ICE and CMPD Putting the Panic Back In Hispanic

Charlotte social media exploded with rumors of a massive undocumented illegal immigrant round up this week. This on top of the shooting of a Mexican immigrant by a CMPD undercover gang taskforce team member two weeks ago, that has sanctuary city supporters holding hands singing old John Lennon songs while acting like emotional nut birds. 

Before CP jumps into this mess you should know that my first wife had a Hispanic last name, Lopez, my brother's wife is from Honduras, my cousin is married to a Russian immigrant, I have employed at one time or another Mexican labors, and currently have two girls as crew members one a Muslim from Uzbekistan and the other a Christian from Kazakhstan. (Who by the way hates Sasha Barron Cohen's - Borat. As Vera likes to say with a very thick Russian accent "My country is not like that". )

From the local paper reporting on rumors of a round up:

Among those reports is a widely circulated Facebook post that says 57 people have been picked up and are being held at a York County, S.C., facility for deportation.

Bryan Cox, a spokesman for ICE’s southern region, noted the York County holding site is the only ICE facility for North Carolina, and that people held there have been arrested across the entire state, not just in Charlotte. It also holds undocumented immigrants arrested in South Carolina towns such as Rock Hill and Fort Mill.

Cleary this hysteria is fallout from Donald Trump's "Muslim Ban" and executive orders to build the wall and enforce current immigration laws.

CP's roots are deep southern with a family tree that runs back to Colonial North and South Carolina on both sides of the family.

From my position of "white privilege" there is no doubt that Charlotte has become a "bug light" for illegal immigrants often for the right reasons, cheap housing and plenty of skilled and unskilled jobs. But it has also become a Mecca for drug dealers, human sex trafficking, crime and violence.

Charlotte's elected potted plants on city council have been slow to re-act and adapt to this demographic shift. East Charlotte has become increasingly poor and Mexican. While South Boulevard has a pocket of Latin Americans, it is interesting that these two groups detest each other.

Again from the local paper:

Cox suggested the social media post of “raids” and “police roadblocks” have surfaced because “everyone's attention is focused on this issue recently.” “ICE does not conduct sweeps or raids that target aliens indiscriminately,” he said. “Our officers are out conducting enforcement on a daily basis, so suggestions that this is something new are not accurate. … ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy. “

A spokesman for the York County Sheriff’s Office declined Thursday to say how many ICE detainees there are from Charlotte and referred all questions to ICE. Cox said a “snapshot” of Charlotte arrests from the past week was not immediately available, but would be coming in days. Social media reports began surfacing over the weekend of checkpoints at six intersections in the city, which Cox has also denied.

On Thursday Twitter was banging away that ICE had conducted a “raid” at Berryhill School to make immigration arrests.

With in hours Berryhill Principal Cara Heath sent a message to families saying: “You may have heard rumors of immigration officers at our school today. I want to assure you that no such activity has occurred at our school.”

But Charlotte City Council member Vi Lyles who recently began her campaign for mayor saw things otherwise tweeting:

"Some in Washington have forgotten our ideals... "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". "

At the same time ICE was saying via the local paper: As for reports that as many as 57 people were being held in York County, Cox said anyone held there has “been identified as being unlawfully present in the United States and meet the enforcement priorities of this agency, which focus on criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

Lyles continued to tweet even while Charlotte Law Enforcement was trying to erase fears, about the arrests:

"If you know someone in Charlotte who feels targeted please contact me directly. #clt #cltcc #NoBanNoWall"

Again from the local paper:

Some social media posts claimed to have proof Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police are also part of ongoing ICE operations. However, that would be contrary to a department practice that defers to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department to handle immigration-related arrests. 

In a statement, the sheriff’s office said: “In reference to the inaccurate social media reports, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office does not and has not engaged in any type of immigration enforcement outside of our facility.” In a recent interview, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerry Putney noted city police are not federal agents and “aren’t going to act like it.” 

As one of the community’s Spanish-language newspapers, Que Pasa Mi Gente, worked to report the names and circumstances surrounding the arrests, some readers doubted the truth of ICE’s claim that only criminals were being rounded up. “They come looking for one person and they take everyone who is in that place,” wrote one commenter on Facebook in response to a Que Pasa Mi Gente article.

Immigration attorneys and advocates took to radio shows and Facebook to calm the community. Charlotte immigration attorney Stefan LaTorre advised listeners Wednesday morning on the La Raza (106.1 FM) radio show “Los Hijos de la Mañana” to remain calm but to always carry identification, and to not drive without a license or drive drunk. 

“It’s never a good time to commit a crime, but it’s definitely not a good time now,” LaTorre said in Spanish. Immigrants without criminal records aren’t likely to be deported, LaTorre said. And he advised people that they don’t need to let police into their homes without a warrant, but that hiding people the police are searching for isn’t OK. . 

As for photos on Facebook that claim to show a CMPD officer participating in an immigration arrest, the department says the photo is actually of an officer “backing up a DMV officer on a routine traffic stop.” Unsubstantiated rumors of ICE raids and checkpoints have also spread in other parts of the country, including California, Florida and Texas.

Current Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts told WFAE on Friday that she supports a "Don't Ask - Don't Tell" policy for CMPD. She made it clear that while not the official policy from the Mayor's Office she feels that Hispanic immigrants in Charlotte will be less fearful of police if they know they are not being questioned about their immigration status.

This general theme of we are not the Feds is echoed by CMPD's Chief Kerr Putney.

Cedar's Take: That is just nuts. If you are here unlawfully anyone with a badge is cause for fear. CMPD, Charlotte Fire, EMS, Animal Control. As I see it about one in every three Hispanic people you run into are here illegally. Many are here living with family that are here legally. Which make enforcement nearly impossible.  

Sound like a lot of fake news just spread the hysteria and get the Hollywood types fired up for the Grammys.

However reports like this really do look like real news:
 

Immigration officials confirmed that agents this week raided homes and workplaces in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, the Los Angeles area, North Carolina and South Carolina, netting hundreds of people. But Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said they were part of “routine” immigration enforcement actions. ICE dislikes the term “raids,” and prefers to say authorities are conducting “targeted enforcement actions.”

Christensen said the raids, which began Monday and ended Friday at noon, found undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries. “We’re talking about people who are threats to public safety or a threat to the integrity of the immigration system,” she said, noting that the majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who had been convicted of murder and domestic violence.

Immigration activists said the crackdown went beyond the six states DHS identified, and said they had also documented ICE raids of unusual intensity during the past two days in Florida, Kansas, Texas and Northern Virginia.

That undocumented immigrants with no criminal records were arrested and could potentially be deported sent a shock through immigrant communities nationwide amid concerns that the U.S. government could start going after law-abiding people.

Required Musical Interlude:

“This is clearly the first wave of attacks under the Trump administration, and we know this isn’t going to be the only one,” Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream, an immigrant youth organization, said Friday during a conference call with immigration advocates.

ICE agents in the Los Angeles area Thursday swept a number of individuals into custody over the course of an hour, seizing them from their homes and on their way to work in daytime operations, activists said.

David Marin, ICE’s field director in the Los Angeles area, said in a conference call with reporters Friday that 75 percent of the approximately 160 people detained in the operation this week had felony convictions; the rest had misdemeanors or were in the U.S. illegally. Officials said Friday night that 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have been deported to Mexico.

“Dangerous criminals who should be deported are being released into our communities,” Marin said.

Its hard to say if the recent arrests are a result of the Trump Administration hard liners or if it really just business as usual. But while CMPD, Mecklenburg County Sheriff, CMS and ICE are trying to calm fears, Vi Lyles has been fanning the flames of fear and panic.

Here's a sampling of Vi Lyles wacky tweets and facebook posts over the last 48 hours.

Maybe she's just pandering to the nut bird, bleeding heart and Hispanic vote?

But one thing is for sure she's put the PANIC IN HISPANIC around Charlotte's east side better than I ever could riding around in an unmarked crown vic with US Government plates while wearing an ICE windbreaker.  

CP's Parting Shot:

Cedar Update: Well early Sunday Morning the Trumpster tweets:

"The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers & others are being removed!"

So there you have it Trump claims that there is indeed a crackdown and that he's behind it. But sounds like fake news to me. How can you tell? How can anyone tell?