GAO Faults ICE on Identifying, Removing Illegal Aliens

The Bush administration’s effort to increase enforcement of federal immigration laws is stretching the resources of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the limit, and agency officials need an updated set of guidelines when investigating and apprehending suspected illegal immigrants and undocumented workers, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Oct. 15, 2007.

Several members of Congress asked the GAO to conduct the study after ICE investigators arrested thousands of undocumented workers in a series of high-profile workplace raids in late 2006 and early 2007. Immigration advocacy groups and politicians criticized the raids, saying that ICE did not consider how the raids would disrupt the lives of families who depended on these workers.

A raid conducted on Michael Bianco Ltd., a leather goods manufacturer in New Bedford, Mass., in March 2007, made headlines around the country when 361 undocumented workers were arrested. More than 200 of them were sent to a federal detention center in Texas, which left by some estimates more than 300 school-age children without any means of support. Dozens of the detainees were later released.”*

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