Personal Information of 1,300 Illegal Immigrants Released

By Liz Goodwin

After an anonymous group of anti-immigration activists distributed a list of some 1,300 names and personal information purportedly belonging to Utah residents who are in the country illegally, no one is rushing forward to take credit for an act of information vigilantism that is against Utah state law. The list, which went out to state and federal enforcement officials as well as to local media outlets and state political leaders, came with a note urging that all the people included on it be deported — even though follow-up press reports have indicated that some of the names belong to legal residents of the United States.

Local and national anti-illegal-immigration groups tell Yahoo! News they are not responsible for the move. But the groups don't uniformly condemn publishing the anonymous accusations — which in turn bespeaks a revealing split in just how far different groups are willing to go in their push for more aggressive enforcement against illegal immigrants.


Ron Mortensen, co-founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, says he objects to the list because there is "no justification" for releasing someone's private information. His group is pushing for the state to pass an immigration law modeled on Arizona's next year, and says the controversy over the list is "not helpful" for the movement.

Utah Minuteman Project co-chair Eli Cawley, however, was not so concerned about privacy violations — though he also said his group was not behind the list. "It's probably against some privacy laws," he said on local radio station KSL. "But I think in the interest of preserving our civilization, preserving our society, and protecting the people of the state of Utah, I think that's a greater interest than protecting the privacy of some individuals."

The list contained some Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers of people — including 200 children — it accused of being in the country illegally. A letter from the anonymous group Concerned Citizens for the United States attached to the list also pointed out that six women on the list were pregnant and should be deported immediately. (ABC News has posted the letter here.)

Bob Dane, a spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), backed away from the vigilante tactic. He told Yahoo! News that his organization encourages people to report illegal immigrants to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tip line. "If citizens want to help fight illegal immigration, use the tip line. And pressure politicians to enforce the laws," he said. An attorney for FAIR's legal arm helped craft the Arizona immigration law.

Meanwhile, William Gheen, president of the anti-illegal-immigration political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration, said the people behind the list are "heroes" who are expressing frustration with a lack of federal immigration enforcement.

Mortensen and Gheen said ICE's tip line is "useless" because of the agency's policy of prioritizing the investigation of illegal immigrants who could be a threat to society. An ICE spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the agency focuses "first on those dangerous convicted criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100714/pl_yblog_upshot/anti-illegal-immigration-groups-split-on-utah-list?burnthevillagetosaveit

This is just shameful, but it's just more proof that some radicals will stop at nothing to push forward their agenda. What I fear is violence could not be too far off as a next step.

It wasn't a smooth move by whoever did this but it shows the discontent in this country. 62% favor the AZ in the last poll i saw. If the DOJ tries to strong arm AZ and congress tries to pass some sort of amnesty, you're going to see a lot of pissed off people.... especially those who have no job.

In the town i live in, it's about 50-50 Dem-GOP. Probably 80% or more are sick of illegals.

Here's a follow-up to this story with an interview with the Gov. of Utah. Two workers who allegedly leaked the list have been put in leave and the investigation is on-going. It turns out that that list was not a list of illegal immigrants "it's a list of 1300 people with Hispanic names" the Governor says -- which makes me wonder if the actions by these people wasn't motivated by something other than frustration over illegal immigration. As the Governor said "A vigalnte approcah has never served us well... it is not intellectually honest to say we're going to solve a violation of the law by breaking the law."

It's seldom I agree with a republican so whole-heartedly. Some so-called patriots love to talk about the Constitution and Bill of Rights, yet see no harm in or feel no compunction about flying in the face if it when it suits their aims.


http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/07/16/jk.hart.list.illegal.immigrants.cnn?hpt=Sbin

Demonizing a race because of the actions of the few is despicable, imo. But of course, the NAACP is doing the same to the Tea Party.

alland wrote:This is just shameful, but it's just more proof that some radicals will stop at nothing to push forward their agenda. What I fear is violence could not be too far off as a next step.

You obviously didn't hear about the group of people who go out to the border desert every night and place gallons of acid in water containers so that people illegally crossing the border will drink it down and die, thus preventing them from illegally entering the US.

No, I hadn't. God... that's horrible -- absolutely disgusting. Some of these people obviously have no conscience.

BubbleBliss wrote:

alland wrote:This is just shameful, but it's just more proof that some radicals will stop at nothing to push forward their agenda. What I fear is violence could not be too far off as a next step.

You obviously didn't hear about the group of people who go out to the border desert every night and place gallons of acid in water containers so that people illegally crossing the border will drink it down and die, thus preventing them from illegally entering the US.

Really? Provide us with some links.

Neither of those articles mention what you claim.

I guess I must have made the mistake of taking somebody's word before researching it.... I can't find anything like that online except for a lot of comments and forum threads calling for the poisoning of immigrants.