Illegal immigrants fleeing Arizona’s S.B. 1070 law face arrest at border for trying to leave | Latino News

Illegal immigrants fleeing Arizona’s S.B. 1070 law face arrest at border for trying to leave

Posted on 06 August 2010 by oscar

From: La Frontera Times

Illegal immigrants in Arizona are trapped in a new dilemma: stay in the U.S. and risk being arrested, or leave — and risk the same fate.

“When illegal immigrants are detected trying to leave the country, they are not just ushered across the line,” reports the Arizona Republic.

Instead, if undocumented workers attempt to return to Mexico, they face being punished for their immigration status on the way out.

Regulations at the border require that individuals leaving must first have their photographs and fingerprints taken, which are stored in a database. Those found to have been living in the U.S. illegally can be arrested and deported.

That decision is left up to the sole discretion of the inspector at the border, according to Guadalupe Ramirez, a director at Arizona’s Nogales port.

But he says the law is not intended to stop illegal immigrants from leaving – it was designed to snare criminals.

“The whole idea is there are going to be consequences now for people who come into the United States with the sole purpose of doing illegal activity,” Ramirez told the Republic. “Our job tells us if we find somebody at a port coming or going that is in violation of our laws, we are going to document it.”

The protocol at the border has outraged activists, who believe it puts illegal immigrants in an impossible position.

“Instead of permitting people who want to leave, we punish them in this fashion,” Isabel Garcia, co-chair of Tuscon immigrants-rights group Derechos Humanos, told the Republic. “What purpose does this serve?”

Being formally deported for “unauthorized presence” in the U.S. carries serious consequences: those kicked out of the country can be blocked from pursuing legal immigration for 10 years, and a future arrest for trying to enter the country again illegally can be charged as a criminal offense.

Though the White House has fought against Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, S.B. 1070, the tighter exit procedures across the border were actually implemented by the Obama administration in the last year to target drug and weapon smuggling.

Bonnie Arellano, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the procedures are working. Officials have seized $4.7 million in cash and over 12,000 rounds of ammunition from people trying to sneak across the Arizona – Mexico border, and have arrested more than 5,000 individuals, including those with criminal backgrounds and smuggled goods.

But these numbers do not break down how many of the 5,000 were detained for smuggling, and how many whose only infraction was their undocumented status in the U.S.

Even conservatives who support stronger immigration controls believe the checkpoint policy is counter-productive to the bigger picture.

“We are asking the Obama administration to designate border checkpoints that illegal immigrants can use to leave the U.S. without fear,” William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, told the Republic.

“This is about the only situation we would ever advocate that our immigration laws be waived.”

Immigrants have been fleeing the state since Gov. Jan Brewer announced plans to implement Arizona’s harsh new anti-immigration law, S.B. 1070.

Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Brewer, has said reports of an exodus of Mexicans from the state could be a good thing. “If that means that fewer people are breaking the law, that is absolutely an accomplishment,” he told USA Today.