Thread: TX: 31 illegal immigrants arrested

31 illegal immigrants arrested

Contractor hired them for Fossil work; neither firm tied to wrongdoing

12:00 AM CDT on Friday, June 15, 2007

By JIM GETZ and ISABEL MORALES / The Dallas Morning News

Federal agents arrested 31 women – all illegal immigrants – Thursday, after a routine customs inspection of a Fossil Inc. warehouse in far northeast Dallas, officials said.

Tim Counts, a spokesman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security, said a contractor identified as Simos Insourcing Solutions had hired the 31 to do warehouse work for Fossil, the Richardson-based manufacturer of wristwatches.

ICE had been working with Customs and Border Protection to conduct a joint inspection of the warehouse on Sanden Drive near the Garland border, when questioning revealed that many of the workers were in the United States illegally, Mr. Counts said.

The 10 agents present when the inspection began about 9 a.m. mushroomed to 35 once they learned the workers' status.

"This was a routine inspection," said John Chakwin, special agent in charge of the Dallas ICE office. "Now it's an investigation."

Mr. Chakwin said "all those detained were hired by the temporary company and not Fossil."

Mike Kovar, chief financial officer for Fossil, said his company has terminated its business relationship with the other company, which he called a "national temporary staffing agency."

He said no Fossil employees were detained or questioned.

Mr. Counts said ICE would question Fossil and Simos. Fossil is a $1.2 billion company with more than 7,000 employees nationwide and 1,337 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"Thirty-one people was certainly a significant number to find in one warehouse, so we'll continue our investigation," Mr. Counts said.

But, he said, "I want to stress at this point we certainly have no evidence of wrongdoing by Fossil or by the contracting employer."

Simos representatives couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

In the last two years, law enforcement actions targeting worksites have increased.

Nationally, arrests of illegal immigrants on criminal charges increased about 300 percent to 718 arrests in the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Family members

At the warehouse Thursday, dozens of family members gathered outside, trying to learn the whereabouts of their relatives.

Yolanda Cálix said she is desperate. Her three grandchildren have been left without their mother, Kristela, 23, one of the workers held. Ms. Cálix said she received a phone call about 11 a.m. Thursday from her daughter, who "could barely speak because she was crying so hard."

"She told me immigration was there, she was scared and to please pick up the children from the babysitter," said Ms. Cálix, a native of Honduras who has been in the U.S. since 1997 on a permit that affords her temporary protective status.

"I don't know what to tell the kids when they ask me what happened to Mommy," she said. "This is hard. How can they do this to good people who are really not hurting anyone?"

Kristela's three children – ages 7, 3 and 1 – are all U.S. citizens, born after she arrived in the U.S. Her job at the plant was to put prices on the watches and pack them into boxes.

Employees separated

One man, who identified himself only as Rodriguez, said his wife, originally from Mexico, also called him in the morning to tell him that immigration was at the plant.

Agents brought in dogs and separated the employees hired by Fossil from those hired by Simos Insourcing Solutions, he said.

He said he feared something would happen after seeing a similar raid at vegetable packing plant on the news.

"We know we're taking a risk working for these companies," said Mr. Rodriguez, who left his daughters – ages 6 and 1 – with a sister-in-law. "We know we're breaking their laws. But they should give us a chance. They shouldn't separate the families."

Mr. Rodriguez said he would probably wait to find out when his wife might be deported and reunite the family in Mexico.

"It's not worth the hassle to be here, if we have to live in hiding," Mr. Rodriguez said.

The workers – 20 from Mexico, seven from Honduras, three from El Salvador and one from Nicaragua – will be held in jails in North Texas counties until deportation hearings can be held.

Mr. Counts said the warehouse was in a foreign trade zone, where goods are stored tax-free while awaiting distribution. Agents were initially looking for such things as copyright violations, counterfeit goods and quota violations as part of a routine inspection.

Staff writer Dianne SolÃ*s contributed to this report.

E-mail jgetz@dallasnews.com

and imorales@aldiatx.com


http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/b ... 6303.html#

Deport them immediately without appeal.

Companies like this are causing a mayor problem. They hire illegals and put them to work. This is a national company and has clients like Wal-mart and Yamaha in atlanta as well as Bosch and Williams Sonoma in Memphis. All in their distribution centers. Maybe they should check more of their accounts to see what they find.