Putting rumor of raids to rest

Reports of alleged crackdown on immigrants sparked some panic, but are bogus, officials say

BY BART JONES | Newsday Staff Writer

April 28, 2006

Eduardo Pabon, owner of one of the most popular Latino restaurants in Brentwood, knows all about the rumor.

He has received about 250 telephone calls just this week from panicked clients and friends asking whether immigration authorities raided Mi Tierrita and shut it down.

The native of Colombia has patiently explained to every caller that the reports are bogus - part of a wave of rumors about a supposed crackdown on undocumented immigrants that has spread like wildfire, phone to phone, through immigrant communities on Long Island and around the nation in just the past few days.

"It's a huge lie," Pabon said in Spanish yesterday. "No one has come to my business. They're just rumors. I don't know where they started, but it's terrible."

On Long Island, the rumors seemed to begin earlier this week, often with specific phone calls from worried immigrants about a huge crackdown under way. Immigrants inundated businesses, politicians' offices, Catholic Church outreach centers and media offices with frantic phone calls about supposed raids on factories and small businesses, often offering details: white vans and school buses pulling up to factories and hauling away undocumented immigrants, or police or federal agents posing as landscapers and contractors to pick up and arrest immigrants.

One caller to Newsday on Tuesday said he got a call on his cell phone from a friend working in a factory in Hauppauge that white vans were lined up at the curb and immigrants were being taken away. "He says it's happening right in front of him," the caller, who would not give his name, said excitedly.

Mark Thorne, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in the New York region, said the rumors were just that - rumors. While some immigrants may have been arrested as part of routine law enforcement activities this week, authorities have not launched any large-scale operations, "nothing that would even come close to resembling the rumors that are being perpetuated."

Thorne said immigration authorities do not conduct "random sweeps" looking for undocumented immigrants, but rather "carefully planned enforcement actions that result from investigative leads and intelligence." More often than not they target undocumented immigrants who have also committed felonies and are subject to deportation.

Luis Montes, an aide to state Assemb. Phil Ramos (D-Brentwood), said his office was bombarded with calls about supposed raids on popular Latino businesses. His investigation found nothing to the reports.

There are theories as to the origins of the rumors. Montes speculated they may have been part of a campaign to intimidate immigrants from participating in a nationwide work boycott on Monday aimed at pressuring lawmakers in Washington to reform the country's immigration laws.