http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/13670114.htm

Posted on Fri, Jan. 20, 2006


Area arrests are part of crackdown

By DAVE MONTGOMERY
Star-Telegram Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - This week's arrests at Naval Air Station Fort Worth of 11 construction workers suspected of being illegal immigrants are part of a high-priority federal crackdown to safeguard the nation's most sensitive installations in the post-9-11 era.

Since its creation as part of the Homeland Security Department in March 2003, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has removed hundreds of illegal immigrants from military bases, nuclear and chemical plants, airports, seaports and other security facilities.

Most of the workers were employed by civilian contractors and most used fraudulent documents to land their jobs, said Marcy Forman, director of investigations for the agency. In one high-profile case in October, agents arrested two Indonesian nationals and a Senegalese working as contract language instructors for U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Forman, in a telephone interview Thursday, said the nationwide focus on sensitive facilities constitutes the agency's top priority in workplace enforcement of immigration laws. Workers in the country illegally could be particularly vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists or criminal organizations hoping to use them to gain access to the facilities, she said.

"This is certainly a national-security concern," she said.

Of the agency's 511 major workplace investigations in 2005, most involved illegal immigrants at critical sites such as military installations, airports and nuclear facilities, agency spokesman Dean Boyd said.

"Our obvious priority is to get these individuals out of there as quickly as possible so they are not in a position where they could do us harm," Boyd said.

The 11 immigrants arrested Wednesday at the Fort Worth air station worked for six employers or companies involved in construction projects at the base. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the employers are under investigation and declined to identify them.

The workers, all from Mexico, were arrested in a spot-check of documents as they arrived at the base entrance to start their shift, investigators said. Twenty-four illegal immigrants were arrested in two previous operations at the base since 2003, agency officials said.

The latest operation was conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Joint Law Enforcement and Security Department and had been planned for about two months, base spokesman Don Ray said.

"It's something they do on occasion here," Ray said. The installation is the nation's oldest and largest joint reserve base, with 68 aircraft and more than 11,000 active-duty, reserve and civilian personnel.

Ray said construction companies are given base passes and typically bring in groups of workers in trucks. In most cases, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said, employers are apparently unaware that illegal immigrants are using fraudulent documents to get their jobs.

Nevertheless, authorities said, the cases underscore the relative ease of gaining access to some of the nation's best-guarded facilities. At least 13 illegal immigrants with fake documents were arrested last year trying to enter the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Thirteen others are accused of using fraudulent Social Security numbers to get access badges to restricted areas at Port Canaveral, Fla.

Dozens of illegal workers have been arrested at petrochemical refineries, including several in Texas. Six were arrested performing maintenance at a nuclear power plant in Florida.

In at least some cases, investigators said, employers knowingly hired illegal immigrants. Officials with a San Antonio company pleaded guilty last year to falsifying employment forms to hire hundreds of illegal immigrants for contract work at the nation's top producer of meals-ready-to-eat for military personnel in Iraq.


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Dave Montgomery, (202) 383-6016 dmontgomery@krwashington.com