Thread: Agents Find More Than 70 Undocumented Immigrants In Home

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/7649063/detail.html

Agents Find More Than 70 Undocumented Immigrants In Home

POSTED: 8:02 am PST March 3, 2006
UPDATED: 8:41 am PST March 3, 2006

WILLOWBROOK, Calif. -- Federal agents backed up by a sheriff's department SWAT team raided a house in Willowbrook on Friday, finding more than 70 undocumented immigrants and arresting at least four suspected smugglers, officials said.

The raid on the so-called drop house at 2204 117th St. was carried out at about 6 a.m. by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assisted by SWAT deputies who set off flash-bang diversionary grenades, said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

No one was hurt, Kice said, adding that there were women and juveniles among the undocumented immigrants and that a loaded pistol was recovered.

The more than 70 immigrants found in the house included citizens from Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ecuador, Kice said.

YES!! Go Julie! We need more of this news!!

El Paso has found almost 300 in the past week but for some odd reason the stories don't show up in the paper so I can post them. Fox News has great coverage but all their articles say we can't reprint or redistribute them. GRRRRR

But progress is being made. Chances are, from now until November they will all start doing something useful.

300? excellent!!

Chances are, from now until November they will all start doing something useful.

Shows they know which side their bread is buttered on, doesn't it?

57 one day 229 another plus the onzies and twozies they find regularly.

It has really heated up around El Paso County since the governor (Perry) who didn't say a word in all these years all of a sudden came up with "Operation Linebacker." There have been busts before but not this big

It makes me wonder if the coyotes are getting bolder or if they have always had this many people camping out in hotel rooms in the city of El Paso waiting for the next leg of their journey.

It is really scary, truth be told.

Now I understand why there are so many trucking outfits here, though. They are probably all trafficing illegals. Now to prove it.

But progress is being made. Chances are, from now until November they will all start doing something useful.

Yes, but what happens after the November elections are over? If we leave the same politicians in office that brought us to this point of crisis, is there any doubt that things will return to business as usual once the elections are over?

ABSOLUTELY we will NOT be sending the SAME ones back...sheesh...enough already...we know they will do nothing for the next five years...

RR

finding more than 70 undocumented immigrants and arresting at least four suspected smugglers,

Did they even arrest these 70? Probably not, nowhere to keep them.

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/monte ... 010321.htm

Posted on Fri, Mar. 03, 2006

Raid turns up 70 illegal immigrants in South LA house

JACOB ADELMAN
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Federal officials on Friday raided a squalid house and found 70 illegal immigrants and four suspected smugglers, authorities said.

Federal agents and a sheriff's SWAT team entered the house about 6 a.m., setting off flash-bang grenades as a diversion because there was concern that some of the immigrants were being held hostage, said Frank Johnston, an assistant special agent in charge with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Nobody was hurt in the raid in the unincorporated Willowbrook area of Los Angeles County

Johnston said 70 people from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Mexico, including 15 to 20 women and children, were packed into the grimy one-story bungalow. Some slept 20 to a room, he said.

"It was squalor, absolute squalor," he said. "Bug infestations, trash on the floor."

A .357-caliber Magnum handgun also was found in the house.

The house had bars on the windows and a surveillance camera to monitor the outside, Johnston said.

Authorities were not immediately able to confirm whether any of the people were being held against their will.

However, Johnston said the immigrants likely were being held there until a family member could pay the smugglers' fee - typically $3,000 to $4,000 per person.

Agents have already found a few such smuggling operations in the region this year, said Darren Dowell, an ICE supervisor.

"It's rampant," he said. "It's a problem all through the Los Angeles basin."

Authorities were tipped two days ago when a woman called from Albuquerque, N.M., to say she had been held at the house and believed a relative was being held hostage there, Johnston said.

Authorities wouldn't say how long the woman was held or if she had escaped.

She was flown in Thursday and identified the house so immigration agents could obtain a search warrant, Johnston said.

After the raid, a line of downcast-looking men were herded into a Department of Homeland Security bus for transportation to a downtown processing facility. Some indicated they had been at the house for several months and others had arrived only a day earlier, authorities said.

Inside the residence, graffiti marred the walls and dirty clothes were thrown on the floors. There were two bathrooms but their bathtubs were filled with cardboard boxes.

Eight rooms, each about 6-by-9 feet, were where the immigrants slept.

The house may have been in operation for several months, Johnston said.

Neighbor Eddie Brim, 47, said he saw nothing out of the ordinary that would lead him to believe the house was being used to keep illegal immigrants.

"They were everyday people," Brim said. "We're all neighbors."

Originally Posted by Brian503a

70 illegal immigrants

Invite 70 illegals to John McCain's office.