Posted on 04/19/2006 8:24:46 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
Immigration Officials Raid Evendale Business
Federal immigration agents and local police raided an Evendale business Wednesday and arrested more than 30 people.
The raid happened at IFCO Systems on Evendale Drive in Evendale and police say they were looking for illegal immigrants.
After about an hour, agents left escorting two white vans but they declined to say who or how many people are in their custody.
A spokesperson for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement only released this statments:
"Today's arrests and detentions are part of an ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement worksite enforcement investigation. Because the enforcement actions are ongoing, we are unable to provide further details at this time."
The local division buys and sells pallets, but the company as a whole does business worldwide and is considered a market leader
The Pubs are going to get killed in November.
BTW, here's an interesting article on FR if anyone missed it:
Migrants treated as criminals in Mexico
All I could picture when I was reading that was that smug hypocrite Vicente Fox berating the U.S. for our treatment of the poor illegal aliens. #$#%^@
What would really get the ball moving would be allowing asset forfeiture for hiring illegals and letting local governments in on the action. Bam! the situation would change overnight.
Didn't make big enough payoff to congress critters.
These raids need to continue non-stop. I want to read about busts everyday in all fifty states for the next six months.
Then, just maybe, I'll think the administration might be getting serious about the problem.
Get them on the RICO act, it is nothing less than a criminal conspiracy.
Customs officials said agents made more than a thousand arrests in nearly 40 locations including Houston, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; and Albany, New York.
A customs official said federal authorities checked a "sample" of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers.
"They were using Social Security numbers of people that were dead, of children or just different individuals that did not work at IFCO," Immigration and Customs agency chief Julie Myers told CNN.
"The Social Security Administration had written IFCO over 13 times and told them, 'Listen, You have a problem. You have over a thousand employees that have faulty Social Security numbers. And we consider that to be a big problem.' And IFCO did not do anything about it," Myers said.
In total, several hundred illegals were arrested and a total of 7 past and present executives were arrested.
They don't have the manpower.
April 20, 2006
Immigration raids held in Indy, U.S.
Crackdown targets hiring of illegal residents
By Tania E. Lopez
tania.e.lopez@indystar.com
Federal agents raided an Indianapolis pallet factory Wednesday and detained vanloads of workers as part of a nationwide crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants.
DETAINED: Four men were taken Wednesday to an immigrant processing center at 950 N. Meridian St. in Indianapolis. The men were not identified, and it was unclear where they were taken. - ROBERT SCHEER / The Star
One community leader familiar with the raid said as many as 60 were detained. Authorities would not release any numbers. Witnesses reported that vans began carrying workers away from the Southside plant in the morning and continued as late as 7 p.m.
The raids were part of a nine-state sweep Wednesday that arrested seven executives and detained hundreds of employees of IFCO Systems after a yearlong criminal investigation. IFCO officials in Indianapolis could not be reached for comment.
The sweep at IFCO Systems may have been the largest in the city for more than 10 years, according to a longtime advocate for immigrants. The Rev. Thomas Fox was among the activists who rushed to the federal office building near 10th and Illinois streets where detainees were being processed.
"We're concerned mostly for the families," said Fox as he stood in front of the building. "It's causing a lot of fear and there are women and children who are afraid to come out."
Other cities?
I don't think the "war on drugs" has been won. They're still finding tunnels and busting drug dealers in my former hometown.
"Ice is corrupt to the core." What faction of government is NOT corrupt in one way or another? Have you noticed that politicians don't consider themselves to be humble servants of the people? Oh no, they're 'powerful people'...in their own eyes. And what makes them power? Our money!
Arrests were made in nearly 40 locations including Houston, Cincinnati, Phoenix and Albany.
It'll probably be posted *here* eventually.
That's the key, will they prosecute the company executives?? If not, this is 100% GWBS.
"A national U.S. immigration sweep has netted more than 1,000 illegal workers..."
Only 11, 998,000 to go.
Department of Homeland Security Unveils Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement Strategy for the Nation’s Interior
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: ICE Public Affairs, 202-514-2648
April 20, 2006
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), today unveiled a comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy for the nation’s interior.
The new interior enforcement strategy represents the second phase of the Secure Border Initiative (SBI), which is the Department of Homeland Security’s multi-year plan to secure America’s borders and reduce illegal migration. The first phase of the SBI remains focused on gaining operational control of the nation’s borders through additional personnel and technology, while also re-engineering the detention and removal system to ensure that illegal aliens are removed from this country quickly and efficiently.
The interior enforcement strategy will complement the Department’s border security efforts by expanding existing efforts to target employers of illegal aliens and immigration violators inside this country, as well as the many criminal networks that support these activities. The primary objectives are to reverse the tolerance of illegal employment and illegal immigration in the United States. To meet these objectives, the strategy sets out three primary goals or courses of action that will be carried out simultaneously:
The first is to identify and remove criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and other immigration violators from this country.
The second is to build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment in this country.
The third is to uproot the criminal infrastructures at home and abroad that support illegal immigration, including human smuggling / trafficking organizations and document / benefit fraud organizations.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, “Illegal immigration poses an increasing threat to our security and public safety, and hard-hitting interior enforcement will reinforce the strong stance we are taking at our borders. With the interior enforcement strategy of the Secure Border Initiative, we will aggressively target the growing support systems that make it easier for aliens to enter the country and find work outside of the law. This department will counter the unscrupulous tactics of employers with intelligence-driven worksite enforcement actions and combat exploitation by dangerous smuggling organizations with the full force of the law.
ICE Assistant Secretary Myers said, “This strategy lays down a detailed roadmap for ICE and Homeland Security to pursue in addressing the massive illegal alien problem in this country. Reversing growing tolerance for the employment of illegal aliens and for illegal immigration in general is critical to achieving success in this task.”
Goal 1: Identify and remove criminal aliens, fugitives and other immigration
violators
Identify and remove incarcerated criminal aliens -- The prisons and jails in this country are estimated to book roughly 630,000 foreign-born nationals on criminal charges annually. Too often, the criminal aliens among this population are not removed from the country upon completion of their criminal sentences, but released into society. To combat this problem, ICE will expand its Criminal Alien Program and its 287(g) agreements with state/local correctional institutions to ensure these aliens are properly identified while in jail and removed immediately after serving their sentences. Currently, there are four correctional/detention facilities around the country that participate in the 287(g) program, while numerous agencies have pending requests with ICE for such agreements.
Locate and remove immigration fugitives -- There are more than 590,000 aliens at large in this country who are fugitives that have been ordered removed by an immigration judge. This number is increasing at a rate of more than 40,000 each year. ICE Fugitive Operations teams are charged with tasked with locating and arresting these fugitives. Since ICE was created in March 2003, these teams have arrested more than 42,000 aliens, of which 31,000 were fugitives. More than 29,000 of these individuals have been removed from the country. To help combat this problem, ICE will expand the number of Fugitive Operations teams from the existing 35 teams to 52 teams by the end of this fiscal year, with an additional 1,000 arrests projected per team, per year. The goal for ICE Fugitive Operation team arrests this fiscal year is approximately 25,000 arrests. ICE also plans to open a Fugitive Operation Support Center to assist field agents and officers in record checks and processing real-time leads from national computer databases.
Target and remove aliens that pose criminal / national security threats – There are numerous illegal aliens at large in this country that pose criminal and/or national security threats. ICE has created several programs to combat this problem. ICE’s Operation Community Shield targets foreign-born gang members and has resulted in the arrest of 2,400 gang members since its inception in 2005. ICE has requested 322 position enhancements for Operation Community Shield in Fiscal Year 2007. ICE also launched Operation Predator in 2003 to target, among others, illegal alien child sex offenders. This effort has resulted in more than 7,500 arrests, most of whom were alien child sex offenders. ICE also has more than 200 agents assigned to the nation’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces. Last year, these agents made roughly 270 arrests for criminal or administrative immigration charges.
Provide real-time information to law enforcement officers – The ICE Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) in Vermont provides real-time assistance 24 hours-per-day, 365 days-a-year to federal, state, and local law enforcement officers who are investigating or who have arrested foreign-born nationals involved in criminal activity. The LESC has responded to more than 1.3 million such requests in the last two fiscal years and has lodged more than 7,000 immigration detainers in response to such requests this fiscal year. ICE will be expanding the capacities of the LESC.
Goal 2: Build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment
Punish knowing and reckless employers of illegal aliens – Employers that knowingly and recklessly employ illegal aliens must be punished. ICE has already initiated a strategic shift in the way it approaches such employers by bringing criminal charges against them and seizing their illegally-derived assets -- rather than relying on the old tactic of administrative fines as sanctions. Last fiscal year, this new approach resulted in 127 criminal convictions, up from 46 the previous fiscal year. More employers are also being charged with money laundering violations, which can result in prison sentences of up to 20 years. Last year, a single ICE worksite enforcement investigation resulted in a settlement and forfeiture of $15 million, an amount that represented the largest worksite enforcement penalty in U.S. history and surpassed the sum of all administrative fines from the previous eight years. ICE seeks to enhance its worksite enforcement investigations with proposed additional funding. The Administration’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget request seeks $41.7 million in new funds and 171 additional agents to enhance ICE’s worksite enforcement efforts.
Eliminate Social Security abuses that support illegal immigration – Hundreds of thousands of workers in this country have registered “000-00-000” as a Social Security number. Millions have supplied social security numbers to their employers that do not match their names. This Social Security abuse provides a gateway for illegal aliens to obtain jobs. Currently, ICE does not have access to Social Security data to investigate these abuses. DHS is currently seeking a legislative fix in Congress that would provide ICE investigators with access to such data to combat this rampant fraud.
Work with Congress to build employer compliance systems – Employers who want to stay within the law need a clear set of rules to follow. ICE and DHS will seek to develop an administrative regulatory program to provide clearer guidance to employers.
Goal 3: Uproot the criminal infrastructure that supports illegal immigration
Target and dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations -- ICE investigations into human smuggling and trafficking organizations have resulted in 2,358 criminal convictions over the past two fiscal years. The number of ICE investigations launched into these organizations has increased from 2,564 in FY 2004 to 3,348 in FY 2005. ICE has begun applying its financial expertise to these investigations to target the illicit proceeds of these criminal organizations. ICE will continue to enhance its human smuggling and trafficking investigations and tighten its focus on the financial infrastructures of these organizations. One critical component of this effort will be the use of new Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BEST) along the Southwest border to pool intelligence information from numerous agencies to better attack these organizations. The Department of Homeland Security created a BEST in Laredo, TX, last summer that has had considerable success in targeting cross-border criminal organizations and related violent crime. Another BEST has been launched in Arizona and others are scheduled to be created in Southwest border locations. ICE will also be harnessing the resources of its Attaché offices in more than 50 foreign nations to target human smuggling and trafficking organizations overseas in partnership with foreign law enforcement.
Detect and deter immigration-related document and benefit fraud -- In recent years, the problems of document and benefit fraud have surged, becoming increasingly sophisticated and lucrative. ICE established an Identity and Benefit Fraud Unit in 2003 to help address this problem. Over the past two years, the number of document and benefit fraud investigations launched by ICE has increased from 2,334 in FY 2004 to 3,591 in FY 2005. Criminal convictions in these cases have increased from 559 to 992 during this period. Earlier this month, ICE teamed up with officials from the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of State and other agencies to create new “Document and Benefit Fraud Task Forces” in 10 major U.S. cities to combat this growing problem. Led by ICE, the task forces will build on existing partnerships to bring investigators together from a variety of agencies with expertise in different aspects of document and benefit fraud.
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=5546
Somebody should start a dedicated thread. NOT IT.
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