California crackdown on Chinese immigrants alarms rights groups

Groups report that since early June, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have raided the homes of Chinese immigrants and detained dozens of people who were convicted of felonies decades ago.

News Story (California)

Halima Kazem
Guardian
July 20, 2015
Full story

Tags: Deportation, Immigration Process

Organizations mentioned/involved: Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ)

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DETAILS

“The people I spoke to who were recently detained by ICE had already served their time in prison for their offenses and most had been living as law-abiding citizens for more than 10 or 20 years,” said Anoop Prasad, immigration attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, a San Francisco-based legal aid and civil rights advocacy serving low-income Asian Pacific American communities.

Prasad connects the apparent crackdown by ICE in California to talks in April between the Chinese minister of public security, Guo Shengkun, and the US secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, which resulted in a cooperation agreement “to improve information sharing on repatriation and fugitive cases and provide regular status updates on cases of interest for which sufficient evidence is provided”, according to US Department of Homeland Security documents.