Free Republic

United States Attorney Terrance P. Flynn announced the arraignments on the indictments of 11 defendants, from New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. A local man, Jesus Francisco Escalante of Dunkirk, was one of those arraigned Wednesday in the Western District of New York along with Sergio Antonio Resendiz Martinez of Salamanca; Honorio Banda Mireles of Bradford; Maurilio Bautista Feria of Allegany; Javier Banda Mireles of Depew; Miguel Angel Antimo Mireles of New Martinsville, W.Va.; Alvaro Soto Paz and Agustin Quinones Torres, both of Willoughby, Ohio and Alejandro Garcia of Wheeling, W.Va. Simon Banda Mireles of Depew and Alberto Antimo...

Farmers would have an easier and cheaper time securing foreign guest workers under pending Bush administration rules. The controversial changes to the so-called H-2A guest-worker program could cut wages and speed worker recruitment. They also would relax requirements for providing foreign workers with housing and transportation. "The Department of Labor is going to weaken oversight and enforcement," Bruce Goldstein, the executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, charged Wednesday. A Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday night that the final rules would be made public Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18, which means they'd take effect two...

Poll is here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/12_06_08_henderson/

The Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division expressed doubt Tuesday that it could provide assistance following the Postville City Council's declaration of the town as a humanitarian and economic disaster area. Disaster declarations are based on natural emergencies, "so I don't know how that would qualify," said division spokesman Bret Voorhees. The resolution, passed unanimously by the council Monday night, was sent to state officials Tuesday in an effort to secure financial assistance for the community devastated after a May 12 federal immigration raid that led to the recent closing of town's leading employer, kosher meatpacker Agriprocessors Inc. Voorhees...

PHOENIX -- Arizona businesses seem to be losing interest in illegal immigration issues. Public Opinion Research recently asked a sample of state businesses how critical the illegal immigration issue is to their business. "What we found out was that only 10 percent said that it is critical," said researcher Mike O'Neil. Another 14 percent said immigration issues are "very important," while 56 percent said they were not important. About 200 of 3,000 Arizona small businesses contacted responded to the Arizona Economic Indicators survey. Three-quarters of the respondents said Arizona's employers sanctions law -- which imposes tough penalties on employers who...

GRAND PRAIRIE – Tina Belcher was mowing the lawn last spring when she noticed her house falling apart. "It crumbled like crackers," he said. "The whole thing fell off in my hand. I thought, 'Oh no, this isn't going to work.' " Up to 600 homes in North Texas face similar decay in the coming year as a result of low-quality bricks that infiltrated the market three years ago, say brick industry builders and distributors. They have traced the faulty bricks to Camargo, a Mexican manufacturer that shipped them to Landmark Brick, a Collin County-based distributor. Both have gone out...

Strict limits are to be imposed on immigration amid fears that unemployment rises in the economic downturn will fuel racial tension. Phil Woolas, in his first interview since taking over as Immigration Minister, said that he wanted to see a dramatic reduction in the number of migrants coming to Britain. In what many will see as extraordinary remarks for a Labour minister, he told The Times that the economic backdrop changed everything. “If people are being made unemployed, the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny . . . It’s been too easy to get into this country in the past...

About 150 Muslim workers have been fired from a Grand Island meatpacking plant in a dispute over prayer... Plant officials at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant are bringing in Cuban workers to replace them...

The woman who lived with Valentino Vasquez Miranda said he left her bed as her lover and returned an alleged killer, according to her testimony Friday in the case of an Alabama homecoming queen who was sodomized and slain inside a West Knox County motel room. Rosa Rodriquez Hernandez said she thought Miranda, her 19-year-old boyfriend and father of her 19-month-old daughter, had gone for a beer when he left the Days Inn room they shared just before 4 a.m. on Sept. 20. "I woke up (as he was leaving)," she testified in Knox County General Sessions Court. "He asked...

The woman who lived with Valentino Vasquez Miranda said he left her bed as her lover and returned an alleged killer, according to her testimony Friday in the case of an Alabama homecoming queen who was sodomized and slain inside a West Knox County motel room. Rosa Rodriquez Hernandez said she thought Miranda, her 19-year-old boyfriend and father of her 19-month-old daughter, had gone for a beer -Snip- "I woke up (as he was leaving)," she testified in Knox County General Sessions Court. "He asked me for the keys." Those keys included a master key card that allowed the pair...

Waukesha Police say an illegal alien has confessed to the sexual assault of a physically disabled woman. Police arrested Juan Carlos Rojas-Sierra, 34, who they say admitted to the crime. "He ended up confessing to breaking into the apartment and sexually assaulting this woman," said Waukesha Police Captain Mark Stigler. The crime occurred last month on the 2800 block of University Drive in Waukesha. "The suspect in this case actually lived in that area and had prior passing contact with the victim," states Stigler. "That's how she knew who she was and where she lived. "This is not a crime...

Melamine Found in Chocolate Products From China South Korea's food watchdog has detected quantities of melamine, an industrial chemical, in chocolate products from foodstuff giants Nestle SA, Mars Inc. and South Korea's Lotte that were manufactured in China, Yonhap News reported Saturday. The Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) said 2.38 parts per million (ppm) and 1.78 ppm of the toxic substance was discovered in samples of M&M's Milk and Peanut Snickers Fun Size products, respectively, from Mars Korea. A Kit Kat bar from Nestle Korea was also found to contain 2.89 ppm of melamine, the agency said. The...

CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Some construction subcontractors have complained to the Bradley County Commission that competitors are hiring illegal workers and driving them out of business. “It seems to be getting out of hand,” local contractor Jerry Chess said. “I’d say I’ve lost 65 percent of my business this year.” Troy Smith, a masonry contractor, agreed that the problem lies with general contractors and homeowners. Employers go to locations like one on Georgetown Road where unemployed people gather, hire them for the day and pay them in the evening in cash, he said. Mr. Chess, who employs six workers legally, said...

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said 80 workers were thrown out after an altercation late Thursday. He said when they tried to return for their shift Friday, they were fired, along with 70 others. Muslim workers have been asking for accommodations with break times to allow prayer at sunset. The issue led to walkouts this week -- not only from Muslims but from non-Muslims who protested such accommodations as preferential treatment.

GRAND ISLAND — About 50 to 80 Muslims quit at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant Thursday night. Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local No. 22, said the matter stems from the recent debate over break time for the purpose of prayer during the holy month of Ramadan. "There were some Muslim people who wanted to get the rest of the people to back them to moving their (dinner) break to an earlier time, and when that did not happen, the rest of the people went back to work and those people protesting...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The men gather early on street corners here in storm-battered Houston, ready for the jobs they know will come their way, sweeping up broken glass and clearing downed trees and debris from city streets. They speak mostly Spanish, while looking warily at strangers. And these undocumented, also called illegal, immigrants worry that instead of a job and a day's wages, they might instead find themselves arrested and deported. Indeed, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which left a trail of destruction across southeast Texas, America's ongoing debate over U.S. immigration policy is again aflame. On the one...

Just as Mexico was becoming the rising star of global manufacturing in the 1990s, China's even cheaper wages turned that country into the world's factory. But now, with skyrocketing oil prices, escalating labor costs in China, and an appreciating currency there, companies targeting the US market are doing the math and giving Mexico another look. So-called "nearshoring" could generate a reverse globalization that brings manufacturing back to Mexico. "China was like a recent graduate, hitting the job market for the first time and willing to work for next to nothing," says German Dominguez, who advises companies that are considering producing...

BENTONVILLE, Ark., September 10, 2008 – Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer and a leading private employer of Hispanics, will celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, September 1 – October 15, by providing its customers and the Hispanic community with valuable information and resources for the pursuit of higher education. Wal-Mart’s commitment to supporting education initiatives will be featured in a national campaign that will coincide with the launch of a Spanish-language website, AhorraMasViveMejor.com, aimed at facilitating and empowering moms and kids to access information on higher education and school funding.

NEAR MISSION - Police say a suspected illegal immigrant working for a Democratic state representative brutally beat another man to death with a bat Monday morning. Froylen Casares, 24, was working at a ranch owned by state Rep. Kino Flores near the intersection of North Tropser and Yukon Roads when he killed a young Hispanic male whose name authorities have not released, said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño. "It was a very bloody, very bloody, very gruesome crime scene," Treviño said. Authorities continue to search for Casares, of Honduras, who fled the scene before they arrived at about 5:30 a.m....

<p>LAUREL, Miss. (AP) - A day after the largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, Elizabeth Alegria was too scared to send her son to school and worried about when she'd see her husband again.</p> <p>Nearly 600 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally were detained, creating panic among dozens of families in this small southern Mississippi town.</p>

Link Only

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Federal immigration agents raided a major manufacturing plant in south Mississippi on Monday, but it wasn't immediately clear how many illegal workers were taken into custody. Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said the target of the operation was Howard Industries Inc. in Laurel, a town of about 18,000 people located about 85 miles southeast of Jackson. Howard Industries produces dozens of products, ranging from electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to the company's Web site. "This is a targeted enforcement operation that is part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed...

U.S. officials have arrested a man in East Los Angeles who is suspected in the gruesome 1998 killing of 19 men, women and children in Baja California...... Mancada, 33, is accused of being one of several military-clad gunmen who stormed a ranch in El Sauzal, near Ensenada, on Sept. 17, 1998, pulled victims from their beds, herded them onto a patio and shot them to death. Among the victims were children ages 2 and 1. ... Mancada, 33, told U.S. immigration officials that he crossed into San Ysidro in December 1998 and spent the last decade living in California and...

SPRINGFIELD - The owner of Toni's Family Restaurant in Mount Clare pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to unlawful employment of illegal aliens. Besim Tabaku, 34, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife, Gentiana, 31, is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Court Judge Byron C. Cudmore on Oct. 23. Authorities confirmed to The Telegraph in May that two federal search warrants were executed (at Toni's Family Restaurant and a Benld residence) on May 28, resulting in four Mexican nationals being taken into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on suspicion of immigration violations. However, ICE spokeswoman...

A third complaint has been filed by a former employee of U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan's car dealership, Sarasota Ford, claiming the company employed at least eight illegal immigrants. Richard Thomas, a former director of fixed operations at Sarasota Ford, alleges in a lawsuit filed in Sarasota County Circuit Court that Buchanan had illegal immigrants working both at his dealership and at the congressman's home. "Buchanan had imported them to do work on his house, specifically the rock work and the floors," the lawsuit states. "He provided them sleeping quarters in the office beside the store."

Immigration reform activist Susan Tully says it's completely outrageous that the Los Angeles City Council is considering an ordinance that would require large, new home-improvement stores to set aside space for day laborers seeking employment from customers. According to the LA Daily News, the proposed ordinance has already been approved by the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, but must still be approved by the entire council. It would mandate that new home-improvement stores that meet the size criteria provide a shelter that is easily accessible to the day laborers and equipped with drinking water, bathrooms, tables with seating, and...

Brace yourself, Los Angeles. A storm has been building for four years over a controversial city ordinance on day laborers that has infuriated conservatives nationwide, and it's about to break -- perhaps as early as this week. The ordinance, which was approved last week by the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee and will soon appear before the full council, requires home-improvement chains seeking to build new big-box stores or renovate existing ones to submit "day laborer operating standards" to the city. These standards don't require the stores to build shelters for the workers, but if day laborers...

"LOS ANGELES -- Companies that open large home-improvement stores in Los Angeles would have to set aside space for day laborers under an ordinance unanimously approved today by a City Council committee." "If passed, the ordinance would require new home improvement stores that are 100,000 square feet or larger, or any building or structure where 250,000 square feet or more of warehouse floor area is added, to set aside space for day laborers seeking employment from customers." "The shelters would have to be easily accessible and equipped with drinking water, bathrooms, tables with seating and trash facilities." "Bethany Leal with...

German Andrade for about 15 years lifted, loaded and carried out other physically demanding jobs as an illegal immigrant. Then came the bucket. It crashed from a skid loader onto Andrade's left foot at a landscaping work site. Fractures led to a lingering limp, which led to back problems and, said a judge, a 45 percent loss of earning capacity. At the time of the accident, Andrade, a husband and father in his early 30s, was earning $12 an hour. Andrade's case took a public twist when his Sarpy County employer balked at forking over injury-related workers' compensation - and...

The owner of a downtown Los Angeles sushi restaurant facing wage payment claims by two alleged undocumented workers has launched a novel counterattack by filing a class-action lawsuit against the California labor commissioner for defying federal immigration law. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 24, 2008 California Employer Sues State Over Wage Claims for Illegal Workers The owner of a downtown Los Angeles sushi restaurant facing wage payment claims by two alleged undocumented workers has launched a novel counterattack by filing a class-action lawsuit against the California labor commissioner for defying federal immigration law. Masayoshi Kaji of Sushi Sharin argues that the commissioner’s policy...

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed into law today legislation that will make it harder for illegal aliens living in the state to receive benefits and harder to find jobs. The new legislations requires all public employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the legality of a potential employee and requires and individual to prove their citizenship status before receiving state benefits such as food stamps and housing. The bill also punishes those localities that adopt policies to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Missouri joins Arizona, Oklahoma, and Georgia in instituting state-wide anti-illegal immigration laws. So far, the laws...

In 1983, when the seafood processing plants on the New Bedford waterfront broke the back of the Seafarer's Union, the starting salary for a line worker was around $7.50 an hour. Twenty-five years later, the starting salary for processing and packing workers at the New Bedford fish houses was about the same, $7.50 an hour.

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...

New Haven (AP) _ A family of Ecuadorean immigrants has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the owners of a New Haven bakery shop where they worked of sexually and verbally abusing them for years. They also allege the owners refused to pay the minimum wage or overtime and threatened to deport them if they complained. The unusual lawsuit by undocumented immigrants was filed earlier this month under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Olger Nestor Urena Flores and members of his family are making the allegations against Antonio DiBenedetto and his wife, Anna, who own Rocco's Bakery in New Haven and...

Leaders across Latin America have reacted angrily to a new EU law that could jail illegal immigrants for up to 18 months before they are deported. One president called it a hate initiative. Another said it was an attack on people's rights and lives. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans live and work in Europe, many of them without permission. Many do jobs that Europeans do not want to do, providing a vital source of income for poor families back home. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez led the reaction, threatening to cut oil exports to Europe unless the EU retracted the...

Portland, Oregon, possibly vying to be the most liberal city on the west coast, recently set up a day labor site for American employers to come and hire Illegal Immigrants looking for work (here and here) The site opened for “business” Monday, June 16, 2008, with little initial interest from local employers, shy of possible media exposure. The second day brought a little interest and a local man protesting the city of Portland encouraging Illegal Activity within city limits. He called the Victoria Taft Radio Program this evening to report that for sitting on the curb in the driveway, holding...

ATLANTA (AP) — Hispanic workers die at higher rates than other laborers, with 1 in 3 of these deaths occurring in the construction industry, a government study reported Thursday. Hispanics tend to hold more high-risk jobs than those in other racial groups, but language and literacy barriers and poor training and supervision may also be factors, researchers said. The leading causes of death in recent years have been falls and highway-related accidents. "Many of the Hispanic workers in construction are undocumented, and many of those who are recently arrived do face a language barrier," said Rakesh Kochhar, associated director for...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After the biggest immigration raid in U.S. history, hundreds of workers have been sentenced but not one company official as yet faces any charges — something critics say is typical of a federal government that is tough on employees but easy on owners. Worker advocates and lawmakers say the fact that nearly 400 workers were arrested in the May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville — or more than one-third of the total number of employees — proves that company officials must have known they were hiring illegal immigrants. "Until we enforce...

A family owned commercial fishing business in Virginia and two of its owners paid $6.8 million in fines and forfeitures after pleading guilty to hiring 126 illegal aliens to work on their boats. The charge is a misdemeanor and federal prosecutors had recommended home confinement in addition to the monetary penalties, but U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson sentenced Yvonne Michelle Peabody, the company’s vice president, to three months in prison. At the sentencing hearing last month, the judge said he was making an example out of Peabody, who had served on the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Council’s law enforcement subcommittee at...

A southwest Houston business owner who was shot twice as two men robbed him of $45,000 in cash is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, Houston police said. The owner was paying employees of his construction company on May 10 when two men entered the business and demanded the money, HPD robbery investigator Art Mejia said during a news conference Wednesday. The 36-year-old owner of Stone Brick Home and Corporation declined comment and he and police withheld his name because they said he fears being attacked again. The man has recovered from his wounds, Mejia said....

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday added to an Iraq spending bill a controversial provision to help pave the way for undocumented agriculture workers to win legal status, a move that may reopen the divisive immigration debate on the Senate floor. The so-called Ag-Jobs amendment, sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would create a process that allows undocumented workers to continue to work on farms. Without the amendment, Feinstein warned that the U.S. would lose $5-9 billion to foreign competition, tens of thousands of farms would shut down and 80,000 workers would be transferred to Mexico....

Drivers along Interstate 85 on Monday saw an unusual site along the side of the road. Numerous people were lying face down along I- 85 just after the Highway 9 exit. A News Channel 7 photographer was on the scene as 16 people were taken into custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington D.C. tells News Channel 7 that a Spartanburg County Deputy stopped a van on I-85 and called the ICE team to investigate. 14 men and two women were taken into custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says all are from Mexico and Quatemala and appear to be in...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like "cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday. China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan. "The bustling child labor market (in Sichuan province) was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage...

In pressuring Congress to expand the H-1B work visa and employment-based green card programs, industry lobbyists have recently adopted a new tack. Seeing that their past cries of a tech labor shortage are contradicted by stagnant or declining wages, their new buzzword is innovation. Building on their perennial assertion that the foreign workers are “the best and the brightest,” they now say that continued U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) hinges on our ability to import the world’s best engineers and scientists. Yet, this Backgrounder will present new data analysis showing that the vast majority of the...

I want to call la migra on my neighbors. It's not just that I hate the other tenants in my building, or that I want to see some upfront constituent service from noted blackface authority Julie L. Myers, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's not only that I think I might get better treatment from my prick landlord if several units in the building were forcibly emptied. I'm not even sure how well calling in a raid from ICE would work: I have good reason to believe that the only family in the building I like is out...

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., against the men targeted in a five-state investigation into harboring illegal aliens spells out a detailed plan alleging skimmed money and forced labor. Last Wednesday, Jorge Delarco, who federal officials say is really Simon Banda, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, as were 10 of his associates. Delarco owns or operates restaurants in New York state, Ohio and West Virginia, as well as La Herradura in Bradford. Raids on restaurants and homes netted 45 illegal aliens last week, according to federal officials. Officials in Georgia were involved...

Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually and, besides the well-documented areas of education, jail and medical care, the money is being spent on manpower for overwhelmed government agencies. A renowned economist, who has thoroughly researched the impact of illegal immigration and published numerous reports and articles, recently published an alarming alarming book on the subject. In his book, Edwin Rubenstein exposes the GARGANTUAN COSTS of illegal aliens. The book supports previous reports of U.S. employers of illegal aliens raking in billions thanks to the cheap labor while American taxpayers subsidize the ordeal. U.S. prisons are also overwhelmed with...

An illegal immigrant investigation involving smuggling is underway in Atlanta and it involves at least one business in Cleveland. The federal government has indicted seven people and more could be coming. The government indicted the people who supplied what it calls an illegal labor pool and smuggled these workers through several states. Next, it may target the companies that employed them. And one business is in Cleveland. The government charges four people in the Atlanta area moved illegal workers across the eastern United States for a fee. The indictment says Hong Mei Li, also known as "Jenny Li" arranged last...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he feels the pain of employers pinched by the federal government's intensified efforts to control illegal immigration. But until Congress enacts broad immigration reforms, businesses shouldn't expect any changes in enforcement. In an interview with The Associated Press, Chertoff said this week the rising complaints from businesses offer some evidence the Bush administration's approach is working. "This is harsh but accurate proof positive that for the first time in decades, we've succeeded in changing the dynamic and (are) actually beginning to reduce illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Unfortunately, unless you counterbalance that with a robust...

Source: Loudoun Times-Mirror TUESDAY, APRIL 8 2008 UPDATED WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9 2008 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 59 people in a raid April 8 at Lansdowne Resort near Leesburg. Tuesday morning, ICE agents interviewed about 100 employees, which resulted in the arrest of 53 people accused of immigration-status violations. Two female workers were released at the site for humanitarian concerns. Another six people were apprehended outside of the facility.