Thread: ICE returns to Saratoga, arresting 8 from Mexico

ICE returns to Saratoga, arresting 8 from Mexico

Track workers survived meet without raids

By Wendy Liberatore
Updated 6:04 pm, Monday, September 11, 2017

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Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

The eight arrests came one week after the racing season ended in the city. ICE spared the Saratoga Race Course from raids during the summer meet. Officials and racing experts feared agents would raid the ... more


SARATOGA SPRINGS — U.S.. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resumed raids in the city on Monday, arresting eight men from Mexico whom the federal agency says are violating immigration laws.

Khaalid Walls, spokesman for ICE, said that the men are between the ages of 20 and 49. Walls declined to discuss where they were working, but did say that two of the men are facing federal felony charges because they re-entered the U.S. after they were deported.

Throughout June and July, ICE arrested 27 undocumented workers in the city, which took a toll on restaurant staffing.

The lastest round of arrests came one week after the racing season ended in the city. Officials and racing experts feared agents would raid the backstretch during the six-week meet, but ICE spared the Saratoga Race Course from raids during that time.

The track season came and went without any ICE arrests. Earlier raids ended five days before the track opened and started up again, a week to the day after track season closed.

ICE, Walls said, did not enter in any agreement with the track or its trainers to protect its workers.

While relieved none of the track workers, who work for individual trainers, faced deportation, Mayor Joanne Yepsen wants the ICE raids to end.

"Unless they are violent criminals, I don't understand it," Yepsen said. "It's a shame that ICE and Homeland Security are not working on the disasters in our Southern states. Their assistance is sorely needed there where lives are at risk. But I am pleased that the racing season went unscathed."

Immigration lawyer Leonard J. D'Arrigo with Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna in Albany, said that if ICE did raid the backstretch, the 2017 meet would have been destroyed.

"It would be huge," D'Arrigo said. "Eighty percent of the workers on the backstretch are Hispanic. A lot of the grooms have appropriate visas. But when trainers go to hire workers and they have the appropriate documents to be hired, they hire them. But if investigation into documents like ICE does, sometimes shows, the documents aren't real. Trainers aren't experts in documents."

D'Arrigo wonders if ICE balked at a large scale raid at the track because it would affect the field and anger fans.

"ICE is going for the low hanging fruit," D'Arrigo said. "They might not want to do something that will be a huge draw of bad publicity. They are probably nervous."

Walls said ICE arrests will continue in Saratoga Springs and elsewhere.

"All recent enforcement operations in this region are a part of routine, daily targeted operations conducted by ICE here and around the country every day, targeting criminal aliens and other immigration violators. These efforts will continue," Walls said.

He said all were arrested without incident and were sent to Albany County jail. From there they will be transported to Buffalo Detention Facility where they are held until they can be deported, ICE officials said.

http://www.timesunion.com/news/artic...o-12188691.php

So ICE waited until the greedy employers made their loot, catching only 8, when they could have rounded up hundreds apparently?

So ICE is aiding and abetting illegal employers? So our government is willing to allow a business/businesses to continue their lawbreaking because it would be financially disruptive to make them obey the law?

Any business that has to break the law to stay in business, should not be in business.

Does that sound like a government agency that is enforcing the law and working for the American people?

An employer that knowingly, and most do know, works illegals, is a criminal. They are engaged in a ongoing illegal enterprise and should be charged.

So, we are supposed to be thrilled they caught 8???

That's why I don't believe our government is doing anything - anything about the illegal situation.

That's why I doubt E-Verify.

How many of the locals are on welfare and food stamps? They need to partner with a job placement program and make them work these jobs. This needs to happen all over the USA. No more free ride.

Americans were doing these jobs before the illegals came.

In some instances, the Americans just moved on to find other work.

In some instances, they did go on welfare.

The illegals draw welfare as well, it's just that they get to continue to work, pay no taxes, draw welfare, etc.

Consider an American who has been put out of work for a long time, and he is offered a job. Right now, his kids have healthcare, housing, and food. If the jobs pays enough, he looses all that.

So should he step out, loose that for this family on the off chance he won't be replaced by an illegal in a couple of months? Would any of us in today's situation?

Now we could take that welfare family - give the father a job - not a high paying job, but a job. We could make the same deal with him we do the illegals. We could let him work as much as he wants, no taxes. We could tell him he doesn't have to have a DL or auto insurance if he doesn't choose because nothing will happen. Then as a kicker, we tell him he can keep all his welfare benefits. If he wants, he can get his wife to register under her maiden name and draw twice as much.

There are lots of things to consider when we talk about those lazy Americans on welfare.

The playing field isn't level - the government planned it that way.

If they sent the illegals home, there would be people to do the work.

I've never drawn welfare, but I do know what it is like to have children and go through a very lean time with children and worry that you can't do what you want for them. I fully understand the concept of choosing the sure thing of welfare or a job that you will loose to an illegal in the near future.

During our young, lean times, we could just go to work, get another job. There were jobs as the country wasn't full of illegals and as long as you did your job well, no one was going to replace you - especially an illegal.