Illegals face more raids
May 1, 2007
Sheriff: Sweeps of construction sites will continue
By Tony Bridges

The recent immigraton raids will continue, Sheriff Frank McKeithen said Monday.

His deputies have hit at least eight Panama City Beach construction sites during the last month, arresting suspected illegal workers and citing the companies that hired them. McKeithen said the raids come in response to complaints from the public — and have gotten the attention of federal immigration agents.

Senior officials from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Attorney’s Office plan to meet with the sheriff this week. Part of that meeting will focus on getting more help with deportations, McKeithen said.

“We’re still pretty frustrated with the fact that we have so many illegal aliens here in Bay County,” McKeithen said. “Obviously, we’ve scratched our heads on what we could do and what we couldn’t do.

“Instead of complaining about it, we decided we’d just work with what we had.”

Meanwhile, immigration attorney Richard Alvoid said Monday that the sheriff’s campaign won’t accomplish much and could constitute civil rights violations.

“There seems to be no manifested desire on the part of the federal government to enforce the deportation laws,” Alvoid said. “Evidence of that is the 12 million undocumented aliens in this country.

“As far as being equipped to apprehend and deport ... it’s not going to work. Just ascertaining an alien status is extremely difficult.”

The sheriff’s push began April 10 with a raid on a site on Magnolia Beach Drive where deputies arrested about 20 suspected illegals and turned over most of them to ICE. Deputies also gave the project manager a $500 citation for hiring undocumented workers.

McKeithen said he’s been frustrated because the public has been complaining about illegal workers, but immigration officials have been able to do so little. And, the law does not give local law enforcement officers the authority to make arrests just for immigration violations.

Frequently, deputies stop drivers they suspect of being illegal — those without valid licenses or insurance — but have to wait sometimes two hours or more while an Illegal Alien Query is run through federal computers in Virginia.

Even if deputies find an illegal, there are only two ICE agents for this part of the state, McKeithen said.

The News Herald has been trying since October to get information from ICE on how many and what kind of investigations were completed in Bay County last year, first from an agency spokeswoman, then through a Freedom of Information Act request. There’s been little response.

“These guys are absolutely overwhelmed with everything they’re doing, plus illegal aliens,” McKeithen said of the local agents. “We just got to the point where we said, ‘Look, we obviously can’t enforce federal laws, but we can enforce state statutes.’”

That statute — 448.09 — prohibits anyone in the state from knowingly hiring or recruiting undocumented workers. It provides a $500 fine for the first offense and a $500 fine per worker for subsequent offenses.

Using that law, deputies have been collecting public complaints about specific sites, then going to those sites, ostensibly to talk to the project managers about whether they’ve hired any illegals. But when they arrive and workers run, they get arrested.

“When we get to these work sites is when everything erupts,” McKeithen said. “Once they run, we’re trying to determine why they’re running.”

Deputies grab workers, usually charging them with resisting arrest or, if they’re carrying phony ID, then with possession of the forged documents. Those are booked into the Bay County Jail, and the rest are turned over to ICE for processing.

So far, the Sheriff’s Office has hit 10 work sites, finding illegals at eight of them, and have issued $4,000 in citations to employers.

Alvoid, the attorney, said there may be a problem with what deputies are doing. Law enforcement officers need to have probable cause to stop someone suspected of a crime. Simply descending on a work site and arresting those who run — especially since being an undocumented alien is not a criminal violation under state law — may not be enough.

“That is a blatant violation of constitutional rights,” he said.

But as far as McKeithen is concerned, he’s just doing what’s expected of him as the county sheriff. The raids already have increased the number of complaints he receives about suspected illegals at work sites, including 15 over the last weekend alone, he said.

“It’s not hard to ride down the road and see suspected illegal aliens ganged up at a work site,” he said. “We’re reacting to citizen complaints right now.

“The point is, we’ve got to do our part.”

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