Recently in Immigration Category
A new study from Harvard looks at the changes in the Los Angeles Police Department over the last nearly 20 years. Today, 53 percent of new graduates were Latino, compared with 45 percent in 1990.
This afternoon at 12:30, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is holding a press conference to announce his latest crack down with a gang injunction against Barrio Van Nuys.
"BVN or Barrio Van Nuys gang is as dangerous or as potent as MS-13, 18th Street or any gang in the city," Delgadillo said Wednesday after filing paperwork seeking the injunction in Los Angeles Superior Court.
U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they're catching them on the way out. At random times near the Tijuana-San Diego border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been setting up checkpoints, boarding buses destined for Mexico and pulling off people who don't have proper documentation, latimes.com.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton will hold a news conference this morning to discuss police response to yesterday's marches in support of the rights of illegal immigrants. An estimated 10,000 people participated in the marches. Five people were arrested for various infractions.
Things so far downtown during the May Day event seem to be quiet, but it's early still...
We've got a couple reporters in the field reporting on today's event. Here's what we got so far.
Jose Macias laid out a giant white poster this morning along Broadway in downtown Los Angeles with the words "The sun shines for everyone." The Brazilian immigrant, who runs his own clothing company, said he designed the logo as a small contribution toward the fight for immigration reform.
An inter-agency police auto theft task force uncovered a cache of machine guns, stolen cars and motorcycles and a hunting dog breeding operation run out of a home in Sylmar and didn't publicize it when the story broke in 2006.
Here's the story in a nutshell, given to me by the good folks from the Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention (TRAP) - West Team. TRAP is a team of cops which investigates commercial vehicle theft and fraud countywide.
The case began July 27, 2006, at 9 p.m. when LAPD Mission Division patrol officers found a stolen Nissan Altima parked in front of a home in the 13000 block of Parkland Circle in Sylmar. The thief had stolen the car by stealing someone's identity from a lost wallet. And the suspects used his information to purchase vehicles.
The next day, at 8 a.m., TRAP detectives saw the suspect, identified as Don Park, leave his residence, get into a Nissan Maxima - which turned out to be stolen - remove the sun shade and back out of the driveway.
Detectives confronted Park and later determined that five other vehicles at the residence were also stolen.
Park faces auto theft, making a false financial statement and identity theft charges at a court hearing set for next month.
A search of Park's residence turned up 45 firearms, large amounts of ammunition, ballistic vests, police scanners, and 11 automatic assault weapons/machine guns in an upstairs bedroom that had been converted into a storage room.
Police found an additional cache of ammunition in the living room cabinet. Additional weapons charges were also filed against Park.
In the garage of the home, detectives discovered three stolen motorcycles, taken from a locked motorcycle dealership on Hollywood Way in Burbank. The suspects had cut the chain to a locked gate in August 2004 afterhours.
Police also found that Park had been allegedly illegally breeding hunting dogs at his residence and had previously been cited by Animal Regulation officers for the activity.
Eleven dogs were confiscated and held pending the investigation.
Park has a prior felony conviction for robbery with a gun and was sentenced to 92 months in the state prison. Park had previously been deported to Korea after completing his sentence. Park entered the country and illegally set-up residence, police said.
The operator of two English language schools was charged Wednesday with running a scheme that allowed foreign nationals, including several Russian prostitutes, to fraudulently obtain student visas to enter and stay in the United States, The Los Angeles Times writes. Bezhad "Ben" Zaman, 50, of Beverly Hills, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, was arrested by federal agents without incident in what investigators believe is the largest student visa fraud scheme ever staged on the West Coast, authorities said. He was charged with seven counts of fraud and misuse of visa, one count of conspiring to money-launder and six counts of concealment for money laundering.
The Los Angeles Times today has a piece chronicling the life of a part of South Los Angeles reeling from violence, a neighborhood where shootings occur, where residents try to get cops to tackle the problem of mobile prostitution vans and to crack down on unscrupulous landlords who run slum apartments where many of his students live in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. One resident doesn't bother calling the cops. "No one does, she explained, not so much because the police are feared but because you will become a target yourself if you are known to have ratted out a criminal."
24-year-old Yuliya Kalinina turned to the Internet in search of a husband, she made it absolutely clear what she was looking for in a relationship: "Green Card Marriage -- Will pay $300/month. Total $15,000," the Russian national living in Los Angeles wrote in an ad placed on the Craigslist website. "This is strictly platonic business offer, sex not involved." She and her husband were arrested in connection with a federal case of sham marriage. Scott Glover in the Los Angeles Times
After I picked on newspaper op-ed pages the other day, I should say that I understand some of their dilemma. Every time I write a story with the word "gang" somewhere within, the phone calls start up, nice and early. People offer their opinions, generally at loud volume and often spiced with racist diatribe, rarely having the guts to put their name to it.
Now, under the veil of Internet anonymity, it gets even more extreme. Monday's piece about community attempts to clean up the Dronfield Villas was the latest to inspire the yakking.
For example, an ex-Sylmar resident wrote to suggest that the real problem was that the community allowed Mexicans to move in. His suggestion: deport everyone of Mexican ancestry and the gang problem would magically disappear. When I pointed out to him that nearly everyone involved in the effort to oust the gangs, from the cops, to the residents, to the community-based organizations, was Latino, he launched into an even more vile screed.
So here's the dilemma: On one hand, I feel like I should hold people like him up for the public to see. On the other, I don't want to give the loudly vocal minority (I hope) a platform for their extreme views. While It's a Crime isn't exactly Speakers' Corner, I still don't want it to turn into an "I can yell louder than you can" contest. Now I understand the dilemma faced by the newspapers' letters editors.
Here's what I settled on-- folks who offer some sort of constructive suggestion or legitimate points about the topics we cover, comment away. Those of you who just want to rant endlessly, I'm sure the talk radio stations would love to hear your theories.
Authorities recorded a record number of arrests of criminal aliens and fugitives this year in the Los Angeles area, federal officials said today.
Some 2,667 immigration violators have been taken into custody between Jan. 1, 2007 and Sept. 31, 2007 - a 63 percent increase over last fiscal year, according to the latest statistics available. Of those arrested, 576 had criminal histories in addition to being in the country illegally.
Among the criminal aliens taken into custody recently by the Fugitive Operations Teams was a Maywood man convicted of beating another man to death here more than a decade ago. Luis Medina Gonzalez, 34, was arrested Oct. 24 at his home and deported to Mexico the following day.
Medina was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in August 1996 on charges stemming from a fist-fight that left another man dead. He was ordered deported based upon his criminal conviction, but failed to comply with the immigration court's order. Medina also has a prior conviction for narcotics charges.
"As a country, we welcome law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crimes against our citizens should be on notice that ICE is going to use all of the tools at its disposal to find you and send you home," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and removal operations.
ICE established its Fugitive Operations Program in 2003 to eliminate the nation's backlog of immigration fugitives and ensure that deportation orders handed down by immigration judges are enforced. Today, ICE has 75 Fugitive Operations Teams deployed across the country. In fiscal year 2007, those teams accounted for more than 30,000 arrests nationwide.
This year, for the first time, the nation's fugitive alien population showed a decline, officials said. Estimates now place the number of immigration fugitives in the United States at slightly under 597,000, a decrease of more than 35,000 since October 2006.
Here's three quick ones before I head off to court....
A man whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit when his large SUV slammed into a car on Pacific Coast Highway, killing film director Robert Clark and his son, is scheduled to be sentenced today.
Hector Manuel Velazquez-Nava, 25, faces a six-year state prison term in the death of Robert Clark, 67, of Pacific Palisades and his son, Ariel Hanrath- Clark, 22, of Santa Monica.
On April 4, Velazquez-Nava was driving a GMC Yukon on PCH between Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road about 2:20 a.m. when he drifted into oncoming traffic around 2:20 a.m. and struck Robert Clark's 1997 Infiniti Q30.
Authorities said Velazquez-Nava had a blood-alcohol content of .24 percent -- three times the legal limit.
Velazquez-Nava, an illegal immigrant, was charged with two counts of manslaughter and entered a no-contest plea in August.
Clark directed numerous movies, including the holiday season standard "A Christmas Story" in 1983 and "Loose Cannons" in 1990. He also directed, wrote and produced the teen cult films "Porky's" and "Porky's II: The Next Day." His son studied music at Santa Monica College.
Elsewhere on dailynews.com, we have another story of street racing.
SUN VALLEY - A young man who had been taking part in a multi-vehicle street race suffered serious injuries today when he slammed a subcompact into a utility pole as he was being pursued by Highway Patrol officers in Sun Valley, police said.
The driver, a male in his late teens or early 20s, was participating in a multivehicle street race near Wentworth Street when California Highway Patrol officers began chasing him, said Sgt. Cameron Dunnet of the Los Angeles Police Department's West Valley Traffic Division.
The suspect was driving a black Honda Civic at a high speed southbound on Glenoaks Boulevard when he tried to make right turn at Tuxford Street and crashed into a power pole, Dunnet said.
The driver was taken to a hospital around 1:30 a.m. with serious injuries but they do not appear to be life-threatening, he said.
The vehicle was totally destroyed, Dunnet said, adding that investigators are trying to determine whether the Civic had been stolen.
You'd think that with all the horrible news we've heard about racing in the street in the last week, they'd learn. Don't get me wrong, I'm a car guy and I understand the need to go fast, but not if it's going to endanger innocent people.
And finally, Mssrs. Bartholomew and Gutknecht offer us this package on cat hoarding gone horribly awry.
NORTHRIDGE - Los Angeles police Officer Jenny Potts crawled under a house Thursday through the refuse of 70 sick cats.
During a pre-dawn raid, her Animal Cruelty Task Force had arrested an ex-Marine cat collector suspected of felony animal neglect.
Now came the filthy task of catching dozens of potentially diseased felines. Cats under the house. Kittens cowering in mounds of debris. Felines skittering through the yard.
"Here's one. Here's two right here. One's going over the fence," said Potts, one of a dozen task-force cops and animal control officers in hot pursuit. "Heeere kitty."
For several years, neighbors had complained of fetid odors wafting from the small stucco house in the 18700 block of Napa Street.
The Department of Animal Services had worked with the homeowner to winnow his number of cats, to no avail.
This week, several cats from his fenced-in yard tested positive for panieukopenia - feline distemper - a contagious cat virus that could spread through the entire neighborhood.
Armed with a search warrant, the task force arrested Ron Mason before 6 a.m. Thursday as he walked out to feed the cats.
Things are flying today, so here's a quick few posts on the May Day report, hopefully to be updated later. Bratton took responsibility and blamed poor communication for the mess-up.
Rachel and Mr. Orlov's main story about the LAPD's report is here
The LAPD's poor planning, weak leadership and disjointed communication led to the chaos that unfolded during the May Day melee at MacArthur Park between riot gear-clad officers, immigrants-rights protesters and the media, according to a scathing internal report released Tuesday.
The long-anticipated report presented to the Los Angeles Police Commission revealed that Metropolitan Division officers assigned to keep the peace hadn't been trained in crowd control in more than 18 months; that many of them had no idea who was in charge; and that the department was caught off guard despite a similar protest a year earlier in which hundreds of thousands more people participated.
And when things spun out of control, "not a single supervisor or member of the command staff involved attempted to intervene," according to the report.
Now, 26 officers are under investigation and could face disciplinary action, and prosecutors are weighing possible criminal charges.
"This is an event that I regret deeply. I accept full responsibility for it because it occurred on my watch," Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton said. "My apologies to the men and women of the LAPD and to the public for the events of that day."
Rick's sidebar on the skepticism regarding the reforms has some tasty quotes.
MACARTHUR PARK - Watching her fellow students play softball during a quiet afternoon at MacArthur Park on Tuesday, 14-year-old Osmery Batrez recalled a much different scene at the park May 1.
"They beat my brother up," said the Soledad Enrichment Action Charter School student, referring to Los Angeles Police Department officers.
"They just came and started pushing people around. We were just protesting."
Batrez said despite the self-critical report issued Tuesday by the LAPD, she doesn't believe the top brass will make any real changes. Her sentiments were echoed by others who live, work or go to school in this largely immigrant Latino community.
"These riots are not an isolated thing," Batrez said. "It's been going on for years."
He also speaks to Jose Hernandez, a taco truck operator who knows his history. Hernandez isn't so keen on the idea to put names and serial numbers on officers' riot gear for ID purposes.
"You can put a number or a name on the helmet; they're still going to be the same," he said.
Elsewhere, the Times offers up their take.
Want the original thing? Here's the report in English and Spanish.
Looks like the updated story revised the official number downward a bit to 28....
In the largest operation of its kind in the San Fernando Valley, 240 federal agents on Friday rounded up 29 foreign nationals belonging to more than a dozen gangs that prey on the immigrant community, officials said.
The early morning raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the Valley and surrounding communities were part of the agency's Operation Community Shield, a nationwide crackdown on transnational criminals.
In a similar series of raids last month, ICE arrested nine foreign-born members of the Langdon Street gang - operating in the North Hills area, said Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles.
While only two of the 29 people arrested Friday face criminal charges apart from being in the country illegally, authorities said many of those detained had criminal histories.
"The key thing is to recognize we're dealing with people with criminal histories," Schoch said. "They're really threatening our immigrant communities."
Full story's here.
Earlier, ICE comes knocking.
Southbound Sureno
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, working with the LAPD, mounted up early this morning to grab 37 non-citizens suspected of criminal involvement. Here's a quick bit from Dailynews.com, which I believe was a joint effort between Rick and Rachel. (He got the fun task of hitting the street at 6 a.m. alongside the cops).
In the continuing crackdown on illegal criminal immigrants, 37 foreign nationals face federal criminal charges or deportation following the second of two major enforcement operations within as many weeks by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting aliens with ties to violent street gangs in the San Fernando Valley.
The latest arrests came as more than 200 ICE agents fanned out across the Valley this morning and in several other communities searching for foreign national gang members. Today's operation, which netted 28 arrests, is the second of two major enforcement actions carried out by ICE targeting aliens linked to 15 violent Valley-based street gangs. The first operation, which took place September 20, resulted in nine gang members and gang associates being taken into custody.
Among those arrested by ICE agents today was Jorge Torres, 31, a reputed member of the Project Boys, whose criminal record includes prior convictions for drug charges as well as battery on a police officer. Torres, who has been previously deported five times, has been indicted by the United States Attorney's Office for re-entry after deportation, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Most of the remaining targets were taken into custody on administrative immigration violations. They will be held in ICE custody and scheduled for a deportation hearing before an immigration judge.
"The people targeted in these operations are career criminals who often prey on members of the immigrant community," said Robert Schoch, special agent in charge for the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles. "We want to send a clear message to foreign national gang members that ICE intends to deal strongly with those who ignore our immigration laws and place our neighborhoods at risk."
If you're looking for more, check out the full story here.
Continue reading ICE comes knocking (cops sort-of do, too).
Here's an odd one for you, dear readers. Angie Valencia-Martinez and I teamed up on this story (and by teamed up, I mean that Angie did all the hard work and I sat in the relative comfort of my office chair and made phone calls) about a protest outside United Church of Christ in Simi Valley on Sunday. UCC's harboring a woman named Liliana as part of the New Sanctuary Movement and the anti-illegal immigration group Save Our State showed up to complain. No one got arrested and after three hours, both sides went home without much of an incident.
Here's the interesting twist: on Wednesday, the City of Simi Valley sent the church a bill for the use of the police. Save Our State met with the cops in advance to tell them of their protest plans, but neither side called 911 and it sounded like, as far as protests go, this was pretty mild.
Simi Valley's position is that the church invited the protest by proclaiming they were harboring the woman, so they should be responsible for whatever police costs come with the unwanted publicity. While I can see why they don't want to have to pick up the tab for either side of the protest's actions, this seems to be an unusual way of passing on the costs.
When people picket the Daily News (as they do, from time to time), we don't get a bill from the LAPD for publishing something that irritated our readers. As Simi residents have made quite clear, they don't want their city to become like Los Angeles, but it does seem like there's some legal issues involved here that aren't so cut-and-dry. I guess we'll see in coming weeks how the church responds and who ends up forking over the $40k the city wants to charge.
The Associated Press ran an interesting piece recently in which experts blame higher homicide rates on everything from more powerful weapons to shifting resources to anti-terror from regular crime fighting. The most interesting suggestion, however, was that immigrants keep crime down, since they want to keep out of the way of the law.
Here's a link to the whole story, via the Miami Herald. Though the story's mainly based on East Coast incidents, Los Angeles, as a major destination for legal and illegal immigration, figures prominently. I'd be interested to hear what people have to say about this....
Homeless activist Ted Hayes is decrying LAPD's treatment of anti-illegal immimgrant protesters at Leimert Park over the weekend. He was angered because officers would not allow him into the park where pro-immigrant demonstrators stood in opposition. Cops broke up the standoff.
Hayes and four of his supporters were arrested for resisting a peace officer. They had been denouncing undocumented immigrants' impact on the African-American community.
On Tuesday, he and half-dozen supporters told the city's civilian Police Commission that their civil rights were violated and demanded a full investigation. The commission's president and former head of the Los Angeles Urban League John Mack promised to take the matter up at this Tuesday's meeting.
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