For years, I've been hearing about how the Obama Administration is setting records for numbers of illegal aliens being deported. For example, USA Today reported on December 21, 2012:
Obama administration sets deportation record: 409,849
Alan Gomez
5:27 p.m. EST December 21, 2012
For the fourth year in a row, the Obama administration set a record for the number of people it deported. In 2012, the total reached 409,849.
Personally, I find it a little puzzling that the Obama Administration told USA Today exactly how many people were deported in 2012 a full ten days before the end of 2012. This promptness may have something to do with Obama hiring Professor Diederik Stapel as Head Immigration Statistician, but the more likely explanation is merely that Obama has invented time travel in his spare time in the White House garage and has been visiting the future to collect bureaucratic statistics for us.
And yet, despite these ever growing statistics, I almost never read sob stories about the Obama Administration sweeping down on obvious employers of massive numbers of illegal immigrants.
Perhaps Obama is just counting people caught at the border as deportations (they were one foot over the line, so that's a deportation!). Because the Administration sure isn't taking any proactive steps to go to obvious major employers of illegal immigrants and take away their illegal workforce.
Recently, an Obama Administration ICE spokesperson announced that the Administration wasn't deporting illegal aliens. Why? Because big employers of illegals were concerned that rumors that it might start was discouraging new illegals from coming to America.
From the Sacramento Bee:
Immigrant raid rumor fuels fear in Central Calif.
By GOSIA WOZNIACKA
Associated Press
Last Modified: Saturday, May. 11, 2013 - 1:19 am
FRESNO, Calif. -- The rumor spread like wildfire via phone calls, text messages and social media postings and has persisted now for more than three weeks: Immigration agents are rounding up unauthorized workers in Central California farming communities.
In Madera, Dinuba, Reedley and parts of Fresno, streets emptied out, soccer games were cancelled and usually bustling businesses saw few customers. Area farmers say their employees are scared, with some not coming to work. Children are missing school.
The disruption has become so widespread and unrelenting that local law enforcement and business leaders took the unusual step of holding a news conference Friday to try to reassure the community that no raids have occurred.
"Every week we're getting dozens of calls from workers who are afraid because they say they heard that others were stopped on the side of the highway and hauled away," said Manuel Cunha, Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, the group that represents growers in the San Joaquin Valley.
Cunha organized the news conference, which included a representative from the Mexican consulate as well as other community leaders.
Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency is aware of the rumors. While she would not discuss specific law enforcement efforts, Kice said ICE's priority is targeting immigrants who have committed crimes and "not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately."
Local law enforcement officials said ICE assured them the rumors are false.
"I spoke with immigration officials at our local office and have been told directly that they are not conducting massive sweeps in this area, they are not conducting this activity," Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said.
The rumor started in Madera, a mainly Hispanic city of 61,000 just north of Fresno. The catalyst, most probably, was an operation by the Union Pacific Railroad Police, which ticketed people who illegally crossed the railroad tracks, Madera Police Chief Steve Frazier said.
The railroad police arrived in a white van and wore green suits, Frazier said, arresting one individual who was a deported felon and had an arrest warrant. Those who witnessed the action might have mistakenly believed the railroad officers were ICE agents.
Since then, employers, advocacy groups and churches have received a steady stream of frantic calls on behalf of immigrants who reported hearing about others being loaded onto vans, stopped at checkpoints in town, hauled away from popular stores and from their homes. But none of the callers had any proof.
"The rumor is patently false. There are no immigration raids occurring in the city of Madera," Frazier said. "We've been telling people not to worry." ...
Lazaro Salazar, an immigration lawyer who specializes in deportation defense, said he has not heard from anyone who has been detained in a raid.
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