Posted on 08/04/2005 4:19:52 PM PDT by 4.1O dana super trac pak
Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday called last week’s federal roundup of 119 illegal aliens in Clark County "terribly planned" and wondered if it was "done for headlines." "Very little thought was given to what would happen to the children, who are by the way American citizens," Huckabee said on his monthly radio show. "I hope the next time the feds will operate with a little more common sense."
After the radio show Huckabee told reporters he would have at least given the illegal aliens a few days to gather belongings and figure out living arrangements for their children.
A spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau in New Or- leans said later that the agency doesn’t know whether the 30 to 35 children left behind after the raid are American citizens. "Our goal was to arrest people who have broken the law," said the spokesman, Temple Black. "And, in fact, these people had actual U.S. citizens’ documents and U.S. citizens’ birth certificates and U.S. citizens’ Social Security cards. These are folks that were breaking the law and were here illegally, of course. Whether it would be appropriate to give people who were lawbreakers five or six days’ notice I would have to say, ‘ No. ’"
The July 26 raid took place at the Petit Jean Poultry Inc. deboning plant at Gum Springs, just south of Arkadelphia. Poultry plant officials said they had no way of knowing the workers were illegal, since the workers had provided identification and were hired through the state’s employment security division.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Fort Smith has said the raid grew out of an investigation into a multistate identity-brokerage ring in which U.S. citizens sold documents containing their identifying information to a person in Arizona, who mailed them to a woman in Arkadelphia for resale to illegal aliens in the Clark County area.
Black said, "We as an agency are doing our best to restore the integrity of the U.S. immigration system by trying to arrest those who violate immigration and employment laws. Just for the record, the governor has not contacted either our offices or the local offices or our headquarters to discuss this issue. And we’d be more than happy to meet with him to discuss the issue."
Huckabee spokesman Jim Harris later wouldn’t say whether the governor had called the federal immigration service to express his concerns or whether he planned to do so.
On his show on the Arkansas Radio Network, Huckabee said that "we have a team of people in Arkadelphia" trying to help the children left behind. He said that includes representatives of his office and of the state Department of Human Services. "There was a total lack of communication between federal authorities and local officials, particularly the sheriff," Huckabee said. "He has an absolute right to be informed of something like this."
Black said that federal officials informed the Arkansas State Police of the raid and asked that state police inform the sheriff. But Black said he didn’t know how soon before the raid state police were informed.
Huckabee said the person behind the document scheme should be prosecuted with the "most intense hand of the law" because that person is "making money on the backs of the poorest persons in our labor force."
He also complained that the federal officials should have given the state more time "to assume the responsibilities" for caring for the children. "I have a lot of sympathy for the kids," Huckabee said.
Speaking to reporters after the show, Huckabee said his staff has found it hard to gather information in Arkadelphia to help the children because people who could help fear deportation themselves. "It’s a big mess," he said. "People are scared to death that they are going to be rounded up."
Asked if he would have preferred the federal officials allow the illegal aliens to stay in Arkansas, Huckabee said there’s a difference between "an illegal person working at a job plucking chickens — that’s what he’s doing illegal — and a person who is robbing a bank. Is there somehow some public threat that we wouldn’t even let them get their children from day care, sit down with social workers and figure out what the heck we’re going to do with a 6-year-old?
" I mean if you can’t see the distinction on those things, I can’t help you. "
He added that the illegal aliens" shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to stay. But do we not have time to sit down and bring them in and say, ‘ Look, you’re illegal, but we’re at least going to let you have six days to gather your belongings and figure out what to do with your kids’? "I resent the implication that people are making that they are illegal and they ought to be dragged out like common thugs and hauled off to sit in jails.
" We’re now paying money to feed and house them in a jail space that we’re not putting meth [amphetamine] dealers in. "Is a chicken plucker a greater threat than a meth dealer or a terrorist or an armed robber?
" I don’t think so. "
Black repeated statements last week that during the raid the agency had interpreters who asked whether any of the 119 had children and none said they had. He acknowledged that the workers possibly feared that authorities would round up children, also.
Black said that none of the illegal aliens seized in the Clark County raid remain in Arkansas jails. He said authorities took some to the federal agency’s facility in Texarkana. He estimated that perhaps 80 of the 119 spent one or two nights in Arkansas jails.
He said 107 have returned voluntarily to Mexico. Two were mandated to return because of outstanding orders of deportation from the United States. The remaining 10 got notice to appear before a federal immigration judge to decide their status.
Black said his telephone has been constantly ringing because of press inquiries about the raid. He said Univision, a Spanish language television channel based in Los Angeles, had a crew in Arkadelphia working on a story about the raid.
From 1995 to 2000, Arkansas had the fourth-fastest growth rate of immigrants in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Between 1990 and 2000, the estimated number of illegal immigrants in Arkansas increased from 5,000 to 27,000, according to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. The state’s total population approximates 2.7 million. According to the 2000 U.S. Census the Hispanic population in Arkansas numbers about 86,000.
During the most recent Arkansas legislative session, Huckabee backed a bill to let illegal aliens receive statefunded college scholarships and opposed a bill that would have denied state funds to illegal aliens. Both bills failed.
I think Huckabee is suffering from a very bad case of White Guilt.
And I doubt that it will win him any votes for any future office he seeks.
Well, don't you think that it's time for this bleeding heart to get mugged or robbed by those cuddly illegals? Maybe it will change his frame of mind.
Wait! He's being robbed and mugged by them already but he does not have the sense to understand that they do it on the installment plan...rising insurance costs along with rising tax rates.
I think every illegal alien in my state needs to pack their bags and head to Arkansas. Apparently the folks there want as many Mexicans as they can get- at least they don't get rid of their governor who does.
Too bad David Koresh and his followers didn't all renounce their citizenship. Then they would have been illegal aliens and the Feds would have tiptoed quietly away from them.
I hope all the signs in the Clinton Library and Massage Parlor are in espanol.
They could use a bump in attendance. :0
I daresay the plant management knew. And so did the state's employment security division. And if ICE wanted to look into it, they would know that they knew. But...
That's a part of the law that could use changing. If it were done here like it is in most other places, the illegal immigration would drop to a trickle.
I cannot understand how these 'illegals' keep 'slipping through' the system [assuming someone/many aren't looking the other way].
Being a WASP, every time I have been offered a job in the last 30 years, I've had to provide 2 forms of identification, one of which HAD to be a photo ID.
Huck is worried about Tyson work force.
Thank you, senores and senoras, for putting your own children in this situation.
and the governor proves our point about "anchor babies".
"Huck is worried about Tyson work force."
How much of his political contributions are from the chicken processing industry?
RE: "he would have at least given the illegal aliens a few days to gather belongings "
Since the money they used to buy those things was earned illegally, their belongings should be siezed just like the belonging that drug dealers buy with their illegally earned money.
round em up and throw them out.
It is about time that enforcement started. They had a chance to mention their kids. I don't believe in anchor babies..throw the parents out anyway. We should not be giving citizen ship to illegal kids.
And I hope they are afraid..I hope they are so afraid that they leave.
The employers are slime who are polluting our country.
"Very little thought was given to what would happen to the children"
I have given much thought to the children of our invaders.They should be put up for adoption.
ping
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After the radio show Huckabee told reporters he would have at least given the illegal aliens a few days to gather belongings and figure out living arrangements for their children.
Quisling: a synonym for traitor, someone who collaborates with the invaders of his country.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
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