Thread: O'Hare - Airport boss won’t take the blame

Airport boss won’t take the blame
O’HARE | Says feds, firms at fault in security breach

November 9, 2007
BY ERIC HERMAN Staff Reporter
Chicago’s aviation commissioner on Thursday contradicted charges that illegal immigrants gained access to secure areas of O’Hare using deactivated city security cards — and she put blame for the problem on the federal government and private employers.
On Wednesday, federal and local authorities cracked down on a company that allegedly got illegals identity badges so they could load cargo and meals onto commercial jetliners. By Thursday, 33 illegals had been arrested for possession of fraudulent identification, and two employees of a Bensenville temporary agency faced federal charges.

“This is not about fault. This process entails more than one entity,â€

I'm sure Ms. FERNANDEZ is telling the truth and bares no fault in any of this.

Fake safety net at O'Hare

November 9, 2007

In 2002, with images of the Sept. 11 attacks still a searing presence in daily life, federal agents conducted a series of sweeps at major airports, arresting hundreds of workers who had managed to get security clearances by lying about criminal records or providing fake identification papers.

At O'Hare International Airport, the feds arrested 25 employees, including six felons and 19 who were working with false documents. Though none of those arrested in Operation Tarmac were accused of terrorist activities, the sweep proved that it was frighteningly easy to gain access to secure airport areas by using a fake ID.

It still is.

This week, agents rounded up nearly three dozen illegal immigrants who worked in cargo areas or on the tarmac at O'Hare, loading freight and food onto planes. The workers got their jobs -- and applied for their security badges -- through Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc., a temporary employment agency in Bensenville.

Managers at the temp agency accepted identification documents that they knew were phony, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Last month, ICE agents reviewed 150 security badge applications submitted by Ideal employees and found 110 listed Social Security numbers that either didn't exist or were issued to someone else, according to ICE affidavits. Dozens of those applications were certified as valid by Ideal even after the Social Security Administration had notified the company in writing that the employee's Social Security number did not match government records.

Office manager Norinye Benitez, herself an illegal immigrant, even applied for a security badge in her own name using an address that doesn't exist and a Social Security number issued to an Iowa resident, the affidavit says. Corporate secretary Mary Gurin signed that application, and Benitez got her badge. Both face a possible 10 years in prison.

The feds allege that in tape-recorded conversations with informants posing as potential employees, Benitez brazenly acknowledged that while documentation was a must, it didn't have to be real. One informant admitted he got his Social Security card "on 26th Street," widely known as the place to shop for fake IDs; Benitez accepted the card and photocopied it to submit with his application. When the informant balked at being fingerprinted, Benitez produced a box of old security badges and told him to pick one with a photo that looked like him. Though the badge was supposedly deactivated, the informant was able to use it to gain entry to the United Cargo building, according to the affidavit.

The investigation continues, as they say, so we don't have answers to some troubling questions: How did Ideal come to have a box of old security badges? Why do those badges still work? What, if anything, does the city Department of Aviation do to ensure that an agency that handles applications for security badges is scrupulously checking the required documentation? Is it really a good idea to entrust the security application to a temp agency, which has a financial stake in finding work for its employees?

"This case illustrates ICE's resolve to ensuring unauthorized workers are not employed at our nation's critical infrastructure facilities," said Elissa Brown, special agent-in-charge in Chicago. But the investigation also exposes a security shield that is dangerously easy to penetrate.

When it comes to airports, the focus should be on preventing undocumented strangers from gaining access in the first place, not on rounding them up after. Though there's no reason to believe any of them harbored evil plans, it's alarming to realize that dozens of people who aren't who they say they are have been loading things onto airplanes at O'Hare.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... 2752.story

Gives us more amo on why the boardes need closed .

A round here we have to wait for some one to die in a car crash before they put ip a new stop light.
Looks like the Goverment forgot that weve already had our car crash, but this road needs closed