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Aviation mechanic arrests rare

5-30-05

By Taft Wireback Staff Writer
News & Record

The Triad’s two brushes with Operation Tarmac this spring stand out nationally in being among the few in which federal agents arrested significant numbers of aircraft mechanics for violating immigration laws.

A News & Record search of government Web sites and other Internet resources, and interviews with federal and airport officials, found two other Tarmac investigations resembling the Triad cases. Federal agents arrested 67 illegal immigrants at two Texas airports:

•28 mechanics and others in Fort Worth in 2002.

•39 airplane painters in Amarillo last year.

“It’s very rare that we get people who are turning the wrenches on the planes,� said Tom O’Connell, who supervises the Triad for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

Most of those arrested during the past few years of Operation Tarmac have been in lower-skilled trades such as janitorial or food service work, O’Connell said. For example, he said that initiatives at both Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte’s larger airports turned up no mechanics.

Operation Tarmac, begun after the 2001 terrorist attacks, is part of a federal effort to keep illegal immigrants away from aviation and other sensitive industries. O’Connell said such incidents represent a security threat because they disclose openings in the nation’s defenses, whatever the offender’s occupation.

In March, agents from immigration, the Department of Transportation and the Social Security Administration arrested 27 people affiliated with TIMCO at Piedmont Triad International Airport. Most were illegal immigrants, some using fraudulent documents.

Two weeks ago, investigators from immigration and the Department of Defense arrived at Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem to arrest nine mechanics from Britain and New Zealand at another aviation company, Aerospace Manufacturing. They were not illegal immigrants, but contract workers retained through a British employment agency to refurbish U.S. Navy planes.

Aerospace Manufacturing attorney Sean Lew said the two Triad incidents shouldn’t be lumped in the same category because Aerospace’s contract workers were in this country legally and were not arrested for using false documents â€â€