Today's Most Popular Video
Oct 23, 2008 10:02 am US/Central
Immigration Raids In Madelia, St. James
MADELIA, Minn. (AP) ―
-
-
Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have been making sweeps through southern Minnesota towns. (File)
Jupiter Images
Several people have been taken into custody in immigration raids in southern Minnesota this week.
Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency have been making sweeps in Madelia and St. James over the past two days with help from local law enforcement.
Officials said they were searching for specific people who broke the law. They have not said how many homes have been raided or how many people are in custody.
Tim Counts, an ICE spokesman in Bloomington, would not give a reason for the arrests. Counts said the people were not arrested during sweeps at businesses.
The agency drew national attention when six Swift & Co. meat-processing plants were raided in December 2006, including a large plant in Worthington. The operation in Watonwan County is "of a much, much smaller scale," Counts said.
"This is nothing random," he said. "We are looking for specific people."
Counts told The Associated Press on Thursday that the operation was still going on. He would not say if other cities were being targeted, but said "it's just a handful of arrests we expect."
St. James Schools Superintendent Nordy Nelson said he was given a "heads-up" about the operation Tuesday afternoon. School officials in Madelia called him and said immigration arrests had been made there. That prompted Nelson to put a plan in action to have teachers stay at school after classes were over, so students would have a place to go if their parents had been arrested, he said. More than half of the district's students in eighth grade or below are Hispanic.
"We were just thinking, 'What are we going to do with these kids if they go home and their parents are gone,"' Nelson said. He said there were teachers and students who said they had seen immigration agents in their neighborhoods before school started Wednesday.
Madelia Schools Superintendent Brian Grenell said there has not been an abnormal number of children calling in sick, which could indicate parents were leaving or keeping their children home.
Police officers in St. James were asked to help federal agents Wednesday, said Joe McCabe, St. James city manager. He was told only four arrests were made in the city because word had gotten out about Tuesday's arrests in Madelia.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Deputy Attacked, Other Inmates Intervene
Click to enlarge
Pawlenty Focuses On Health Care In Iowa Speech 33 mins ago
Stumble It!
