ICE said California arrests were ‘targeted,’ but observer alleges dragnet

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Federal immigration officials who launched a big enforcement operation this week in Northern California objected to the actions being labeled sweeps or raids, saying the government went after specific people and does not “target aliens indiscriminately.”


But a construction worker from the Central Valley told a different story about the four-day operation that was designed to counter California’s sanctuary policies and netted 232 undocumented immigrants.

Miguel Botello, 37, said he and three colleagues were stopped Sunday outside a convenience store in Atwater (Merced County) by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who asked to see proof of legal status, in what he called an instance of racial profiling.

The other three men were arrested, he said, and two have already been deported to Mexico.


“They were not looking for any of us — they only stopped us because we are Mexican,” Botello said Friday in a telephone interview, through a Spanish interpreter. “There were other people arriving that weren’t Mexican, and (the officers) were not asking them anything. What else am I left to conclude?”

... Through a Spanish interpreter. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.