Posted on 06/26/2008 12:29:04 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Immigration agents detain 166 undocumented workers at east side plant
As anxious relatives stood outside, van after van of mostly female undocumented workers were removed from a sweltering rag-sorting factory on Houston's east side and whisked to an immigration processing facility.
The early morning raid Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, while netting 166 undocumented workers, did not include arrests of company officials with Action Rags USA. But those charges may be on the way.
"The office of investigation is looking at allegations of the hiring of illegal aliens, which is a crime," said Special Agent Bob Rutt, of the Houston ICE office. Arresting illegal immigrants was "a collateral part" of the investigation, he said. "Our focus, ICE's overall focus, is targeting the employer."
Rutt, however, referred inquiries about possible criminal charges in Wednesday's raid case, as well as one at Shipley Do-Nuts in Houston, to federal prosecutors. There have been no arrests of Shipley managers or company officials.
"As it pertains to Shipley Do-Nuts, we cannot confirm or deny the existence of a criminal investigation," said Angela Dodge, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston.
"I think everybody recognizes that to get a handle on this, ... you have to go after the employer," said Steven Camarota, director of research with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter immigration controls.
In fiscal 2007, ICE secured fines and forfeitures of more than $30 million in worksite enforcement cases, according to the agency's annual report. ICE did not provide statistics on the number of employers criminally charged last year.
Employer prosecutions aren't "the biggest bang for the buck, as far as the way ICE is thinking about it," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank based in Washington, D.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Head em up move em out.
Last night on the ABC affiliate they were going on about how these “poor people didn’t get to go home to their families last night”. I started yelling at the TV and the channel got changed.
ping
Uh oh! All the illegal immigrant car wash workers, hotel and motel maids, factory workers, etc will feel the backlash from this. Where are they going to get the rags from?
You should know better than to watch an ABC affiliate, it’s not good for the blood pressure. Cable/Dish is a must so you can watch Glenn Beck or even Lou Dobbs.
Earlier today a group opposed to immigration enforcement gathered and picketed around the Mickey Leland Federal Building, also where Queen Sheila Jackson Lee has her Congressional office, as reported on the noon local news. They were criticizing and lamenting the mass arrests as usual at the rag factory. Estimated crowd size by the media varied but one station reported that it was dozens. It was hard to tell if that number was exaggerated as usual from the angle of the shots I saw.
Leapin lizards, somebody call the White House.
Please call them INVADERS and don’t compare them to people who are legal aliens!
IF you aid and abet CRIMINALS, you are a criminal!
Start building the fence.
It should be made a felony for Criminals who overstay their visas and Invaders.
I believe we should give amnesty to these poor
CRIMINALS or INVADERS.
This should be a 2 week amnesty to get the heck
out of our Country.
The ones who ignore this amnesty should be buried in
a tent city jail and fined $10,000 or buried elsewhere.
All aiders and abettors of these CRIMINALS or INVADERS
should get 1 year in a tent city jail and a $10,000 fine
for each CRIMINAL aided.
Those in government should be the first ones charged.
Starting in DC, is what you mean. Correct?
The ones who do not follow their oath to guarantee the
states a republican form of government and protect the
states from invasion.
That starts at the WH.
The only way to really stop illegal immigration is to clamp down hard on those who hire them. Without jobs the illegals won’t be coming over the borders in numbers so we need to make hiring illegals a very risky proposition.
“ICE did not provide statistics on the number of employers criminally charged last year.”
Why not? This should be public record.
“The office of investigation is looking at allegations of the hiring of illegal aliens, which is a crime,”
Yeah...apparently the Federal Government isn’t aware.
They are the largest employer in the nation of illegal aliens.
It is my understanding that the general government cannot 'protect the states from invasion' until the States formally petition Washington that they are being invaded.
I wonder if any of the States have bothered doing that?
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