ACLU, others eye Border Patrol actions

Wed., Sept. 21, 2011

Associated Press

SEATTLE – A coalition of 21 civil liberties, immigrant rights and labor groups has sent a letter to Washington state’s congressional delegation urging them to look at U.S. Border Patrol operations, saying that agents routinely profile immigrants and use interpretation as a pretext to make arrests.

The letter is the latest in on-going tensions between the agency and these groups, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union among others.

In the past few years, Border Patrol has increased the number of agents in Washington by a few hundred agents and stepped up operations, such as inspections of buses and ferries. Even so, arrests of illegal immigrants have gone down since 2001 from about 2,000 to just below 700.

Border Patrol has argued it’s conducting its job of enforcing the nation’s immigration law and welcomes input from the community.

The letter points to the arrest of a Korean immigrant at a farmers market in Port Angeles in which agents didn’t question anyone else on their immigration status.

The Border Patrol says it was acting on a tip from a concerned citizen.

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