting undocumented immigrants is no longer about controlling the flow of immigration:
TORRES: If you have people on a flight and they are traveling on false identification and we don't know who they are or where they are from that is a vulnerability that we need to assess.
In the Woodside section of Queens where Latina women sell tamales under a subway overpass and Mexican bakeries and restaurants line Roosevelt Avenue, the arrests have made an impression. At a local community center, nearly all the adults attending a morning English Class knew of the arrests. None would give their names but several had opinions.
FEMALE: Deberia viajar libremente dentro los Estados Unidos. El hecho es que uno sea immigrante no quiere decir que uno sea un terrorista que va hacer dano a la gente no somos persona communes y corrientes como todo el mundo que vinimos a trabajar , no
TRANSLATION: We should be able to travel freely inside the United States. Just because someone is an immigrant doesn't mean they are a terrorist that's coming to harm people you know, we are ordinary people like the rest of the world who just came here to work.
The students told stories of friends changing their travel arrangements---- a four day bus trip to Las Vegas instead of a 6 hour flight. Another woman who is from Ecuador says people need to be mobile. Sometimes she says its necessary to travel in order to find work:
FEMALE: Estabamos pensando con mi esposo ir a Florida. Pero con esta cosa con esta situacion que esta presentando parece que no.
TRANSLATION: Me and my husband were thinking of going to Florida but with the situation the way it is, I doubt it now.
The Department of Homeland Security says it will continue to act on any tips it receives and Torres says in order to prosecute those who smuggle people across the border, the arrests of undocumented immigrants will continue:
TORRES: We cannot turn around and close our eyes to the fact that there are illegal aliens on a flight and then still be able to prove a case against smugglers, they are in fact our evidence.
In Brooklyn, Filli says her brother is deciding whether to try to make the trip from Mexico again. She says first though, the family will have to save up another 2 thousand dollars to pay the smuggler. For now he will stay in Mexico and look for work.
For WNYC: I'm Cindy Rodriguez