Thread: PA - Complaint led to arrest of 12 illegal immigrants

There are a lot of comments left after this story to read if you click on the link.

http://link.toolbot.com/mcall.com/26073

December 4, 2006
Complaint led to arrest of 12 illegal immigrants
They worked building homes in Hellertown, Morganelli says.
By Chris Pollock Of The Morning Call
Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said Saturday a written complaint from a local resident was the catalyst for the arrest of 12 illegal immigrants in Hellertown last week.

The 12 were detained after a raid on a construction site in the Oak Ridge development on Cherry Lane in the borough, and have since been taken into custody by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

Morganelli said his office received the complaint from a man who checked out the site after being disturbed by work going on late at night. Morganelli would not identify the complainant.

Morganelli provided the following information: The arrested people — seven Brazilians and five Mexicans — are believed to work for three subcontractors of Ryan Homes Inc., which is building Oak Ridge for Ashley Development Corp. of Bethlehem. The companies are GS Carpentry of Whitehall Township, Ceylan Painting of Philadelphia, and MP Flooring of Bellmawr, N.J.

None of the companies has criminal charges filed against them. Morganelli said if he filed charges he would have to prove they had knowingly hired illegals, which is difficult to do.

None of the arrested had identification on them, which Morganelli said is becoming more common.

''They're getting more savvy,'' he said. ''Because [immigrants] have been arrested in the past for having fake IDs, now the word's going around the immigrant community it's better to have no ID.''

Assisting Northampton County authorities in the raid was an agent for the Social Security Administration, who was present to investigate the use of fake Social Security cards.

Morganelli said companies often accept Social Security numbers or cards and never check to see if they are real.

They love to work late and on weekends. It happend in Florida as well. In Sunny Isles on the large beach front condo complexes they used to work at odd hours but the city has a ordinance about what hours and days they can do so. Residents would regularly call the police and that frightened them and that has stopped. Too bad the police never checked their immigration status.

So, this is what it will take to get the towns to enforce laws

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said Saturday a written complaint from a local resident was the catalyst for the arrest of 12 illegal immigrants in Hellertown last week.

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Anyone else planning to write those companies?

The police don't have the time to deal with immigration issues unfortunately. When they run someone and immigration has a deportation order or if it states the person has been deported and they are back here then the police notify ICE. If the person admits to officers that they are here illegally then ICE will be notified as well. The police departments in many cities and counties just don't have the manpower to do all that checking as they have emergency calls to deal with. When there are medical emegencies, car accidents, domestic violence, armed robberies and burglary in progress calls not to mention the non priority calls that are on hold, then there is no time for the checking every employee on a job site.