By Maria Sanchez-Traynor
Camera Staff Writer

Noe Martinez saw the fear in his community members.

As rumors ran rampant for the past two weeks about the Immigration and Naturalization Service targeting Mexicans in random raids, he met with local immigrants who were afraid for themselves and their families. He said many were so scared they wouldn't go out after 6 p.m. or take their children to school.

"The community is afraid," said Martinez, an immigrant who has been trying to quell the fear through El Centro de Amistad, a local immigrant relief agency. "We're trying to stop the rumors and let people know that everything is fine."

He said at least 200 immigrants, many undocumented, had been living in fear of being arrested or separated from their families but have since started to resume their normal lives.

Martinez said he could not find evidence that the INS was conducting the random raids the rumors described — such as roadblocks set up in Longmont or officials posted outside local malls asking for identification. Officials from the INS and the Mexican Consulate in Denver agreed the rumors were unsubstantiated.

The origin of the rumors is unknown. They may have started from people calling into local Spanish radio stations with questions or from people witnessing a single arrest.

"Sometimes when the INS arrests somebody, it starts a panic," said Jorge DeSantiago, administrator for the Boulder-based El Centro de Amistad.

Nina Pruneda, spokeswoman for the INS' Denver office, said that with the large number of undocumented aliens in the country, the department tends to give priority to finding criminal aliens rather than targeting a general population.

Laura Lichter, an attorney and past chair of the Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the fears may have stemmed from an increased focus on immigration issues since Sept. 11.

"People are afraid that maybe the INS does not exercise its discretion in ways that it would have a year ago," she said.

Pruneda said the INS is doing the same job it always has.

"It's business as usual," she said.

Mario Hernandez, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate General in Denver, said the consulate receives a daily report from the INS with a list of Mexican citizens in custody and has not seen an increase since Sept. 11.

Lichter said that if there has been an increase in INS activity, it is in the deportation of "absconders," people who have already been told to leave the country but have not yet done so.

"The INS is under pressure to pick up people who aren't supposed to be in the U.S.," she said.

Pruneda said 314,000 absconders have been reported in the United States by the INS, but she declined to comment on the number of those in Colorado. She said the INS' national office has started an initiative to lower that number.

"When we get an initiative with headquarters, it combines with our priorities," Pruneda said. "We have to remove these individuals from the U.S. because they're here illegally."

Contact reporter Maria Sanchez-Traynor at (303) 473-1328 or sanchezm@dailycamera.com.

June 3, 2002

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