Thread: 127 Suspected Illegal Immigrants Arrested At Buckley AFB

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Suspected Illegal Immigrants Arrested At Buckley AFB
Federal Agents Hit Construction Site

POSTED: 7:56 am MDT September 20, 2006
UPDATED: 11:08 am MDT September 20, 2006

AURORA, Colo. -- At least 110 construction workers were rounded up by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement early Wednesday morning as part of a worksite enforcement operation.

About 40 federal agents were interviewing workers, backed up by officers from the Aurora Police Department and Air Force investigators.

The men were working at a construction site on the base. It's not known exactly which company they were working for but Buckley Family Housing, LLC was awarded the $74.7 million contract to build and maintain 351 housing units at Buckley AFB.

Buckley Family Housing is comprised of two El Paso, Texas companies -- AFB Investment Builders, Inc & Hunt Building Company.

A least one bus belonging to U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service and several vans were at the site.

The workers were being questioned by ICE agents and will be deported to their native countries, should they not be able to prove they are in the country legally.

Aurora is part of the greater sanctuary city if Denver.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com

ICE nabs 127 in early morning raid on Buckley AFB
By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
September 20, 2006

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 127 suspected illegal immigrants this morning at an Aurora construction site, possibly the largest immigration raid in state history.

About 70 agents from as far away as California surrounded the site on Buckley Air Force Base at 5:30 a.m., according to a contractor.

The agents loaded the men they arrested onto three buses, and they were taken away to be processed. The contractor said an agent told him the raid had been planned for three months.

Agents were lined up every 50 feet around the perimeter of the site, which has only one entrance and one exit. The agents took away the workers' cell phones. They told the subcontractors that they faced fines if it's determined they hired undocumented workers. The men who were arrested could be deported as early as today, the contractor said.

The workers were building military housing on the base. Some family members arrived at the construction site, panicked at the possibility a loved one would be deported.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com

Bust stokes debate
Some fear roundup of workers at Buckley will hurt businesses

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
September 21, 2006

The major immigration raid Wednesday at a military housing project for Buckley Air Force Base will make finding and hiring workers more difficult for Colorado's construction, hospitality and agriculture industries, some experts warned.

Many illegal immigrants already are looking outside Colorado since the state legislature passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation this summer, industry experts say. Undocumented workers account, by some estimates, for half the workers on many construction jobs.

A sustained crackdown will raise prices for consumers because employers will have to pay more to entice legal employees, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

About 70 federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement swooped down on the $75 million miitary housing construction site in Aurora early Wednesday morning. By midday, 98 people were on a bus back to Mexico, the Mexican consulate in Denver said it was told by ICE. The others, some from South American countries, still were being detained.

As word of the raid spreads, illegal workers will be even more reluctant to look for work in Colorado, said Ann Allott, an immigration lawyer in Centennial.

"It means building comes to a screeching halt," Allott said.

The workers will be difficult to replace, she said.

"U.S. workers love to work hard, but they don't want construction jobs," she said. "I can hire a young person to work in my office for $10 per hour, but I don't think many are willing to work in construction for $14 an hour."

She thinks the rising home foreclosure rate in Colorado is partly a result of illegal immigrants being forced out of the job market.

"I think if you looked at the records of people losing their homes, you would see a lot of Hispanic names," she said.

If crackdowns continue, it will mean fewer illegal immigrants working in "very basic labor jobs" at construction sites, restaurants, hotels and agriculture, which will mean consumer costs will rise, Allott said.

Tony Milo, executive director of the Colorado Contractors Association, called the Buckley raid "stunning." He said he has heard that applications in many industries populated by illegal immigrants already are way down since the legislature passed several immigration bills, including one requiring greater documentation for receiving state services.

He said if contractors face big fines for hiring illegal immigrants, it could easily put them out of business. No employers were charged Wednesday; whether they face fines was unclear.

"I think that the point needs to be made here that no one should defend contractors who are out there knowingly hiring illegal aliens," Milo said. "But the federal system is broken and has been broken for decades. Our position is that employers should not be immigration police."

The 362-unit military housing project at the edge of Buckley is being built in a joint venture by Investment Builders Inc. and Hunt Building Corp., both of El Paso, Texas. They were awarded the contract in 2004.

Hunt, in a statement, said it "takes every precaution to ensure that its hiring practices are fully compliant with all applicable local, state and federal laws."

Keith Puhlman, a senior vice president at Investment Builders, said he was "shocked" that illegal immigrants were working on the project. He said he thinks subcontractors must have hired them. He said the housing project eventually will be incorporated into the base and will be secured.

David Kopel of the free-market Independence Institute in Lakewood and a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News agreed that employers who try to document workers' status should not be punished.

"They don't need to send documentation to forensic labs to make sure they're valid," he said.

However, Kopel applauded the raid.

"I think it still remains to be seen whether this is the occasional high-publicity raid or reflects a change in policy," Kopel said.

If a crackdown produces higher wages and higher prices, "that is the point," Kopel said.

"Illegal aliens are allowing employers to avoid paying Americans a competitive, market wage," he said.

He said a chicken farm recently was raided in Georgia, and the company replaced illegal workers with U.S. workers and raised wages by 15 percent.

Bob Wilson of Zimkor LLC, a specialty steel firm in Littleton, said he thinks there are at least 50,000 illegal immigrant construction workers in Colorado, even though he thinks most contractors don't knowingly hire illegal workers.

He said the raid on the Buckley project is "certainly dramatic. I don't really know how to respond to it. But I would like to see some common sense brought to the entire process."

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207