Letters: Immigration raids without warrants rely instead on racial profiling

Immigration raids without warrants, racial profiling raise fears

Re: “ICE raids hit apartment buildings in metro area,” Feb. 6 news story

The promised immigration raids finally came about on Wednesday, Feb 5. The excellent photos from The Denver Post showed an armed task force at the Cedar Run Apartments and reporting cited lots of banging on doors seeking undocumented immigrants. But residents mostly stayed inside, insisting on their right to see a valid warrant.

The Denver Post story included a link to an Enforcement and Removal Operations official giving a propaganda speech about why the lack of cooperation from local police and jails made such actions necessary. A Denver Post editorial sniffed at this bait but, I’m happy to say, refuted the argument. The Post saw through the disconnect that raids are necessary because the pipeline from the jail system is plugged.

We need to remember the abuses of racial profiling that led our state and city officials to change policies over several years and remove local law enforcement from doing ICE’s work for them. What our public servants discovered was that removing the fear of interacting with the police makes the whole community safer.

We must not let these hyped-up enforcement efforts instill baseless fear in our community. Statistics have consistently shown that the immigrants among us are generally more law-abiding than our own citizens.

Let the police do their proper investigative and enforcement work to halt crime and apprehend criminals. Immigration status does not need to be a consideration in proper policing.

David J Poundstone, Denver

Re: “First military flight departs to send migrants to Guantanamo Bay,” Feb. 5 news story

Guantanamo Bay reactivated to imprison up to 30,000 asylum seekers? Armed federal agents going door-to-door at 6 am. in Hispanic neighborhoods demanding to see papers? What are we doing? What is this nightmare? This is NOT what America should be. Shame on us! Please, government leaders, stop this cruelty!

David Brown, Castle Pines

Re: “Johnston agrees to testify about immigration enforcement policies,” Feb. 6 news story

I hope that when Mayor Mike Johnston and the mayors of Chicago, Boston and New York appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to explain their “abject failure to comply with federal law,” they demand to know why ICE and other federal agencies flagrantly failed to comply with federal law — legal warrants and due process — when they raided immigrants’ apartments.

Monica Perin, Sugar Land, Texas

Fans still losers in Comcast/Altitude deal

Re: “Nuggets and Avs games return to Comcast cable,” Feb. 5 sports story

“The deal.” I am referring to the Altitude and Comcast conclusion. While all the important people, including Give Away Mike (the mayor of Denver), are patting themselves on their backs and doing high fives, “The Deal” is no different than what Comcast wanted five years ago that Kroenke Sports & Entertainment balked at; the only difference is the fans once again have to open their wallets to feed the owner and shareholders more earnings to meet their insatiable needs to feed their greed.

To add insult to injury, the “fans” not only have to pay 10 bucks for the premium sports package, but we are going to have to support a $6 increase just in time for the playoffs.

So, who are the winners? The owners of Ball Arena and Wall Street’s darling. And who are the losers? Once again, the subscribers called fans.

Another sad day in sports in one of the greatest sports markets on this planet. Sad day.

Jay Weinstein, Denver

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