On Sept. 18, ICE agents raided several homes and apartment buildings in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood in an operation targeting people who allegedly produce and sell fake identity documents. ICE agents executed search warrants simultaneously at five locations in the area: an office where fraudulent identification documents were allegedly produced; two residences; and two photo studios that allegedly produced photos for fake documents. Activists on the scene reported that ICE agents stormed buildings, hid in garages and interrogated people on the street. Word of the raid spread quickly; tensions in the heavily Mexican neighborhood have been high since ICE made dozens of arrests at a Little Village shopping mall in a similar April 2007 operation targeting a false document ring. (AP, Sept. 18; ICE news release, Sept. 19)

On Sept. 17, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents executed federal criminal search warrants at four sites in the northern California towns of Vacaville, Vallejo and Hercules—in the North Bay area northeast of San Francisco—as part of an investigation into the hiring and possible harboring of unauthorized workers at local Chinese restaurants. The raided sites included the King's Buffet restaurant in Vacaville, one Vacaville residence, the Empire Buffet in Vallejo and one Vallejo residence. Agents also conducted what ICE called "a consensual search"—without a warrant—at a home in Hercules. (ICE news release, Sept. 18)

From Human Rights Watch, Sept. 19:

Sao Paulo – The Venezuelan government's expulsion of two Human Rights Watch staff underscores the Chávez administration’s increasing intolerance of dissenting views, Human Rights Watch said today. The government expelled José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, and Americas deputy director Daniel Wilkinson on September 18, 2008, hours after they held a news conference in Caracas to present a report that describes how the government of President Hugo Chávez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela.

Mexico's military seized $26.2 million in cash believed to belong to members of the Sinaloa Cartel Sept. 14. The soldiers also found guns and two bags of marijuana in the weekend raid at the house in the city of Culiacán—as well as documents naming a member of a gang allegedly led by Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, an associate of fugitive Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Our suspicion that the putative "success" of the "surge" is an illusion—and that the (relative) decline of violence in Iraq is simply due to the fact that the sectarian cleansing has been largely effected—is now backed up by satellite data. From the high-tech trade journal Physorg.com, Sept. 19:

We have argued before: "Classical" anti-Semitism and contemporary anti-Arab racism (and Islamophobia) are genetically linked phenomena. The fallacy is that just because one exists, the other doesn't. On the contrary, the prominence of one should be seen as evidence that the other isn't far behind. Here's more evidence. From Reuters, Sept. 17:

In a major gathering ignored by US mass media, thousands of migrants met in Spain from Sept. 11 to 14 to articulate a set of demands directed at governments across the world. Meeting at the Third World Social Forum on Migration, delegates represented organizations from more than 90 nations.

Spain's supreme court ruled Sept. 18 to ban the Basque Communist Party (EHAK-PCTV) on the grounds that it is linked to the ETA armed separatist group and the successor party of the Batasuna, which was declared illegal in March 2003. A week earier, the court banned the Acción Nacionalista Vasca (ANV) party following a court order by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, calling for "liquidation of everything related to that party." (ThinkSpain, Sept. 19; eitb24, Sept. 16)