martes, 8 de abril de 2014

The immigration raid that wasn't


On April 8, Alicia Cervantes published on Facebook information about a police operation in West Valley.  Afterwards, I talked by phone with Lieutenant Justin Hoyal, Public Information Officer (PIO) for the Unified Police Department (UPD).

The narcotics unit carried out investigations involving various residences. This included buying methamphetamines at these places. This morning, April 8, UPD agents executed on three search warrants in Kearns and West Valley. Thirteen people were detained.

Because of doubts concerning the immigration status of some of the detained, UPD agents called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Lt. Justin Hoyal said he did not speak for ICE, but he recognized that ICE took some of the detained into their custody.

UPD booked two of the detained on charges related to the methamphetamines.  The rest were released from UPD custody.  At least some of those were released entirely.  ICE took custody of the others.

The detentions occurred at the residences or in cars that fled or were about to flee from the scenes.  The police used the parking lot near 4700 South and 4000 West as a place to process the detained.  The businesses at that location were not involved in the operation, and none of said businesses were under suspicion.

This operation was not a raid initiated by ICE, which joined only after getting the call from UPD.

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