The Associated Press reports that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement has confirmed that the 2010 census will not be an issue with regards to enforcement raids; an ICE press release announced that the federal government will not "entertain any request to scale back our efforts" with regards to enforcement raids. The Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count everyone, including illegal immigrants, in the census.
Immigration agents informally agreed to cooperate with the Census Bureau during the 2000 census by not conducting any large-scale raids, according to Census Bureau officials.
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Elivra Arellano, an immigrant and activist who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid separation from her son, has been deported to Mexico , the church’s pastor said. According to The Washington Post, Arellano became a symbol of the struggles of undocumented immigrant parents when she took refuge in Chicago ’s Adalberto United Methodist Church to avoid separated from her 8-year-old son Saul, a U.S. born citizen.
"From the time I took sanctuary the possibility has existed that they arrest me in the place and time they want," she said in Spanish. "I only have two choices: I either go to my country, Mexico , or stay and keep fighting. I decided to stay and fight."
Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of the church where Arellano sought refuge, said that she had brought light to her struggle and for that, "she has one a victory." Arellano’s son will remain in the U.S. ; Rev. Coleman and his wife are Saul’s legal guardians.
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The US Customs and Border Protection has issued a written apology in a case involving an Iraqi refugee who was improperly imprisoned and pushed toward deportation by federal agents, according to the New York Times. "The whole reason that he was stopped to begin with was that he appeared Middle Eastern to the agents at the train station," said Doug Honig, an ACLU spokesperson. "This sends a strong message that basing law enforcement solely on ethnic profiling is not proper."
US attorney Jeffrey Sullivan, who signed the apology, said the case was about getting the law wrong and nothing else. "We all sometimes make good-faith mistakes, and that is all that was done in this case."
The refugee, Abdulameer Habeeb, 41, had been in the United States for 10 months on April 1, 2003, when he stepped off an Amtrak train near the Canadian border in Havre , Montana . Here he was stopped by Border Patrol agents who asked if he had registered under the "special registration" system, which is now largely suspended. He was not, so he was arrested and spent seven days in custody, and was in the queue for deportation, before ACLU attorneys successfully intervened.
Mr. Habeeb declared himself happy. "My nightmare stopped," he said. "It is not just a personal case; it is a human case. Everybody should be treated well.