(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.