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Immigration official in US touts changes after raid on factory

US immigration officials have learned humanitarian lessons from a factory raid a year ago that was criticized for separating families and leaving children without proper care, the agency's director said.

Most of the 361 workers arrested at leather goods manufacturer Michael Bianco Inc in New Bedford, Massachusetts, last year were women from Central America. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals sharply condemned the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for its handling of the raid.

WELFARE CONCERNS

Although the court said it had no jurisdiction over the case, it ruled that ICE "gave social welfare agencies insufficient notice of the raid, that caseworkers were denied access to detainees until after the first group had been transferred and that various ICE actions temporarily thwarted any effective investigation into the detainees' needs."

Since the raid, ICE has been accompanied on subsequent raids by officials from the Division of Immigration Health Services, who identify sole caregivers and ask people about medical problems, said Julie Myers, the assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE.

But she also defended the agency's actions during the raid.

"I think the agents in this case acted professionally and I think we did above and beyond what I have seen done in any other law enforcement action," she said on Wednesday.

About 35 of those arrested who identified themselves as sole caregivers for children were released immediately, she said. More sole caregivers were later released at a detention center at Devens.

Those apprehended were also given access to telephones at Devens and were given information in Spanish and English about how to contact the state Department of Social Services. A toll-free number was set up for people trying to find out the status of a loved one.

`WHITEWASHED'

Attorney Harvey Kaplan, who represented the immigrants in federal court, disputed Myers' assessment of the raid.

"They have whitewashed this whole thing from the start," he said.

Kaplan also questioned why the inspector general of Homeland Security was looking into the raid if it went so smoothly.

ICE is cooperating fully with the review.

Of those arrested, 165 have been deported, ICE officials said. The rest are still making their way through the legal process, and one man remains in jail, although ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said she did not know why.

Myers said the agency was concentrating efforts now on going after employers of undocumented workers, rather than the workers themselves, describing businesses that employ illegal immigrants as "magnets."

"Until we can convince companies to comply and until we can shut off the magnet, people will continue to try to come into this country illegally," she said.
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