Teen's deportation roils N.M. community

[peejay 327]

Teen's deportation roils N.M. community

Unease spreads after high school senior is turned in by campus police

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

Los Angeles Times

ROSWELL, N.M. — This conservative city on the barren eastern plains of New Mexico long had been spared the acrimonious debates over illegal immigration that have racked so much of the Southwest.

That is, until December, when immigration enforcement entered the murky terrain of the local high school.

A school security officer stopped Karina Acosta, an 18-year-old pregnant Roswell High School senior, and discovered that she was in the country illegally. He called federal immigration authorities, who swiftly deported her.

The district superintendent protested, and the officer was removed from the school and transferred back to the city Police Department.

About three dozen angry students and parents marched on police headquarters and were met by a handful of counter-demonstrators who backed the officer.

The schools suffered a sudden drop in attendance as students whose parents were in the country illegally kept them home. The local newspaper was peppered with letters to the editor denouncing illegal immigrants. And, even two months later, unease permeates the community.

"What shocked me more than anything is what it did to this town," said Coreta Justus, one of Acosta's teachers. In the classroom, she said, "you can feel the difference vibrating from the students. I don't think they have those safety feelings anymore. School used to be a very safe place."

In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that illegal immigrants have the right to attend public schools and that educators cannot ask students whether they're in the country legally. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a policy against entering campuses.

But local police forces such as Roswell's are increasingly being pressured to crack down on illegal immigrants.

"You have legislatures that say one thing, a Supreme Court that has ruled something else," said Scott Douglass, Roswell's interim police chief. "The country's not giving really clear signals."

Douglass defended his officer, saying he was obligated to call immigration officials once he learned that Acosta was in the country illegally.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund sued the Albuquerque Police Department in 2005 after officers called the Border Patrol to a local high school.

In a settlement last year, police agreed to stop asking residents about their immigration status.

"A school should be a safe haven, and any sort of law enforcement related to immigration status should be very, very limited," said Marisol Perez, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Jack Satterfield, 53, was one of the counterdemonstrators at police headquarters Dec. 14. His youngest daughter goes to Roswell High School.

A retired construction worker, Satterfield thinks security officer Charlie Corn's action "was great. Our schools are so overpopulated. The majority of the people agreed with it."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...on/5554350.html

[Ban Hammer 14,283]

figures someone is gonna whine about it when their cheerios get pizzed in.

meanwhile, tax savings for the local tax payers.

[almaty 19]

hmmm..roswell maybe he was an real alien