2 immigrants being held in violation of rights, lawsuits contend

The two mentally disabled men continue to be held in detention while facing possible deportation for criminal convictions despite having already served their time, the suits say.

By Andrew Becker

March 30, 2010

Two mentally disabled Mexican immigrants, facing deportation for criminal assault convictions for which they have already served their time, continue to be held in detention facilities in violation of their constitutional rights, according to separate lawsuits filed in federal court.

Jose Franco-Gonzalez, 29, of Costa Mesa and Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez, 48, of San Bernardino have languished in detention facilities for years because authorities deemed them mentally incompetent, their attorneys said. Their deportation cases were closed in 2005 and 2006 and the men have since been forgotten, shuttled through a network of jails, psychiatric hospitals and detention centers, the lawyers said.

"This represents a massive failure on the part of our immigration system to create procedures to deal with individuals with disabilities," said attorney Talia Inlender of Public Counsel, one of a coalition of legal advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which filed the habeas corpus petitions last week.

Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to comment on the cases, citing privacy concerns and the pending litigation. But ICE attorneys have argued that the law requires the men to continue to be detained because of their crimes.

The men's attorneys said their clients have served their time and should be released. Gomez is a legal resident, and Franco's family -- his parents are legal residents -- has a pending petition that would allow him to apply for a green card.

The men still could face deportation. But their families said the men would be unable to care for themselves in Mexico because of their mental conditions.

Franco, who has moderate mental retardation, was convicted and served a year in jail on an assault with a deadly weapon charge for throwing a rock during a fight between rival gangs, his attorneys said. He doesn't know his birth date or how to tell time, and has an IQ no higher than 55, Inlender said.

"He doesn't comprehend what he's going through," Franco's brother, Ruben, said. "It's just really hard for us to try to explain that we don't know [what's going to happen]. Because it's not up to us. It's up to the government."

Gomez, who has paranoid schizophrenia, served one year of a two-year sentence for a 2004 assault conviction stemming from a scuffle over tomatoes he picked without permission. He has previous convictions, including for battery against a police officer, which his attorneys have attributed to his mental illness.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-detain30-2010mar30,0,3727638,print.story

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10 youths slain in Mexico

The students, ages 8 to 21, were on their way to pick up scholarships when apparent drug gang members opened fire and threw grenades after their vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez

March 30, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

Ten students on their way to receive government scholarships were killed by gunmen at a checkpoint in the state of Durango, officials said Monday. Half of the victims were 16 or younger.

The checkpoint appeared to be the ad hoc type of roadblock often set up by drug traffickers who control parts of Durango, not a military installation, state prosecutors said.

Gunmen opened fire and hurled grenades at the youths, who were traveling in a pickup truck and apparently failed to stop at the roadblock, the officials said.

The dead included three girls, ages 8, 11 and 13; the rest were teens except for the eldest, who was 21. Four of the dead were siblings. The massacre occurred early Sunday afternoon.

The students were traveling over isolated rural roads to receive scholarships as part of a federal program called "Opportunities" that supports low-income students, Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the Durango state prosecutor's office, said in a telephone interview.

Parts of Durango have fallen under the sway of drug-running gunmen called the Zetas, who are battling for control of market and distribution routes.

Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont, at a news conference Monday, read out the names and ages of the victims, who he said were "cowardly murdered" by criminal gangs.

He denied that the checkpoint was staffed by soldiers.

Daniel Delgado, mayor of Pueblo Nuevo, a town in the region where the attack took place, said he felt powerless to challenge the gangs.

"We need more military presence . . . more police who are trained and equipped to fight the kind of criminals we are facing," he said in an interview with Milenio television.

Milenio said 993 people have been killed so far in March, more than in any other month in the last 3 1/2 years.

Also Monday, authorities announced the capture of a suspect in the March 13 slaying of three people attached to the U.S. Consulate in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Enrique Torres, spokesman for the joint police-military command that controls Ciudad Juarez, said the army, acting on information from the FBI, detained a leader of the Barrio Azteca gang.

Two U.S. citizens, Lesley A. Enriquez, a consular officer, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were killed on their way home from a children's birthday party in Ciudad Juarez.

Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of another consular officer, was killed about the same time after leaving the same birthday event.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-shootings30-2010mar30,0,1998419,print.story

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Mysterious killing strikes family again

A Hollywood girl finds her mother shot to death 18 months after her father and sister were slain.

By Andrew Blankstein and Ching-Ching Ni

March 30, 2010

On a December afternoon in 2008, a 12-year-old girl arrived home from school and discovered her father and 9-year-old sister shot to death inside the family's Hollywood apartment.

Eighteen months later, on Friday night, the girl came home to an empty apartment. She became worried when her mother didn't return from work, so the girl walked to the carport looking for her. There, she found the body of Karine Hakobyan, 38, slumped in her car with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

On Monday, a team of Los Angeles police detectives were trying to piece together the three killings, which occurred a few blocks from each other in Hollywood's Little Armenia district.

Detectives believe the killings are connected but declined to provide more details. Det. Michael Whelan emphasized that police have no evidence the victims were involved in criminal activities in Armenia or the U.S., which they immigrated to in 2003. The father, Khachik Safaryan , worked as a butcher in Hollywood, and the mother worked as a patient care service aide at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Sitting in the family living room Monday next to a shrine of roses and framed family pictures, the girl tried to make sense of what happened to her family. She said Friday was a typical day -- she and her mother exchanged cellphone calls throughout the day and she expected her home by 8 p.m. What she saw when she got to the carport horrified her.

"I just saw blood," the girl said. "That's when I knew something was seriously wrong."

The girl was surrounded by grandparents, extended family and friends, all wearing black and huddling together on a sofa. Amid the mourners, the girl made it clear that she wants justice for her sister and parents.

"We just want them to find the people who did this so they can finally get their punishment," she said.

Detectives said they are keeping a close eye on the girl, making sure she has access to counseling and protection as she deals with the tragedies. Whelan described her as good student who planned to go to college. She's showing remarkable strength amid the violence that has befallen the family, he added.

"She's very intelligent, and very well-grounded despite of this horrific thing that has happened to her," Whelan said. "She's held up in some regards better than some of the family members around her."

The violence began Dec. 11, 2008. That morning, the girl's sister Lucine was to recite a poem in school, her first one in English. But she never had the chance.

Police believe that the gunman entered the family's apartment between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. -- after the 12-year-old girl went to school but before her younger sister could leave. There were no reports of gunshots and the bodies were not discovered until the girl came home from school that afternoon.

The slaying shocked the neighborhood of low-rise apartments in east Hollywood, particularly because the assailant killed a 9-year-old girl. But detectives at the time struggled to identify a motive or suspects.

Several months later, the girl drafted a letter to President Obama and other leaders, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking for help in solving the case. In the letter, which she had not yet sent, she recounted how the loss changed her family.

"I am hoping that you, Mr. President, will find time to put pressure . . . to solve the hideous murder of my beloved sister and father," she wrote. "I still see the bloody bodies of my sister and my father as I found them that day."

She said that Dec. 11 "was an ordinary day for a lot of people; but for us this day was special" because of the poetry reading. "My whole family was excited. Unfortunately, this day was tragic."

She also wrote about the grim toll of the killings. "Our family is falling apart now," she wrote. "My grandparents are sick and depressed. My mother cannot cope with the loss of her husband and daughter. I am not in any better shape."

After the killings, the girl and her mother moved to another apartment nearby. It was there, in the carport, where she found her mother shot dead in her car Friday night.

As in the first killings, there were no witnesses and no one reported hearing gunshots.

"We have a theory and are running with that," Whelan said of the investigation. "There are a lot of unanswered questions."

Friends told police that Hakobyan was depressed since the first killings. At Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, she was known as a quiet but caring employee.

Cathy Kissinger, her supervisor, said Hakobyan had worked as a nurse in Armenia and felt strongly about continuing that career in the U.S. "She had been going to school" at Los Angeles City College and "quit after the death of her husband and daughter," Kissinger said.

A neighbor, Ida Khamis, 55, said Hakobyan rarely smiled after the killings. But then last week, she bumped into her and the girl at Macy's "She was smiling," she said. "I can still see her smile."

Back at the family home, the girl said she hasn't had time to think about her future. Before her mother's death, she said, she wanted to become an attorney. "Now I don't know," she said. "I would want to be something that has something to do with this case so if they don't find [who did this] I can solve it when I grow up."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-little-armenia30-2010mar30,0,149662,print.story

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Deported sex offender arrested in San Diego County

County workers honor Chavez by volunteering

County Department of Public Health research analyst Louise Rollin Alamillo usually spends most workdays laboring behind a desk. But on Monday, she found herself at Lancaster Methodist Church, helping feed the homeless and encouraging them to complete their census forms.

"I feel really good about it," Alamillo said. "I usually work at a desk job, so this was wonderful to go out and be with the public, help homeless people get counted for the U.S. Census and give them a gift certificate for food since they can really use that food."

Instead of simply taking a day off, about 850 Los Angeles County employees are volunteering as part of Cesar Chavez Community Service Week at parks, beaches, libraries and community-based organizations.

Besides asking them to do traditional community-service activities, the county this year is also encouraging volunteers to help improve the region's census participation.

"What we always say is that Cesar Chavez believed in community service, and so instead of taking the day off, we are following in his tradition and doing something for the community," said Victoria Pipkin-Lane, director of the Office of Workplace Programs. "And part of that is the census, because if we have an accurate count we'll get the federal dollars to pay for the services that residents need."

During the 2000 Census, an estimated 170,000 people were not counted, costing the county $636 million in revenues over the last decade, county spokeswoman Judy Hammond said.

Assistant Chief Executive Officer Martin Zimmerman said many people have misconceptions about the census.

"It's actually a very confidential and safe document," Zimmerman said. "The information that is provided to the Census Bureau - they are forbidden to share that information with any level of government for 72 years.

"So if somebody is concerned about residency status, concerned they live in an illegal garage conversion or perhaps they have skipped out on probation - there are all kinds of secrets that people have - none of that information will get to any government agency that will follow up with them."

This is the county's ninth annual observance of the Cesar Chavez Community Week. Volunteers perform light landscaping duties at local parks, help socialize cats and dogs at the animal shelters, read books to children at the libraries and donate time to more than 30 community-based organizations countywide.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14781522

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Christian militia accused of plotting to kill cops

DETROIT — Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral – all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government.

Seven men and one woman believed to be part of the Michigan-based Hutaree were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and another was still being sought. Authorities blocked off a rural area Monday evening about 30 miles from the site of Saturday's raid near Adrian but wouldn't say who they were searching for or whether the search was related to the weekend raids.

FBI agents moved quickly against the group because its members were planning an attack sometime in April, prosecutors said. Authorities seized guns in the raids but would not say whether they found any explosives.

The arrests have dealt "a severe blow to a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Authorities said the arrests underscored the dangers of homegrown right-wing extremism of the sort seen in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

In an indictment unsealed Monday, prosecutors said the group began military-style training in the Michigan woods in 2008, learning how to shoot guns and make and set off bombs.

David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as "Captain Hutaree," organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from "radoks" to "gunners," according to the group's Web site.

Stone's ex-wife, Donna Stone, told The Associated Press that Stone pulled her son into the movement. Another of Stone's sons also was charged.

"It started out as a Christian thing," Donna Stone said. "You go to church. You pray. You take care of your family. I think David started to take it a little too far."

Targets allegedly selected

Prosecutors said Stone had identified certain law enforcement officers near his home as potential targets. He and other members discussed setting off bombs at a police funeral, using a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his death, killing an officer after a traffic stop, or attacking the family of an officer, according to the indictment.

After such attacks, the group allegedly planned to retreat to "rally points" protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with the law.

"It is believed by the Hutaree that this engagement would then serve as a catalyst for a more widespread uprising against the government," the indictment said.

The charges against the eight include seditious conspiracy – plotting to levy war against the U.S. – possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, teaching the use of explosives, and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction – homemade bombs. The defendants were jailed, awaiting bail hearings Wednesday.

Part of secret language

Hutaree says on its Web site its name means "Christian warrior" and describes the word as part of a secret language that few are privileged to know. The group quotes several Bible passages and declares: "We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ. ... Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment."

The nature of the organization's alleged grudge against law enforcement and the government was unclear. The Web site does not list any specific grievances.

The site features a picture of 17 men in camouflage, all holding large guns, and includes videos of armed men running through the woods. Each wears a shoulder patch that bears a cross and two red spears.

David Cid, executive director of the Oklahoma City-based Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, said there has been a resurgence in the past year or two of "domestic militancy" similar to what was seen before the Oklahoma City bombing.

"It's issues like eminent domain and immigration, and apparently national health care in some quarters," said Cid, a former FBI counterterrorism agent. "It's increasing these people's ire and their discomfort with their own government."

Survival training

The wife of one of the defendants described Hutaree as a small group of patriotic, Christian buddies who were just doing survival training.

"It consisted of a dad and two of his sons and I think just a couple other close friends of theirs," said Kelly Sickles, who husband, Kristopher, was among those charged. "It was supposed to be a Christian group. Christ-like, right, so why would you think that's something wrong with that, right?"

Sickles said she came home Saturday night to find her house in Sandusky, Ohio, in disarray. Agents seized the guns her husband collected as a hobby and searched for bomb-making materials, she said, but added: "He doesn't even know how to make a bomb. We had no bomb material here."

She said she couldn't believe her 27-year-old husband could be involved in anything violent.

"It was just survival skills," she said. "That's what they were learning. And it's just patriotism. It's in our Constitution."

One of the defendants expressed anti-tax views during his Monday court hearing.

Thomas W. Piatek, a truck driver from Whiting, Ind., told a federal judge he could not afford an attorney because he was "getting raped on property taxes."

The mother of another defendant, 33-year-old Jacob Ward, told police in Huron, Ohio, last summer that family members took away his two guns – an AK-47 rifle and a semiautomatic pistol – because she thought he needed mental health treatment.

Ward told police he needed to protect himself from members of a crime family that was keeping him from his girlfried, according to Huron police records obtained by the AP. He also said he was going to meet with the CIA.

Seven of the defendants in court in Michigan asked to be represented by public defenders. The eighth had a public defender appointed in Indiana.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14780873

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Transit Systems Reinforce Security Measures

The bombing in Moscow's heavily traveled and often densely packed metro Monday offers a tragic reminder that subways, buses, and trains are particularly vulnerable to terrorists, with millions of people pouring in and out of them every day.

Commuters and travelers use mass transit systems daily without going through metal detectors, baggage inspections, or any of the security measures commonplace at airports.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and subway and rail bombings in London and Madrid, transit agencies have increased surveillance, adding cameras, more police and bomb-sniffing dogs. On Monday, many U.S. transit systems beefed up their security as a precautionary measure in the wake of the Moscow attacks.

The New York City Police Department increased patrols in the city's subway system in time for Monday's morning rush, as did officials in Los Angeles and Atlanta. Bomb-detection teams at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in the capital conducted random station and rail-yard sweeps, officials said.

In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered new steps to tighten security on the metro and other public transport.

Transportation agency officials say they are limited by the open nature of mass transit, in which hordes of people rush on and off trains, with no centralized location for arrivals and departures.

"They are doing what they can, but just simply the nature of the system makes the same kind of airport security impossible to replicate," said Robert Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program.

In addition to that lack of screening, subways may be particularly attractive targets to terrorists, because their goal is to attack where there are a lot of people in a confined place, and to carry out the attacks inconspicuously, some experts say.

Intelligence officials in the U.S., Germany and the U.K. said that despite the precautions taken Monday after the Moscow attack, there was no indication of an increased threat to subway and rail systems elsewhere in the world.

Some noted that similar attacks carried out by individuals or groups from the Caucasus have focused primarily on targets in Russia.

"While we're unaware of any specific threat to American subways that may be connected to what happened in Moscow, it nevertheless makes sense to take the appropriate precautions," a U.S. counterterrorism official said.

A senior German intelligence official said his service didn't have a bomb threat in Moscow on its radar screen prior to the Monday attack. Intelligence officials from two European countries said that for the moment, they don't expect similar attacks in their capitals.

But that conclusion is tempered by caution: Behind the scenes, intelligence officials have intensified their scrutiny of Arab and Islamist Web sites, looking for signs that other groups might stage a similar attack. "Nobody has a patent on suicide attacks," the German intelligence official said.

After coordinated suicide bombings on London's vast underground network and a double-decker bus in July 2005 killed 52 people and the four bombers, police and transport officials took a variety of steps to increase security.

They doubled the number of "transport police" patrolling cars and stations on the Underground—also known as the Tube—at any given time to 700. The number of security cameras in the network was nearly doubled, to 13,000. And a new communication system, known as Airwave, was put into place, allowing underground communications between emergency services and London Underground staff.

A spokesman for Transport for London, which runs the London Underground, said the network hadn't taken additional security measures Monday.

"We are running as normal today," the spokesman said. Generally, he said, transport officials have tried to strike a balance between security and putting in place measures "that would impede people."

A report by the House of Commons Home Affairs select committee issued last year said the London transport network remains "extremely vulnerable" to terrorist attack.

But, the report added, "We would, nevertheless, seek to reassure the Commons and the public that a great deal of work has been done, both overtly and behind the scenes, to protect the millions of passengers who use the Transport for London network every day."

Cathy Asato, a spokeswoman for the Washington transit authority, said the agency has a mobile security team that can randomly check passengers and their bags.

Airport-style security with metal detectors would be impossible, Ms. Asato said: "Sending people through that sort of screening that they would do in airports would change the whole nature of the service that we provide and it wouldn't be mass transit anymore."

The Washington agency is taking a security step to allow calls for help while on the trains: By 2012, passengers in the entire system will be able to use their cellphones underground. "It's another tool that can be used for reporting things to police," Ms. Asato said.

Paul Browne, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of public information, said cellphones work only sporadically in the New York subway system, mostly on some platforms and in trains while they are in a station.

He said the NYPD would prefer that cellphones work throughout the system, and that the department is hopeful that new technologies can be used in the subways.

"Our stated preference, since we don't own those systems, is that cellphones be able to work and be kept on," Mr. Browne said.

"As a general premise, we think it's more advantageous for the public to be able to communicate with us."

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that in addition to the stepped-up patrols, "we will continue to do everything possible to protect our transit system."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404575152204294107816.html?mod=WSJ_World_LeadStory#printMode

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New York Homicides Rise a Bit In 2010

For years, New York City's homicide rate has steadily plummeted, in one of the most widely touted success stories in modern policing.

While the number of killings remains near historic lows, there were 109 homicides through March 28, compared to 89 a year earlier, according to New York Police Department statistics. Some of the killings have been jarring and gotten big play in the local press, including the stabbing deaths of two young Brooklyn men on a subway train in Manhattan early Sunday.

Given that homicides tend to increase during the summer, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne, it is likely there will be something close to 500 homicides this year, the third-lowest total since 1963. Last year, the total was 466, the fewest since the department began tracking such statistics in 1963.

"We're fighting our own good record, basically, in terms of perception," Mr. Browne said. "We've had [overall] crime declines every year and declines in murders almost every year. So there's been an expectation that every year is going to be lower than the next...historically it's still one of the lowest."

The city has cut its police force in recent years, to about 35,000. That's about 5,000 fewer officers than were on the force when Raymond Kelly became commissioner in 2002.

Patrick J. Lynch, president of the union that represents 22,000 NYPD patrol officers, called the trend worrisome. "The lack of uniformed police officers patrolling neighborhoods has emboldened the criminals who once again feel free to carry guns and use them in their crimes," he said. Still, Andrew Karmen, a sociology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, urged caution about looking for trends in less than three months of data. "This whole hullabaloo is a little premature," he said. "Frankly, this has happened before.

There have been bad stretches, and each time it happens there are some questions about whether this is the beginning of the end of crime reductions...it's just way too early to say."

The uptick in homicides, according to statistics through March 21, is attributable to a handful of the city's 76 precincts. Twenty-six precincts have seen an increase, mostly by a single homicide; 20 have fewer homicides than last year, also mostly by one, and 31 have the same number. Of the 76 precincts, 32 have no homicides.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of the overall increase: "Do I worry about it? I worry about it all the time, as does Commissioner Kelly. Is there any reason for the public to feel less safe? No." Overall crime is down more than 2% in 2010, according to the NYPD statistics.

In response to the suicide attacks that killed 38 in two Moscow subway stations Monday, the NYPD assigned extra officers to subway stations and transit hubs and took other steps. "I do think about safety in the subway, but it has to do more with national safety issues," said Doug Degannes, 32 years old, who works near Houston Street in Manhattan and frequently uses the subway. station where Sunday's killings happened.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404575152222028062194.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

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From ICE

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ICE statement in response to March 27 Washington Post article

"ICE is required by Congress to submit annual performance goals as part of the budgetary process and our longstanding focus remains on smart, effective immigration enforcement that places priority first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present risk to the security of our communities.

This focus has yielded real results – between FY2008 and FY2009, criminal deportations increased by 19% and this priority continues in FY10 with 40% more criminal aliens removed to date as compared to the same period last year.

Significant portions of the memo cited in The Washington Post (3/27/10 - Becker/Hsu) did not reflect our policies, was sent without my authorization, and has since been withdrawn and corrected.

We are strongly committed to carrying out our priorities to remove serious criminal offenders first and we definitively do not set quotas."

- Assistant Secretary John Morton

Additional facts:

• Criminal removals/ returns increased by almost 22K between FY2008 and FY2009.
  
  
• Overall, criminal and non-criminal removals/ returns increased by 5% between FY2008 and FY2009, while criminal removals/ returns alone increased by 19%
  
  http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1003/100327washingtondc.htm

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