13 alleged illegal workers arrested at dairy operation
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
By TOM GILCHRIST
TIMES WRITER
BAD AXE - Federal agents seized 13 alleged illegal immigrants from a dairy farm here Tuesday, two months after agents removed suspected illegal immigrants from another large Huron County dairy operation.

About two dozen armed agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the dairy farm of Johannes and Anthonia Verhaar at about 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Mark Krebs said agents arrested 13 workers from Mexico, hauling them away in handcuffs to spend the night in jail while federal investigators try to determine their identities and whether the workers can remain legally in the United States.

''We're trying to make sure just who we have in custody,'' said Greg Palmore, a Detroit-based spokesman for ICE, the investigative agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

''When conducting operations such as this one, we've encountered people who have 12 or 13 different aliases,'' Palmore said.

''That's why we take fingerprints and try to validate who each individual is.''

The raid came about as part of an ongoing investigation by Krebs, of the Michigan State Police post at Bad Axe.

While probing an alleged crime at the Verhaar farm earlier this winter, Krebs said he obtained supposed names and Social Security numbers of various Mexican immigrants working at the sprawling business, where employees milk 2,500 cows.

Krebs said FBI officials had problems with all of the Social Security numbers of the workers.

''The FBI said they're all fake numbers,'' Krebs said. ''Either different names had been assigned to those numbers, or some numbers weren't even valid, and if they were valid, it wasn't for the name that I had associated with it.''

Police said ICE agents also arrested about 14 other alleged illegal Mexican immigrants in mid-March at a large dairy farm in Bloomfield Township northeast of Bad Axe.

Palmore said on Tuesday he wasn't sure if any of those 14 had been deported yet.

''It's a slow process,'' Palmore said. ''We have to methodically go through and identify each individual, and then we have to find what their status is, whether they're eligible to become a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident.''

If a detainee isn't eligible for either privilege, Palmore said, he can ask for a hearing before an immigration judge, who determines whether the person should be deported from the country.

Both Johannes Verhaar, 42, and Anthonia Verhaar, 44, declined comment about Tuesday's raid.

Krebs said the Verhaars are not U.S. citizens, but are here on work visas allowing them to remain here for employment purposes.

Krebs said the Verhaars claim the Mexican workers are here legally, though the detective disagrees with that claim.

A worker at the farm, 16-year-old Dominic Galleck of Ubly, said Johannes Verhaar ''is a real good guy to work for, and stuff is kept pretty clean around here.''

Four dead cattle carcasses remained on the ground near where Galleck was working. He said employees had yet to bury the remains.

Michigan State Police said they're investigating whether the Social Security Administration has received money on behalf of the workers arrested Tuesday at the Verhaar farm.

''I want to find out if (the Verhaars) have been taking out the FICA (Social Security taxes) from the workers' wages, and sending them in,'' Krebs said.

If the Verhaars did send money to the federal government and if the Social Security numbers for the Verhaars' 13 workers were bogus numbers, Krebs said he aims to find out whether Social Security Administration officials notified any authorities of the situation.






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