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MundoHispanico.com - 8/7/02
Rough translation by Google.com------------------------------------------------------------------------
In view of the arrest, on the part of agents of immigration of a housewife in its home in front of its children and husband, Hispanic World asked to him the regional director of the INS, Rosemary Langley Melville, if that federal agency has the authority to enter house of undocumented people to arrest them.
~ To pound Verdés/MH
This it is the case that motivated the interview
After spending almost one week in the jail of the county of Whitfield, Sara and Dolores Zamora Tuesday 15 of July was set free.
Sara Zamora was arrested in the industry of the carpet where she worked in Dalton.
In the case of her sister, Dolores, the arrest was in her house in the presence of her children and husband, Antonio Lugo. The agent who arrested it, Douglas Sullivan, did not count on an arrest order.
The two were arrested the 9 of July by immigration agents.
The Zamora sisters had signed a document like guarantee so that his brother left the jail on bail, while he waited for a July judgment the 25.
They assure that they were put under threats, harassment, intimidation and interrogations on the part of the authorities so that they revealed where he is his brother, Héctor Zamora, defendant to sell drugs and of who does not know whereabouts.
According to they affirm Dolores, his husband and children, first touched to the door the [bondsman], that soon called to the agent of the INS from the house, that arrested Dolores.
The agent of the INS, Sullivan, denies that she was called by the [bondsman] Randy Taylor from the house of Dolores Zamora and assures that she does not know if it were a coincidence that both was in the residence at the time of the arrests.
The Zamora sisters now face a deportation judgment. Sara, in January of the 2003 and Dolores in October of this year. Its crime: to work with false documents in Dalton.
MH could not analyze with the director of the INS if the interrogation techniques to which the Zamora assures were put under are legal or an abuse of office on the part of an immigration agent.
The director of the INS refused to speak specifically of the case of the Zamora family. Nevertheless, she gave some general answers and yes she spoke of the case of the Zamora sisters.
Next part of the conversation with the regional director of the INS, Rosemary Langley Melville:
MH: Can agents of the INS enter houses without permission?
Rosemary Langley Melville: We have the right to go to its houses or site of work to interview them, to continue with the investigation. We have the authority to speak to him to the people and to request to them to enter its houses if they allow access us to its house. If they give permission us to enter its houses, we will enter and carry out the investigation. If they say that we cannot enter, then, depending on the circumstances, we will obtain orders of arrest for those people.
MH - He is legal that agents of the INS enter a house to arrest?
Rosemary Langley Melville: Yes, yes it is it.
MH - He is legal that agents of the INS enter a house without an arrest order?
Rosemary Langley Melville: If they allow us to enter and they give its consent us to enter its house, we can enter. Thus we do it.
MH - What happens if the person refuses?
Rosemary Langley Melville: If they do not allow to enter and we want us to continue the investigation, we must obtain to orders of arrest or orders search, if the case therefore requires it. In order to arrest a person, we can go to the house or any other site. If we want to arrest somebody, we determined which is the site where with greater probability we will find the person which we want to stop.
MH - She is political of the INS to arrest to undocumented people in its houses, in front of minor children?
Rosemary Langley Melville: We do all the possible one to fight with the situation of the best possible form without the children see what he is happening, but are occasions in which, depending on the circumstances, we cannot avoid to arrest to a person in front of its family, but we do all the possible one to avoid that type of situation.
MH - In the case of the Zamora family, the children still cried after four days of the arrest. The children are traumatizados.
Rosemary Langley Melville: I finish to him explaining our policy. We do all the possible one to avoid to traumatizar to other members of the family but, again, the reality is that that person was in the United States violating the migratory laws. In some occasions members of the families they are affected. I feel much any trauma that undergoes the children, but that woman was in this country violating the immigration laws and we had to arrest it.
MH - Great part of the population of Dalton lives in that city without documents, how they choose to who arrest?
Rosemary Langley Melville: We carried out several types of investigations, that are determining at the time of arresting to a person or a group. We are not going to reveal how we establish what person is going to be arrested. I am not going to say that we are going to arrest to everybody in Dalton because that is not the case.
MH - But half of the inhabitants of Dalton does not have documents?
Rosemary Langley Melville: We know that that is the case, nonsingle in Dalton. In all the state of Georgia people are many undocumented people must understand that if is in the U.S.A. without documents, they run a risk. If they are breaking the immigration laws, are definitively running with the risk of being arrested. If people are worried before the possibility that somebody is arrested occasionally in their house, then must make a decision as far as remaining in this country violating the immigration laws or to return itself to its country.
MH - Why they do not arrest the employers?
Rosemary Langley Melville: It is all the right. Thanks for their suggestion, are something that we will take into account. But you do not have any interference in this type of decision.
MH - By a side the system benefits from the undocumented people and by the other it persecutes them.
Rosemary Langley Melville: We depersonalized the work who we do. We are not a particular right to do something with the intention to hurt to anybody, but our objective is to put in practice the law and that is our work. I feel much if people and their families, who are in this country violating the law, are hit negatively or if they are traumatizadas. I feel it, but the reality is that those people are assuming a risk when being in a country violating the laws and need, as or I said, to make a decision as far as if they remain or they go away.
MH - But the economy benefits from the work of the undocumented people.
Rosemary Langley Melville: There are people who contribute to the economic well-being, but that does not mean that we sanction this, that we supported it or that we favor it. We are not of the side of any employer that breaks the immigration laws, we are either in favor of an employee, who is breaking the law, although he is contributing to the economy.
MH - the INS is persecuting undocumented people.
Rosemary Langley Melville: We are not persecuting to anybody. The undocumented people are being arrested to be in this country in violation of the law. I am not going to continue debating this.
MH - You use the word to arrest and I use the one of persecution
Rosemary Langley Melville: The objective term, the legal term, is to arrest. You are using a more subjective term, the one of persecution. We are not persecuting to anybody; we are arresting people who are obvious breaking the immigration law.
MH - He is legal that a [bondsman] calls to the INS, that occurs that type of interchange?
Rosemary Langley Melville: A [bondsman] can call to the INS. Nothing prohibits that a person calls to the INS, but the INS acts being based on data that it obtains from an ample variety of sources, that include other federal agencies. It is to say that if the [bondsman] calls to us, that does not mean that we are acting because it gave information us.
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