Stories related to: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

You hear a lot less Spanish these days in Milton, Fla. Hispanic immigrants fled the panhandle town after local police raided more than a dozen businesses, arresting at least 27 illegals. Technically, only federal agents can enforce immigration law, but cops around the country have found ways around that problem, the New York Times reports. Milton’s illegals were rounded up for identity theft. More »

Some 270 illegal immigrants have been sentenced to 5 months in federal prison in a sign that the Bush administration is taking a much harder line on undocumented workers, the New York Times reports. Busted for using fake IDs, the workers were among 389 swept up at a kosher meat-packing plant in Iowa in the biggest immigration raid on a workplace in US history. Until now, undocumented workers have usually been detained and deported. More »

The number of detained immigrants has skyrocketed since 9/11, and many do not receive critical health care in overburdened federal detention centers, the Washington Post reports. Several immigrants, detained for minor offenses or waiting to seek asylum, received little or no care for life-threatening symptoms which finally killed them, a Post investigation found. More »

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to hide pictures of her giving an award to an employee in a racially insensitive Halloween costume, House Democrats say. Julie Myers was photographed smiling and standing next to an employee in prison garb and wearing blackface, whom she awarded the night's "most original costume" prize, the Los Angeles Times reports. More »

Visitors to the US entering through New York's John F. Kennedy airport will have all 10 fingers scanned under a new program of the Department of Homeland Security, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Officials hope the program, called US-VISIT, will allow customs—which currently collects just two prints from non-citizen visitors—to snag entrants with fake documentation or criminal records.  More »

It was a match made not in heaven but on Craigslist, and the Russian bride and American groom are charged with staging a sham marriage to get her a green card. The woman posted not-so-subtle ads: "Green Card Marriage—Will Pay $300/Month. Total $15,000," the LA Times reports. She got a taker, along with the attention of customs officials. More »

Feds have arrested more than 1,300 immigrants in Southern California over the last two weeks, in what Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is calling its biggest roundup ever. Ninety percent have criminal records or standing deportation orders, and 600 have already been deported, reports the LA Times . “Where these laws may not have been enforced in the past, that has changed,” said ICE. More »