On Education
Immigration Raid Leaves Sense of Dread in Hispanic Students

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: May 23, 2007

WILLMAR, Minn.

The day before everything happened, Alex Sorto left Willmar High
School as usual at 2:30, and grabbed a ride to his night job as a
janitor at the Jennie-O turkey processing plant. He had been working
there for four months, saving money for college tuition, and hoping to
study art even though his mother wanted him to be a lawyer.

Alex had already heard there were immigration agents in town, raiding
the trailer parks and rented homes of the Hispanics who had flocked to
this county seat on the Minnesota prairie in search of work at Jennie-
O. Alex believed that because he was a citizen, he was safe.

So he put in his eight hours sweeping and swabbing, and went home to
finish up the portfolio that was his final project for communications
class. The portfolio consisted mostly of an autobiography. In it Alex
recalled his early years in Los Angeles, the child of two Honduran
immigrants, and the divorce that sent him and his mother, Rosa Sorto,
to a green-shingled duplex on Ann Street in Willmar.

As a senior, just a few weeks from graduation, Alex had already passed
the required state tests, which were being administered at Willmar
High the next morning.

So he knew he could sleep late, a rare treat on a weekday, before
starting his regular classes.

The next thing he knew, at the unfair hour of 6:30 a.m. on April 13,
he heard a banging noise. Groggy, he at first assumed the racket came
from the family upstairs.

By the time he tugged on a pair of jeans and walked toward the living
room, he could hear nearby voices shouting. He saw his mother on the
couch, being peppered with questions by four immigration agents -
questions about her papers, questions about his, questions about two
single men who rented rooms from them. In his entire life, all 18
years, Alex had never seen her so close to crying.

In the end, the agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement
accepted the proof that Alex and his mother, who has permanent
resident status, were legal. The two renters, Roberto and Augustine,
were led away in handcuffs, Roberto wearing only his boxer shorts.

Then Ms. Sorto discovered how the agents had apparently entered her
apartment; the window of the locked side door, intact the previous
night, was now broken.

Even after all the tumult, Ms. Sorto insisted that Alex go to school.
Even though it was 8:30, and he had no classes for another hour, she
drove him there. He watched her hands quake as she tried to steer. In
art class, his favorite, he could not get his pencil to move. All he
could think about was what would become of him if his mother were
taken away.

Such was the triumph of Operation Cross Check, the federal raid
against illegal immigrants that went on for four days last month in
this community of about 18,500 people. To the Department of Homeland
Security, the operation was a success, catching a convicted sex
offender and several welfare cheats among its 49 arrests. In a news
release announcing the toll, an immigration enforcement director for
Minnesota said, "Our job is to help protect the public from those who
commit crimes."

Yet more than half of those arrested had committed no crime other than
being in the United States illegally, doing the jobs at Jennie-O that
prop up the local economy. And, as the experience of Alex Sorto
demonstrates, the aggressive, invasive style of the sweep instilled
lasting fear among Willmar's 3,000 Hispanics, many of them students
born or naturalized in the United States. These young people are the
political football in America's bitter, unresolved battle about
immigration.

"All of us are scared," said Andrea Gallegos, a junior at the high
school. "When you go to school, you don't know if your parents will be
there when you come home. I don't feel safe anywhere - walking to the
school bus, walking outside the school building."

Sharon Tollefson, a guidance counselor, had one promising student
vanish in the aftermath of the raid. The young man, whom she
identified by only his first name, Santiago, had been attending both
day and night classes to graduate this spring. Ms. Tollefson was
helping to arrange for him to visit a local college, where he planned
to study law enforcement with the goal of becoming a police officer.

The first morning of the raids, April 10, Santiago took his required
state test in writing. The next day, when he was supposed to sit for
the math exam, he did not show up at school. Ms. Tollefson has since
heard rumors that he was deported to Mexico.

"He was working his fanny off," Ms. Tollefson said, almost wistfully,
in an interview last week. "I keep saying I'm not taking him off my
roster. I can't believe he won't be coming back."

THE objections to the immigration raid go far beyond the anecdotal. A
group of about 30 Hispanic residents of Willmar, including Alex and
Rosa Sorto, has filed suit in United States District Court in
Minneapolis, alleging that the immigration and domestic security
agencies violated the Constitution. The suit maintains that the armed
officers engaged in racial profiling, and that they broke into private
homes without search warrants as part of a "campaign of terror and
intimidation."

Tim Counts, a spokesman for the immigration agency in Minnesota,
declined yesterday to answer the suit's allegations in detail, beyond
saying that the operation was "fully within the law and appropriate."
He also said that homes were entered only with the permission of
residents, and added, "We will make our case in the court of law."

When Alex Sorto moved to Willmar in the late 1990s, he said he kept
quiet about his past. He felt as if he was the only child in school
with divorced parents. Over time, he grew comfortable enough to share
the secret without being ostracized.

Since that April morning, Friday the 13th, he has reacquired the habit
of silence. His communications teacher suggested that he try to put
the whole experience out of his thoughts. But she isn't the one who
worries about what could happen if his mother gets stopped by "la
Migra," as the immigration agents are known, on a day she left her
driver's license at home.

"This was the year everything was supposed to go right for me," Alex
said. "And then all this happened."

Samuel G. Freedman is a professor of journalism at Columbia
University. His e-mail address is sgfreedman @nytimes.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/education/23education.html