Federal agents have arrested 26 more illegal immigrants at Newark Liberty International Airport, continuing a crackdown that began a week ago and has netted 158 illegal immigrants, officials said.
The arrests are part of a Department of Homeland Security investigation into Southwestern smuggling rings that charge migrants up to $2,000 to sneak them across the U.S.-Mexican border and fly them into Newark, officials said. No one has been arrested on criminal charges.
"We know that these smuggling operations don't care for the safety of the aliens that they're bringing in and that people are exploited," said Mike Gilhooly, spokesman for the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau. "The goal of our investigation is to identify and dismantle these criminal organizations."
But the illegal immigrants' ability to board jetliners, in some cases using fraudulent identification, is raising concern over possible gaps in airport security. And the arrests, occurring at a time when thousands of migrants are returning to the United States for the summer work season, are sparking fear within the immigrant community.
"It's insane," said Peter Gadiel, founder of 9/11 Families for a Safer America, an organization of people whose relatives perished in the 2001 terrorist attacks that is now calling for tougher immigration enforcement. "This is a daily event, the fact that it was discovered does not make it unique, it just means that for once someone turned them in."
The illegal immigrants posed no threat to security because they had been checked against terrorist watch lists and scanned for contraband by federal airport screeners, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said.
"They shouldn't be on the plane, they shouldn't be in the United States," said department spokesman Dennis Murphy. "The question then is 'Were they a threat?' And the answer is 'no' because of the procedures we have in place."
Last Thursday, federal agents arrested 88 suspected illegal immigrants as they walked off a Continental Airlines flight from Los Angeles. On Saturday, 44 more were arrested after arriving from Los Angeles.
In the most recent arrests, 20 passengers were detained Tuesday after leaving a Continental Airlines flight from Los Angeles at 3:30 p.m. One person who came to meet the group also was arrested on immigration charges, Gilhooly said.
Two hours later, three passengers were arrested as they got off an American Airlines flight, along with two others who came to meet them at the airport.
The migrants were from Mexico and other Latin American countries and were coming here to work, officials said.
It is not against the law for illegal immigrants to fly. To board a domestic flight, passengers are required to present a government-issued photo identification card.
Two immigrant advocates who have spoken with more than a dozen of the detainees said the Mexican IDs used by many of the migrants were fraudulent.
"They had photo IDs that they bought on the streets of Los Angeles," said Joel Maggallán, executive director of Associación Tepeyac, a New York-based advocacy group, who had spoken with several detainees.
The number of migrants traveling north across the border and within the United States typically rises dramatically each spring as seasonal workers arrive to work in the agriculture, construction and landscaping industries.
The detainees are being held at federal immigration lockups in Elizabeth and Queens and at the Monmouth County jail, while they await deportation or a hearing before an immigration judge, according to an official with the Mexican consulate in New York City.
Some had lived in the area and were returning after a visit home. Others were coming to the United States for the first time.
Most have already signed papers agreeing not to fight deportation.
"They didn't even know what they were signing," said Marguerite Marty, a staff attorney with American Friends Service Committee, who has met with 15 of the detainees. "They just want to go home."
Yesterday, officials with Asociación Tepeyac were warning illegal immigrants not to fly on domestic flights and to stay away from airports.
Maggallán said he was skeptical of statements by federal officials characterizing the incidents as a crackdown on the smugglers known as coyotes. Rather, he believes it was an attempt to discourage more migrants from leaving Mexico.
"When they were checking in L.A. they know they don't have documents," said Maggallán. "I don't think this is about the coyotes."Brian Donohue covers immigration issues. He can be reached at bdonohue@starledger.com or (973) 392-1543.
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