Thread: Illegal arrests in Georgia

(CBS 46 News) -- Thirty illegal immigrants are in custody after a sweep made by the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Early Thursday morning, uniform patrol officers and ICE agents converged on the Forsyth Curb Company.* Thirty people were taken into custody.* All were employees of the company.

Twenty of those arrested are charged with forgery and identity theft in the first degree.*

Captain Paul Taylor says the 20 individuals are all Hispanic males.* Taylor says the suspects used forged documents to gain employment.*

The forged documents include social security cards, resident alien cards and permanent resident cards.

Captain Taylor told CBS 46 News "This operation today was the result of an on-going investigation by the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents".

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, ICE removed 168,743 illegal immigrants during 2005.* Over 4,000 of those came from the metro Atlanta area.*

Copyright 2006 by CBS 46 News.* All Rights Reserved.


Footnote - 50% of this companies employees are illegal, but they claim to not know anything about them being illegal.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/st ... 4515.shtml

Raid nabs suspected illegal immigrants
30 arrested; 20 face forgery, identity theft charges
By Stephen Gurr
Times regional staff

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A pre-dawn raid Thursday on a Forsyth County construction company resulted in the arrests of 30 suspected illegal immigrants, 20 of whom face forgery and identity theft charges.

At around 6 a.m. Thursday, 20 Forsyth Sheriff's deputies and agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division descended on the offices of Forsyth Curb Co., located in an industrial park off Ga. 9 near McFarland Road in Alpharetta.

The 30 Hispanic males arrested were all employees of the business, authorities said.

The owner of the business was not charged, though the case remains under investigation by ICE and the U.S. Department of Labor, officials said.

Forsyth Curb Co. CEO Judy Humphries did not return phone messages seeking comment.

The raid stems from a January investigation during which six people were charged by Forsyth Sheriff's officials with manufacturing fake resident alien cards, commonly known as "green cards," and counterfeit Social Security cards.

The members of that alleged forgery ring were indicted by a federal grand jury in April.

Sheriff's officials said the investigation of the ring led them to Forsyth Curb Co. The owner was given notice by authorities two months ago that employees were using bogus identification, Lt. Col. Gene Moss said.

"These people had the opportunity to clean the place up and they didn't," Moss said. "We learned that these individuals were still employed there and no action had been taken."

Workplace immigration raids by federal officials in Georgia are seldom publicized.

Of those arrested Thursday, 10 people were detained for not possessing documents that could prove they were in the country legally and faced no other charges. Those suspects will be placed into removal proceedings for deportation, agency officials said.

The agency said in a statement that "the actions ... have been conducted in accordance with federal immigration laws."

ICE officials noted that Atlanta-based field agents have removed 4,216 illegal immigrants from the United States in fiscal 2005. However, many, if not most, operations focus on dangerous felons and have not targeted the workplace.

Sheriff's officials said they had no choice but to conduct the raid after evidence showed that the suspects were using forged documents to gain employment.

The Social Security numbers the suspects used belonged to other people, leading to the charges of identity theft, Moss said.

"This is affecting the Social Security numbers and taxes of people we have not yet identified," Moss said.

Jail officials were prepared for the sudden influx of inmates Thursday and authorities brought two large transport vans to the scene of the raid. All were arrested without incident and no one tried to run, authorities said.

Investigator J.D. Roe with the sheriff's department said federal officials have immigration holds on the 20 suspects facing state charges.

Contact: news@gainesvilletimes.com, (770) 718-3416

Originally published Friday, September 15, 2006