Posted on 07/23/2006 12:38:38 PM PDT by Pikamax
ARKADELPHIA, Ark. — The immigration agents arrived at the Petit Jean Poultry plant just before the 7:30 breakfast break, armed and dressed in khaki uniforms. They went straight to the room where more than 100 Mexican workers in tan smocks were cutting up chicken, then shouted in Spanish for everyone to freeze.
Some workers started crying. A few made quick cellphone calls, alerting relatives to care for children who would soon be left behind. The plant manager watched as 119 workers — half his day-shift crew — were bound with plastic handcuffs and taken to a detention center, from which most would be deported to Mexico.
Immigration officials said they were cracking down on document fraud and illegal hiring. But what happened after the raid last July came as a surprise to many people in this conservative Bible Belt region: Instead of feeling reassured that immigration laws were being enforced, many felt that their community had been disrupted.
The Petit Jean workers had come to be more than low-wage poultry processors. They were church friends, classmates and teammates in the local softball league. And so some residents responded to the raid by helping workers fight deportation, driving them to court and writing to lawmakers for help. Others donated money, food and clothing to the families of workers detained or sent back to Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
From government freebies to local charities. Did the taxpayers' children eat that day or will their desk at college be taken by an illegal?
It always amazes me how willing these people are to leave their children behind. Even more amazing is the fact that they have the stones to blame us for it.
There have been more murders done by criminals who overstay their visas and or those who just invade our country than occurred during 911.
Because they occur by ones or fives or so, they seem to have less impact than 911 but these Americans are just as dead and their families are just as torn up.
Anybody who aids or abets these criminals are guilty of these murders also.
"bound with plastic handcuffs and taken to a detention center, from which most would be deported to Mexico."
Hooray!
"Instead of feeling reassured that immigration laws were being enforced, many felt that their community had been disrupted."
ESAD, liberal wankers.
The L.A. Times, objective as always.
With 15 million, or more, illegal aliens the government can find only 2,100 YTD? Let's all trust them to enforce new laws and programs...NOT.
This "bleeding heart" article is a classic case of human irrationality and the desire to "have your cake and eat it too."
A. If our immigration laws are enforced and lawbreakers are sent home, of course there will be human sorrow, family disruptions, people uprooted, etc.
B. At the same time, the dangers of not enforcing our laws are obvious and the complaints about that are growing daily.
Sometimes the same people hold to both A and B: they complain about the hardships, but they want the laws enforced too.
Get real folks. You can't have both. Either enforce the laws and live with the hardships, or be "Mr. Nice Guy" and ignore the law.
The trouble with the latter approach is that its ultimate consequences will be far more tragic than today's sob stories.
BTTT
In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the creation of a new Customs and Border Protection Officer (CBPO) position and the “One Face at the Border” initiative. Under this plan, a new position, the CBPO, would combine the duties of legacy inspectors from Customs, the Immigration and Nationalization Service (INS) and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) into a single front-line border security position. With 41,000 employees, CBP is in control of 317 official ports-of-entry for travelers and cargo.
Essentially, the “One Face at the Border” initiative was aimed at unifying the inspection process that travelers entering the United States have to go through. Instead of making three stops – an Immigration Inspector, a Customs Inspector and an Agriculture Inspector – travelers would meet with a single primary inspections officer who was specially trained to do the job of all three.
Consolidating these three organizations has caused logistical and institutional chaos and has taken attention away from critical homeland security priorities. It is true that all three of these organizations deal with front line border and port security, but they do so in very different capacities.
Please email your Members of Congress asking them to oppose the "One Face at the Border" initiative and support a detailed, independent review of the proposal.
"This 'bleeding heart" article points out that Pilot Program of the employee verification system doesn't work. If it doesn't work with a few thousand employers, what will happen when every employer must use it for new hires? Or when every employee must be verified?
This person should have been wearing plastic wrist bracelets as well. That's 119 counts of aiding and abetting, as well as conspiracy to commit.
L
What a crock......interesting that the Times, in their sympathy sucking whine, left out part of the story........
http://www.americas.org/item_21034
"The raid left about 30 children, some as young as three months old, suddenly without caretakers. “A lot of those families had kids in day care in different places, and they didn’t know why Mommy and Daddy didn’t come pick them up,” said Arkadelphia mayor Charles Hollingshead. Black, the ICE spokesperson, claimed on July 29 that each person arrested was asked whether they had children. “We interviewed every person and asked that specific question, and we were told that there were none,” he said. Clark County Sheriff Troy Tucker said that if ICE had informed his office about the raid, his deputies would have made sure the agents knew about the children, some of whom had been in the local public schools for years. “They’re not doing their job by simply questioning them and asking them whether they have children and not contacting anyone locally,” said Tucker. (CNN 7/30/05 from AP) Tucker was peeved that ICE never informed his office about the pending raid. “The only advance notice we got was a radio transmission from a [state] trooper who was with [the ICE agents],” he said. (SH 7/28/05)
In a July 27 news release, ICE said the raid stemmed from an “investigation into the sale of U.S. citizen birth certificates and Social Security cards that culminated in the December 2004 arrest of a former Petit Jean employee,” Maria Moreno. Sheriff Tucker said his office began the original investigation: “We called Border Patrol and Immigration in on that one,” he complained. Information from the investigation was compared to the company’s employment records, Petit Jean manager Ronnie Farnam confirmed. ICE spokesperson Black said agents got an administrative search warrant from the U.S. District Court in Little Rock and conducted the employee audit with help from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general’s office.
Moreno worked in the plant’s personnel office for at least 10 years before leaving in 2003. She is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty February 14 in U.S. District Court at Hot Springs to one count of selling five or more identification documents, one count of possessing another person’s Social Security card, and one count of possessing a Social Security card with intent to sell.
Carl Rusnok, a spokesperson in the ICE office in Dallas, Texas, said on July 27 that he did not know how many, if any, of the arrested workers had received documents from Moreno. Rusnok said some of the workers had already been sent back to Mexico, while others were placed in local jails and in an ICE facility at Texarkana. Rusnok said the investigation was continuing, and more arrests were possible. (AD-G 7/28/05; SH 7/28/05; WT 7/28/05) With a fifth of its workers arrested, and others staying away for fear of future raids, the plant has scaled down to three production lines, from 10 before the raid. (SH 7/28/05).
Pilot Program of employee verification system had nothing to do with it. See above.
"Arkadelphia residents Dr. Wesley Kluck,..."
Kind of funny, a story about the INS raid of a poultry processing plant that has a character named Kluck in it. Otherwise, keep up the good work.
Cheers
By my count that's 15 years in Club Fed. Throw the book at her and make the sentences be served consecutively instead of concurrently.
L
If you read the article, the chicken plant manager talks about checking the new employees thru the system and they all clear.
Photo opp "Catch and Release" again?
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