http://www.eveningtimes.com/articles/20 ... /news1.txt

Officials weigh in on Athens immigrant situation; Sherwood, Carney, McLinko comment after convicted rapist found in group of illegal workers
By WARREN HOWELER Times Managing Editor and LISA R. HOWELER Times Reporter
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006 11:46 PM CDT


ATHENS TOWNSHIP - The recent revelation that a group of 26 illegal aliens that were apprehended by township police two weeks included a convicted rapist has a few local and national officials weighing in with their thoughts on this matter.

A man who went by a number of alias, including Gasper Almilcar Guzman, was included within a group of men who were found on July 10 to be in this country illegally following a routine traffic stop in Athens Township.

The men were working for a company called Dixie Steel from Hanceville, Ala. Dixie Steel is one of the sub-contractors working to build the new Lowe's store on Elmira Street in Athens.


It was revealed by the Morning Times' television partner WETM-18 news in Elmira that Guzman has been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl in Alabama in 2005. Guzman, who was facing five years in prison, was later deported before he could begin serving his sentence.

And while many of the men who were apprehended earlier this month have already been deported back to Mexico, Guzman is facing federal charges and up to 20 years in prison because this is the second time he has entered this country illegally.

The immigration issue has been ongoing for many years, Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko said Thursday.

He remembers donating money in the late 1980s to candidates who wanted to secure the United States' borders.

“It is no surprise this is an issue. It's just gotten worse,” said McLinko. “I thought that years ago they should have just put a moratorium on immigration.”

McLinko has sponsored individuals who have wanted to become citizens legally and even traveled to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia to watch friends of his become citizens.

“For those who want to enter our country legally, that is one thing, but (the government) needs to get after the employers who are employing these (illegal) people,” he said. “This is just such a quagmire. We need to make people enter the country legally and make people work here legally.”

U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Tunkhannock, also offered comments on this issue Thursday when contacted by the Morning Times.

“As we know, our local police picked up 26 illegals, or suspected illegals and the result of that is that 24 of them were deported from the country July 15,” he said. “They were actually loaded on a plane and deported back to Mexico, so they are out of the country. The one, who has a record in Alabama for rape, a man by the name of Guzman, has been remanded to the custody of the federal marshals and he is being charged with re-entry to the country under deportation and he will be prosecuted for that offense and that can be up to a 20-year prison sentence.”

However, that is the part that sounds good about this story, Sherwood noted.

“The part that sounds bad is we had a man in Bradford County who was here illegally, who was a convicted rapist and how did that happen?” the Tunkhannock Republican asked. “Of course, I can only speculate, but the facts of the case are, he was convicted and sentenced to five years but then for some reason, Alabama turned him back over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and ICE deported him. I'm speculating, but I presume that Alabama didn't want to pay for his incarceration so they let ICE ship him out of the country.”

The moral of this story is that the United States has porous borders and that Guzman could come back into this country illegally for a second time, Sherwood said.

“Now, we're going to make it very difficult for him to come back a third time because I think he'll get a lengthy jail sentence,” he said. “However, we had 26 illegals in Athens Township that got across the border somehow and that shows that we have to do what the House passed and I voted for and that's to have a very tough border security bill that tightens up the border.”

Sherwood is also urging the U.S. government to begin criminal proceedings against Dixie Steel for that company's role in this matter.

“We have turned that case over to the government and I'm sure that they are working on Dixie Steel and it should happen because this is not a case of a dairy framer or a fruit grower or someone taking some documentation that wasn't just right and ending up with some illegals. This is a company that apparently flagrantly violates the law,” he said. “They know that if they are bringing 26 men up to work on a project in Athens Township, and nobody speaks English and nobody has any papers, they know they are breaking the law, and they are doing it willfully. So, I have asked the federal government to use all their resources to prosecute them and see what can be done about it. Our local contractors shouldn't have to put up with that kind of unfair competition.”

The House bill Sherwood supported, bill 4427 has stronger penalties for employers, he said.

“I think that there probably are some circumstances where we have to bring some foreign workers in, like to pick the harvest and so forth, but it has to be done legally and this business of having an open border, where people can sneak in here that we don't know about, has got to end,” he said. “Of course there have been steps taken to tighten up the Mexican border, but they haven't been strong enough and the bill we passed would beef it up considerably. We now have the National Guard working on the border and since then the amount of attempted entries has dropped remarkably.”

Chris Carney, who is Sherwood's Democratic opponent for the 10th Congressional District, had some harsh words on this subject - mostly aimed at the incumbent Republican.

“This underlines how border security is national security, even here at home in northeastern Pennsylvania,” said Carney. “Illegal immigrants have received seven years of amnesty while Don Sherwood has represented us. In fact, Sherwood voted for amnesty and even co-sponsored legislation that grants amnesty to illegal aliens. Just weeks ago, Sherwood flew to the Mexican border and discovered that we have a problem with immigration and border security in this country.

“Welcome home from the border Mr. Sherwood - your failures on illegal immigration have endangered our community and our families,” Carney concluded.