A Maryland-based immigrants rights group has accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of being forced to meet arrest quotas.CASA de Maryland released what they claimed to be an internal ICE report on a 2007 raid in Baltimore. The study found that two dozen Latinos were arrested by ICE agents who were instructed to meet their annual quota of 1000 arrests per team. "I don't care where you get more arrests, we need more numbers," said the agents’ supervisor according to the internal investigation.
"We need just and humane immigration reform," said the executive director of CASA at a press conference on Wednesday who also called for an immediate halt to immigration raids. An ICE spokesman denied that arrest quotas were used and claimed that ICE uses “goals to measure the effectiveness of its teams.”
The Migration Policy Institute released a study earlier this month claiming that nearly three in four immigrants detained by ICE were nonviolent offenders.
Image- WTOP.com (“Justin Cox, a lawyer with CASA de Maryland, shows a surveillance video of an ICE raid that occurred in Baltimore in 2007, during a media event in Langley Park, Md. on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).”)
Online Sources- washingtonpost.com, AP, Baltimore Sun, The Latin Americanist, WJLA
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