ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: Border mop-up dutyLocal law enforcement may get powers to help Border PatrolBy Ryan BakkenHerald Staff WriterA local Border Patrol official endorses Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's plan to crack down on illegal immigrants.
Lonny Schweitzer, acting assistant chief of the Border Patrol's Grand Forks office, said Pawlenty's plan provides local and state law enforcement the same powers that his officers have.
"This arms them with the same statutes as federal statutes to enforce," Schweitzer said. "It gives them additional statutes where they can detain these people and prosecute them."
Schweitzer, who has studied Pawlenty's proposal, said the Border Patrol doesn't regard it as stepping on its turf.
"We look at it as good support," he said. "It gives them more tools in their toolbox to deal with not only illegal aliens, but other issues such as fake IDs."
Sheriff speculates
Kittson County (Minn.) Sheriff Kenny Hultgren speculates that Pawlenty is unhappy with the level of federal prosecution of violators. That's the only reason he sees for what he calls a duplication.
"The prosecution side of illegal immigration isn't what it could be," Hultgren said. "If you catch illegal immigrants, don't just give them a court date and release them. The chances of them showing up for court are slim and none."Why not just put teeth into the laws that already exist?"With Kittson County on the Canadian border, Hultgren said he deals with an average of a half-dozen illegal immigrant incidents a year. He is highly complimentary of the job done by all of the Homeland Security agencies such as the Border Patrol.
"I think it's a good idea by Pawlenty, but there's already an agency that's supposed to be doing that," Hultgren said. "The Homeland Security people are doing a heck of a job, but sometimes that seems that is where it stops.
"I don't know if the U.S. attorney's office is too swamped or has other priorities. But if they can't do it, I guess we have no choice but to do it ourselves."
Hultgren sees illegal aliens as a high priority for both his county and the country. Department members patrol the border on ATVs and snowmobiles and see the signs of people crossing illegally.
"And we have nothing compared to what the southern border has," Hultgren said.
Little change
Hultgren and Roseau County Sheriff Jule Hanson foresee little change in how they operate even if Pawlenty's idea flies.
"Any time we run into anybody that seems to be a foreigner, the normal practice is to call the Border Patrol," Hanson said. "We'll get the Border Patrol involved no matter what happens.
"The Border Patrol has more freedom as far as search-and-seizure goes. We need probable cause to do that."
Because Homeland Security staffing has been dramatically increased, Hanson's department has less work than before in dealing with border issues.
But, Hanson supports Pawlenty's idea. "Everything we can do to get more help up here is good," he said.
A growing threat
Warning that crimes associated with illegal immigration are a growing threat to public safety, Pawlenty has proposed a variety of steps, including the creation of a statewide enforcement team focused on immigration issues.
The team of 10 officers would be trained to question, detain and arrest suspected illegal immigrants. They would focus on aliens in such crimes as human trafficking, identity theft, drugs and terrorism.
He said he wants to target illegal immigrants and others who might employ them or provide them with false identification cards. Some Democrats criticized Pawlenty's proposal, saying he is exploiting an emotional issue to launch his 2006 re-election campaign and that it would tarnish all immigrants, not just wrong-doers.
One critic was Attorney General Mike Hatch, a DFL candidate for governor. He said Pawlenty's administration has failed to enforce labor laws against employers who hire illegal immigrants. "Now he's in a political mode," Hatch said.
Implementing his plan would require some budget increases, some legislative approval and some federal approval. He would ask the U.S. attorney general to give Minnesota law enforcement officers the power to enforce federal immigration laws.
Big problem
Schweitzer agrees with Pawlenty that illegal immigration is a problem. He offers numbers as proof.
Arrests of illegal immigrants in Schweitzer's district numbered 1,369 in 2002, 1,133 in 2003, 1,302 in 2004 and 784 in 2005. He attributes the lower number this year to two factors: 1) no longer being responsible for Milwaukee; and 2) the increased Border Patrol staffing being an efficient deterrent.
The district covers the border across all of North Dakota and Minnesota and part of Wisconsin.
Not all of the arrests are at the border. Some come when aliens pass through the area on the way to another job.
In an average year, the office arrests residents of 50 countries, with more than half of the detainees coming from Mexico. Many Mexicans find it easier to enter the United States through Canada, Schweitzer said.
The vast majority of illegal immigrants are here to find work. The region has many physical-labor jobs that aren't filled by local workers. Illegal immigrants are typically found at such agricultural industries as feedlots, turkey plants, meat processing plants and dairy farms. Roofing companies are another common employer of immigrants, legal and illegal.
Local examples
The most publicized case locally was when the two owners of the Buffet House, a Chinese restaurant in Grand Forks, were convicted of harboring illegal immigrants from China and Mexico in 2004.
Employees testified that they were paid $1,000 to $1,600 a month for 12-hour days, working seven days a week. Much of their salary was deducted for meals, for rent in a crowded apartment and for the services of an "employment agency" that landed them their jobs. Ten lived in one apartment.
"These unscrupulous business owners kept illegal employees in virtual indentured servitude while they reaped the financial rewards," said Michael Mach, resident agent in charge of the Grand Forks Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
That investigation led to other charges against eight people for importing at least 50 illegal aliens to work off the books in Asian restaurants in six states.
Another highly publicized case happened last summer in Bismarck. More than two dozen arrests of illegal aliens were made in Bismarck after one arrest in connection with two runaway 13-year-old girls from Belcourt, N.D.
After an Amber Alert was issued, an illegal alien was arrested for gross sexual imposition. When it was discovered that he was working on the building of a Wal-Mart in Bismarck, the mega-retailer temporarily halted its work on seven stores under construction in North Dakota to check the construction companies for illegal aliens.
A Wal-Mart official said it may have been the first time it had stopped construction statewide anywhere in the United States for internal compliance checks.
Another ally
His agency works daily with local and county law enforcement and with Canadian Customs and Immigration, Schweitzer said. So, he welcomes another ally.
"There are only so many of us and there's a lot of areas in Minnesota that are tough to get to," he said.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/13576158.htm