- Archives

In El Salvador it's known as the mano dura. Loosely translated as "iron fist," the term refers to a government crackdown on hard-core criminals and gang members. In El Salvador a young man can be imprisoned for months just for having a gang tattoo. In Suffolk County, home of more than 100,000 Salvadorans and other Hispanics, the local government apparently has its own version of mano dura. Highly publicized raids carried out last month against Hispanic gang members and sexual predators have resulted in a windfall of publicity for County Executive Steve Levy, who has hailed what he terms an "unprecedented level of cooperation" between local police and immigration authorities. But have the raids made Long Island any safer? I don't believe so. As an immigration lawyer with many Hispanic clients, I receive calls almost every day from anguished family members and friends, many of them U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. They tell me that their relative or friend was just apprehended by federal agents and is now detained somewhere in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. When I check the detainee's criminal record, I rarely find a conviction for a violent crime. Typically, the detainees I represent were caught up in gang sweeps and have convictions for DWI, multiple traffic infractions, disorderly conduct or sometimes possession of a weapon, usually a knife. Some have no criminal records at all. "Sexual predators," upon closer examination, are often young men who engaged in what they thought was consensual sex with Hispanic females, sometimes younger girls. Without financial resources, they often plead guilty to a lesser charge to avoid jail time, unaware that a conviction for a sexual crime may lead inevitably to their apprehension and deportation. When immigration agents raid a house at 5 a.m., looking for a suspected gang member or sexual predator, anyone inside without proof of legal status may be picked up and incarcerated. Often, these other tenants have no legal relief and will be deported solely because they are in the United States illegally - just like an estimated 12 million other undocumented immigrants across the country. No new criminal charges will ever be filed. But law-enforcement officials will tally up those tenants as "suspected gang members," giving the public a false sense that police are cracking down on violent criminal aliens. [more]