By Michelle Malkin · December 13, 2006 09:42 AM
First, check out this reaction to yesterday's illegal alien worker raids published in the Des Moines Register:



Caption: Hector Angel, a Marshalltown business owner, states his point of view about the raid as ICE buses roll away from the plant.

A natural response from open-borders zealots who've been giving the finger to immigration law for years. Right on cue, labor groups are demanding a moratorium on deportations and open-borders Catholic leaders are protesting.

In Denver, 9News reports on the negotiations between the Swift & Company's Greeley, Colorado and the feds to make sure that embarrassment was kept to a minimum. How nice:

9NEWS has learned that last week Swift & Company went to court in Texas to file a restraining order to stop the raid from happening.

9NEWS has also learned the raid was scheduled to happen Monday, but an agreement was made between Swift & Company and the Federal Government to delay the raid because Japanese businessmen, who are potential customers, were visiting the Greeley plant.
E.P. at Slapstick Politics has a Colorado round-up.

The New York Times, like many other outlets, runs a large photo of arrested workers' families in tears. Not pictured are any of the hundreds of American victims of illegal alien identity theft whose Social Security numbers were stolen to enable the illegal alien workers to work.

Who will tell their stories?

Here's a bit more detail on the identity theft scheme from the local Greeley, Colo. paper. One of the victims was a Border Patrol agent!

Affidavits on 25 arrest warrants were filed about 4:30 p.m. Monday. Each one sought a Swift employee on suspicion of forgery and criminal impersonation. According to the affidavits, special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver office investigated Swift since summer.

On July 31, ICE special agent Richard Goldsberry received copies of employment documents for all employees working for Swift as of July 18. Agents used information from those documents to track down workers who had used someone else's information to get jobs. Agents were often able to compare driver's license photographs of U.S. citizens with those working at Swift under the same name.

Federal Trade Commission records provided another clue for investigators. Records often listed residences in states such as Texas, Utah and California for employees working in Greeley. In many cases, the people who actually live in those distant locations had filed complaints after they learned from a credit agency or the Internal Revenue Service of back taxes or jobs with companies where they'd never worked.

Swift accepted Luis J. Pena's application on Oct. 30, 2003, and made copies of his Social Security card and Colorado driver's license. The problem was, ICE agents found, the real Pena lives in Arizona. He works in Nogales as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Pena told agents he requested a copy of his credit report in 1998 or 1999 and learned someone had used his information to get jobs with companies he'd never heard of.

A woman claiming to be Theresa Sanchez provided Swift with a Social Security card and Colorado I.D. on April 8, 2005. The FTC shows Sanchez actually lives in Texas and filed a complaint after she got a letter from the IRS. The letter said the agency was holding her $5,400 refund because she had failed to report $120,000 in wages since 1996. Sanchez told ICE she had never lived in Colorado. The FTC said someone used her information for jobs, college and to receive unemployment benefits.

Sanchez told an agent she stands about 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds. The woman suspected of impersonating her is 5 inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter. Sanchez said the suspect may have gotten her personal information from an ex-husband.

The cases go on and on.
Chris at Lonewackoshares my skepticism about the raids and has a suggestion:

Whatever the motivations behind these raids, they're too little too late. And, they may have been conducted as an attempt to show that the Bush administration is serious about enforcement, as a way of getting "comprehensive immigration reform". There's probably very little chance that Teddy Kennedy and Bush were actively colluding on the raid, but both are serving the same master: "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e., a massive amnesty).

Such raids need to be encouraged, but the Bush administration also needs to know that we're on to what is most likely a game they're playing. My original thought was to send a cookie to the White House as a bit of positive enforcement, but that's probably not a good idea.

However, perhaps some brave soul could send the White House a McDonalds gift certificate. Apparently the smallest amount you can get online is a $5 book with five certificates, although one of their restaurants might have smaller denominations. I'd suggest sending the smallest coupon possible (preferably something good for only an ice cream cone or half a McRib or something), thanking them for their however belated attempts to enforce our laws. And, informing them in the most condescending-but-polite terms possible that if they keep doing a good job they'll get the rest of the book. (And, of course, if they can't keep the cert themselves they should give it to one of the homeless people just a few blocks from the White House). That plan is only for the brave, of course, and don't tell them I gave you the idea.
Ed Morrissey warns:

The government has let private industry off the hook for their use of illegal immigrants for too long, and it's good to see that change. However, we had better be prepared for the economic damage this could cause.
Yes, it's something I've repeated often. We have all been immunized from the consequences of lax immigration enforcement. On 9/11, 3,000 people paid for some of the costs with their lives. Higher meat prices, more expensive hotels, and costlier produce are nothing compared to what many othervictims of open-borders chaos have suffered.

Time to stop whining and suck it up.

http://www.michellemalkin.com/