We’re getting a better picture of the results of the federal “identity theft” raids last week. And it’s increasingly clear that if the Feds were trying to protect citizens from identity thieves, they failed.
Unfortunately, while the Department of Homeland Security held a press conference immediately after the raids to announce nationwide totals for arrests, they have been less chatty about the number of detainees charged with criminal violations, and the Department of Justice has announced indictments in each state as they are handed down from grand juries.
As a result, the picture is incomplete: We know that 1,282 workers were detained in the raids ten days ago. Over 100 were charged with a variety of crimes. So far, grand juries have handed down indictments for 58 of them: 20 from Worthington, Minn.; 15 from Grand Island, Neb.; and 23 from Marshalltown, Iowa, according to reports in local papers. I have not seen indictments reported from the raids in Cactus, Texas, or Greeley, Colo.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has not released a tally of the number of innocent legal workers its agents detained in the raids but later released, nor details on how long they were held before being let go.
ICE also has not given a total number of detainees who have been summarily deported.
We know that several detainees are still being held, pending deportation or legal action. And it looks like ICE is in no rush to change that. As an ICE spokeswoman told the Salt Lake Tribune’s Jennifer Sanchez, “We’re in charge to protect our homeland. We were working on something, we don’t look at specific dates.”
While some elected officials have criticized the raids, at least one has cheered their success and called for more. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), in a letter to ICE chief Julie Myers, commended her on the raids and asked her to “expand such operations to other industries.”