Thread: Feds say they're investigating serious problems in Georgia

Feds say they're investigating serious problems in Georgia

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 18, 2010
By Jeremy Redmon

Agents now fanning out and targeting violent crime; New priorities also targeting employers and unlawful hiring.;

The top federal officials in charge of enforcing immigration laws in Georgia say they are now focusing and closing in on busting thousands of employers who are knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and on deporting all illegal immigrant violent criminals who are in this country unlawfully.

They acknowledged they are dealing with a serious problem in Georgia. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security report says 480,000 "unauthorized immigrants" --- the term it uses for all foreign-born non-citizens who are not legal residents --- were living in the state as of January 2009. That number ranked Georgia sixth among states behind California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois, and just ahead of Arizona. Immigration officials in Georgia say they have limited resources and many other responsibilities, including fighting a variety of crimes from child pornography to transnational gangs.

Taking their orders from Washington, they say they are concentrating on crimes that pose the greatest threats to the public and national security --- such as murder, rape and robbery --- and the exploitation of cheap labor.

"It is similar to a police department," Brock Nicholson, the acting special agent in charge in Atlanta for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's homeland security investigations, said in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"If there is a large amount of crime going on in the community, the police department can focus on speeding. The police department can focus on shoplifting or jaywalking. But I would think the communities would rather have them focus on murders, rapes and armed robberies."

Illegal immigrants are attracted to Georgia because of the jobs here, especially in the agricultural industry, so prosecuting employers who hire them can make the biggest dent in the problem, the officials said.

"Cheap labor unfortunately was a magnet not just for Georgia but for many other states," said Felicia Skinner, the Atlanta field office director for ICE's enforcement and removal operations.

"And that is why this administration has decided it is going to aggressively focus on the employers who are exploiting this cheap labor and continue to hire illegal immigrants."

ICE officials are now checking up on business owners by going to their offices and inspecting their hiring documents and records.

So far this federal fiscal year --- which covers October to September --- officials have arrested 341 people on illegal immigration charges at work sites nationwide, according to ICE.

Of those, 152 were managers.

That is in contrast to 2009, when 114 managers and 296 employees were arrested, and fiscal year 2008, when 135 managers and 968 employees were arrested.

ICE officials were not immediately able to provide comparable statistics specifically for Georgia.

Further, the U.S. deported 387,790 illegal immigrants during fiscal year 2009, up from 369,221 in fiscal year 2008, according to ICE.

Between October 2009 and June, federal officials had deported 13,707 illegal immigrants from Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, the states for which Nicholson and Skinner are responsible.

Of those, 8,189 were convicted illegal immigrant criminals.

During that same time frame, 263,537 illegal immigrants were deported nationwide, 132,637 of them convicted criminals.

During previous administrations, federal officials cracked down on illegal immigration through work-site raids.

But in April 2009, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued new guidance saying ICE should refocus and target violent criminals and employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Napolitano said, "a scattershot approach where DHS targets any and all of the around 12 million people in the United States illegally does not amount to an approach that maximizes public safety.

A new approach is needed, which is what the new priorities provide."

The new priorities also bring some serious new concerns.

Bryan Tolar, a spokesman for the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said there should be some protections for businessmen who follow the law but inadvertently hire illegal immigrants.

"There is a difference," said Tolar, whose council says it represents a $65 billion food and fiber production and processing industry in Georgia.

"I haven't broken the law if I hire someone that is here illegally, if they presented me documentation they showed to me that they were legal."

Q&A Immigration's new priorities

Brock Nicholson is acting special agent in charge in Atlanta for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's homeland security investigations, which cover a variety of crimes, including illegal immigration, trade, travel and finance.

Felicia Skinner is the Atlanta field office director for ICE's enforcement and removal operations.

Her office oversees the detention and removal of illegal immigrants and efforts to locate illegal immigrants who have unlawfully reentered the country.

Both Skinner and Nicholson are responsible for enforcing the laws in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

In separate interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently, they talked about their changing priorities in Georgia. Their answers were edited for brevity:

Felicia Skinner

Q: Tell me about your efforts to currently enforce immigration laws here in Georgia.

Skinner: My teams are responsible for aggressively locating and apprehending fugitives. We are closely monitoring the local, state and county facilities to intercept foreign born criminals and ensure those folks are not released back into the community and ensure their permanent removal from the United States.

Q: Tell me your priorities in enforcing immigration laws in Georgia.

Skinner: We are primarily focused on locating and apprehending criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to the community and those who pose a threat to national security. Those are our No. 1 priorities.

Brock Nicholson

Q: People may think that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is all about enforcing just immigration laws, but you do a variety of other things. Could you talk about that?

Nicholson: We do the whole gamut. We do everything from immigration ... counter-proliferation investigations, stopping child pornographers, narcotics smuggling, commercial fraud, intellectual property rights violations, people that are selling items that claim to be one thing but in reality are other things. ... There is even a great safety issue. We have seen some goods coming out of certain Asian countries --- Christmas lights that burn down a house because they are not made with the same standards that we require here in the United States but are sold as if they were.

Q: As far as enforcing the nation's immigration laws, where do you focus your efforts?

Nicholson: Our efforts are now focused primarily on those illegal aliens that offer the greatest threat to the United States, all illegal aliens involved in transnational gangs, which commit tremendous amounts of violence, burgleries, murders, rapes, carjackings.

We are also heavily focusing on illegal aliens involved in the smuggling of narcotics and document forgery.

We are now aggressively looking for illegal aliens that are exploiting our children. ...

We certainly are focusing on employers who are contributing to this problem.

And we will now assess great fines and put these business owners in jail. We are also going after all of their assets.

To a great extent, these business owners often exploit the undocumented workers, paying them wages they wouldn't pay to legal U.S. citizens, oftentimes barely anything.

Just short of slavery. Terrible work conditions.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 70&start=4

ICE had better start to really do something, or there will be so much chaos from the illegal aliens in every state. They broke the law to come, they break the law everyday when they work, drive, steal identities, forge documents, etc. ICE may be begging local and state law enforcement to help, for there is no way that their lack of action is getting any control of this national disaster. And more illegal aliens and criminals keep coming through the open border doors.

Psalm 23, it is written, "The Lord is my Shepherd"

This just proves the Feds can't do the job. I mean they want to crow about arresting 341 people for breaking US labor laws in an entire year nationwide?

States have 800,000 trained, experienced sworn police officers nationwide. If each one just arrests 5 illegal aliens a month, that's 12 million arrests every .... quarter.

The feds can't do it. They don't have the will, the techniques, the system, the skill, the desire, the direction, the money and or all of the above. Therefore, given the complete and utter failure by the feds over decades to enforce US immigration law, there is no other solution except the obvious one which is for the states to use all their county, city and state police officers to enforce our immigration laws. They have 20 x the personnel, they have 20 times the resources, they have 20 times the training, experience and knowledge. As a result they will get this job done 20 years sooner and they will keep it done.

Lets go States. The rock of reason has hit your borders. Let it roll in and go to work. If your state doesn't already have an AZ immigration bill introduced, then do everything you can to get one introduced on the earliest possible date.

Ditto Judy! Besides, its local police who are most likely to come in direct contact with illegal invaders during the course of conducting daily business. For them to do nothing regarding this issue is no longer acceptable.

In fact, let the local police do the heavy lifting while ICE can make sure they show up when contacted by local authorities to respond for a pick up of a load of illegals. That's all they have to do is provide the federal transport.

You think they can handle that without giving us the excuse that they do not have the manpower to respond?

We all are sick of DHS whining they donot have enough resources to do their job. Here is a suggestion for Napolitano,just one time I would like to hear you ASKED Congress for the resources you need to do the job you all say you cannot do !!

You are right Judy.

They sued AZ because they know our States Police Forces could clean up the Illegal Alien problem which would expose ICE's failure to do their job they were hired to do.

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Ditto Judy! Besides, its local police who are most likely to come in direct contact with illegal invaders during the course of conducting daily business. For them to do nothing regarding this issue is no longer acceptable.

In fact, let the local police do the heavy lifting while ICE can make sure they show up when contacted by local authorities to respond for a pick up of a load of illegals. That's all they have to do is provide the federal transport.

You think they can handle that without giving us the excuse that they do not have the manpower to respond?

Great question. I think they will claim they can't even handle the transport until we get a new set of officials with all their marbles and at least 2 live brain cells still connected.

2010. Make it count, folks. There's never been a more important election in the history of the United States since the election of 1860.