Tyler ICE Raid Response
Posted/updated on: April 17, 2011 at 5:05 pm
TYLER — The immigration raid on a Tyler restaurant has sent shockwaves through the Hispanic community. At a local community center they gathered to talk about what this stepped up enforcement will mean. They gathered in the Hillside Community Center today to ask questions and get information on the raid on the China King Restaurant Thursday. Agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency spent the day questioning employees, but there were no arrests.
“The fact that they did not arrest anybody showed me that they are being very humane about their process,” says Gilbert Urbina of the Hispanic American Association of East Texas. “They were there, probably, due to information that they received. They are very organized and they have a specific target that they want to get to.”
And if the suspected illegal has a family, the process gets more complicated, and expensive. So authorities take it step by step.
“If the consequences are that you’re being removed,” Urbina says, “and there’s no avenue of relief for you. Then you have to plan accordingly to possibly move your family back to your home country.”
Urbina told KETK, the fact that an ICE office was established here means not only that there is a problem with illegal labor, but also that enforcement is going to be stepped up.
