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E-mail Suggests Vote, Raid Linked

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By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, The Associated Press

Published: January 27, 2008

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An e-mail sent by local immigration officials to their agency head the day after the city adopted an ID program for illegal immigrants suggests the timing of a raid soon thereafter was not coincidental, the city's mayor said.

Regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers told agency Director Julie Myers in a June 5 e-mail that New Haven's Board of Aldermen had voted 25-1 the previous night to make the city the nation's first to offer illegal immigrants ID cards. City officials said the cards would help immigrants better integrate into mainstream culture by allowing them access to bank accounts and other services.

On June 6, ICE agents swept through the city and detained an estimated 30 illegal immigrants. Critics contend the raid was retaliation for the city's adoption of the ID program - a charge the agency has steadfastly denied.

In the e-mail to Myers, obtained by The Associated Press through a federal Freedom of Information Act request, agents wrote that because of the recent vote, the raid likely would draw significant news coverage.

"They self-evidently were following what was happening in New Haven," Mayor John DeStefano said. "And, at some level, it had to have been a factor in their thinking to proceed with the raid. Otherwise, why else would they have noted it?"
Yale law Professor Michael Wishnie, who is representing those detained free of charge, said that while the e-mail to Myers doesn't prove retaliation, "it does suggest an awareness that doing the raid on June 6 would likely draw attention and they wanted to be prepared to respond to that expected attention. It certainly casts doubt on the statements that the raid had nothing to do with the ID program."

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