http://www.onlinemadison.com/main.asp?S ... M=61033.33

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Immigrant crackdown targets Parkway

By ANDREW UJIFUSA
Assistant Managing Editor

Wednesday, September 27, 2006


A sweep that picked up 18 illegal immigrants at the Country Club of Jackson two weeks ago is the start of a new focus on enforcing immigration policies in the metro area, officials said.

A high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official with knowledge of the situation said that while he was unable to comment on any ongoing investigations, the immigration situation in Jackson and surrounding cities is indeed coming under closer scrutiny.

State Rep. Rita Martinson, R-Madison, also said that ICE officials have informed her that they are stepping up investigations into immigration law violations in Madison County. She cited Highland Colony Parkway as one area where, she was told, investigations were taking place.

The focus is largely on construction sites and the people who are hired to work at those locations.

"You're going to see greater, stepped-up enforcement when it comes to work sites," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

He added that this effort would reach all across the state.

"This is just the beginning," he said emphatically, referring to the sweep at the Country Club of Jackson on Sept. 13, in which illegal aliens from several Central and South American countries were detained in an operation conducted by ICE personnel working out of the Jackson office.

Martinson said she did not see why the Jackson area had become a particular focus for immigration enforcement.

"It puzzles me as to why they're starting in this area rather than other areas," said Martinson, who noted that she was a strong advocate for border protection and upholding immigration laws.

She also said that while the Jackson metro area and central part of the state may be coming under an unfair amount of scrutiny by ICE, Mississippi as a whole is being unfairly targeted by immigration authorities.

"Mississippi is being made poster-boy for picking up illegal immigrants. We're being made focus of immigrant authorities, when other states have not had the kind of disaster that we had with Katrina," said Martinson, referring to the work that illegal immigrants have performed during reconstruction on the Gulf Coast, where she said that such workers may "have helped an awful lot" with such work.

"We are benefiting from illegal immigration," she said.

According to a report released by State Auditor Phil Bryant earlier this year, the number of foreign-born residents in Madison County (both documented and undocumented) increased by 263 percent in the 1990's.

No reliable statistics on the number of illegal immigrants in the county are currently available, although the report from the auditor's office estimated that (at the time of the report's release in February) there were a total of 49,000 illegal immigrants in Mississippi.

The situations on Gulf Coast and in the Jackson area have prompted different tactics and strategies across the board from ICE, even as proposals to reform national immigration policies in Washington appear to have stalled.

Roland Jones, the assistant special agent in charge of Mississippi for ICE, said that agency's primary mission is to conduct effective interior enforcement of national immigration laws.

To that end, when it comes to dealing with the private sector and those employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, Jones said that one of the keys is to shut down the underground infrastructure that allows such immigrants to obtain counterfeit documents.

"We are going to hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants," said Jones, adding that employers are often intricately involved with the networks that allow illegal immigrants to cross American borders obtain false paperwork.

"We will close those back doors," said Jones.

Along with the ICE senior official, Jones confirmed that several companies in Mississippi are under active investigation, although he could not disclose the names of companies or their locations. He admitted that in past years, immigration enforcement as it pertained to employers and their hiring practices was decidedly lax.

Offending employers would be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. U.S. attorneys for both the northern and southern districts of Mississippi have agreed to prosecute employers who knowingly violate federal immigration statutes, said Jones. Those found guilty face civil penalties such as fines.

"We are being aggressive about that," he said.

But along with arrests and negative reinforcement, Jones said that one of ICE's goals is to work with employers to develop methods for screening job applicants concerning their citizenship status.

"We want to get databases to employers, and go out and give training on counterfeit documents," said Jones. "We want to get employers educated. They're not enforcement experts. They should follow rules and procedures there to protect them."

He also noted that the illegal immigrants themselves can become victims, especially on the Gulf Coast, where they are often not paid wages owed to them by contractors and have no recourse for claiming their money.

Dick Ambrosino, President and CEO of Parkway Developments, who is overseeing construction of the Galleria development in Madison and who has business offices on Highland Colony Parkway, said that it is very difficult to get a clear picture of the problem of illegal immigration in Madison County construction work.

For example, many of the workers who can be mistaken for illegal immigrants can actually have green cards and are therefore allowed to work in this country, he pointed out.

But he said that whatever the case, officials should be looking to produce a situation that is beneficial to everyone.

"I think the government should treat workers who are looking for a place to be fairly. We should be looking for the positive end, not the negative end," said Ambrosino.