Raid Rumors Fuel Fear Among Immigrants

Day laborers wait for work near a Home Depot store in Phoenix, Friday, April 28, 2006. Activists supporting area immigrant workers plan to hold a protest outside the store Monday, as part the "A Day Without an Immigrant" national boycott. Activists are targeting some Phoenix Home Depot stores where the store's management has asked day laborers seeking work, not to congregate on the premises. (AP Photo/Khampha Bouaphanh) (Khampha Bouaphanh - AP)

ICE officials acknowledged they have stepped up arrests under their "Operation Phoenix," an existing program to find and deport fugitive illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

Many wondered whether the rumors would deter people from national immigration protests planned for Monday.

The National Immigration Law Center called on organizations nationwide to sign a petition urging ICE to assure the public it won't make any immigration arrests during the protests.

The agency said its policy is not to discuss potential operations. "ICE will continue to operate as it does every day of the year," Boyd said.

The rumors affected a wide variety of businesses. In New Jersey and New York, day-laborer gathering sites drew only a trickle of workers.

"It is the ugliest of rumors because it has intimidated people who are already afraid. They are living in the shadows of society, wondering who is going to knock on the door," said the Rev. Allan Ramirez, pastor of the Brookville Dutch Reform Church in Long Island, N.Y.

Elias Bermudez, an activist and talk show host for a Spanish-language radio station in Phoenix, said many believe they are being punished for participating in recent protests in favor of legalizing the status of many illegal immigrants.

In the rural town of Homestead, Fla., more than a dozen parents lined up early to take their kids out of Redondo Elementary School on Wednesday for fear of a raid, said activist Jonathan Fried, who heads the nonprofit "We Count!"

"It's caused tremendous fear in our community, like I've never seen before," Fried said.

On Friday, ICE announced the arrests of 106 illegal immigrant fugitives and 19 immigration status violators throughout the Midwest over the last 10 days. Of those, 46 had criminal records, according to the department. Earlier this week, ICE announced the arrest of 183 fugitives in Florida alone.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association said Friday it believes some of the concerns may have been fueled by confusion over a widespread fugitive roundup by the U.S. Marshals Service. That roundup lead to more than 9,000 arrests of people wanted for a number of crimes, and ICE assisted in the effort but it said most of those detained were U.S. citizens.

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Associated Press Writers Suzette Laboy in Miami, Bonnie Pfister in New Jersey, Amanda Lee Myers in Phoenix and Adam Geller and Pat Milton in New York contributed to this report.