By Pat Gillespie
pgillespie@news-press.com
Originally posted on December 05, 2007

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 04084/1075

Federal prosecutors are investigating two complaints filed this week that allege harboring and transporting illegal immigrants.

In Immokalee, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Anthony Mullen wrote in a complaint that Cesar, Geovanni, Jose and Virginia Navarrete were conspiring to harbor or conceal a dozen illegal immigrants who were picking tomatoes in the fields. According to the complaint, the men were made to live in vans and box trucks on the property.

If the workers tried to escape the living conditions or didn’t want to live in the trucks, they were beaten.

The defendants, who live on South Seventh Street, were also illegal immigrants; Cesar and Jose Navarrete, had previously been deported. When agents executed a search warrant Thursday, they found 12 illegal immigrants living on the property.

The defendants told agents they knew the men were illegal immigrants, but they’d be living in the woods if they didn’t offer them a place to stay.

“The thing that’s most disturbing is the living conditions and the threat of force,â€