Thread: ICE fails again

Get a load of this one!!! This one is in a small town in central Pennsylvania.

Feds, DA trade barbs over lack of cooperation in Coal Township raid
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer
June 22, 2006
Unemployed mason Todd Harter heard there was a strip mall under construction not far from his central Pennsylvania house, drove the 30 miles to check it out and asked the man in charge for a job.

Harter noticed all the workers spoke Spanish. The owner of the masonry company “looked at the Mexicans, looked at me, and said, ’I don’t think you’d fit in,’” said Harter, 38, of Nescopeck. “It made me mad.”

What made him even angrier is that federal immigration agents neglected to take immediate action after his father and others told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement they suspected illegal immigrants were working on the job site.

Now a local prosecutor and ICE are trading barbs about the agency’s failure to raid the site, the latest salvos in an ongoing battle between state and local officials and the federal government over enforcement of immigration laws.

Northumberland County District Attorney Tony Rosini complained that federal authorities were too slow to act, saying that by the time ICE would have made an agent available to raid the job site in Coal Township, the masonry crew would have been long gone.

So Rosini orchestrated his own raid last week, calling in agents from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry to investigate potential labor law violations. On Wednesday, Labor and Industry charged the company, D&W Masonry Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, with 34 counts of violating child labor laws.

D&W did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday.
Dealing with ICE “certainly was frustrating,” Rosini said. “We have people who are taking jobs that local people could do, legal aliens could do. Instead, we have people who are taking money out of the system and not putting any money back in.”

But an ICE spokesman accused Rosini of sabotaging the federal investigation by conducting a raid without giving the agency sufficient time to develop evidence.

The spokesman, Dean Boyd, said immigration agents had asked Rosini to give them time to obtain a search warrant, but that the district attorney refused.

“Where does this leave a potential investigation into the employer?” Boyd said. “Damaged.”

ICE has come under fire recently for lax worksite enforcement. On Monday, the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, told a Senate committee that the number of unauthorized workers arrested fell from 2,849 in fiscal year 1999 to 445 in 2003.

Boyd said ICE has changed its strategy to go after employers of illegal immigrants. The number of employers charged criminally with violating immigration law increased from 24 in 1999 to 382 so far this year, he noted.

“Our strategy in conducting worksite enforcement is not simply to arrest illegal aliens,” Boyd said. “That does not necessarily address the problem because there will be more waiting in the wings. A more effective strategy is to develop evidence against an employer.”

U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood, a Republican who represents the area, said that ICE would not have accomplished much by raiding D&W’s worksite without first developing evidence that D&W knowingly employed illegal immigrants.

“ICE is more interested in shutting down employers than they are arresting Mexican migrant laborers and then having to haul them to the border,” Sherwood said.

He said that Julie Myers, assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has assured him that ICE is investigating D&W for possible immigration violations.

About 25 D&W workers tried to run away as soon as local and state authorities arrived and 18 workers were caught. The workers were unable to produce valid working papers, said Rosini, fueling suspicions they are in the United States illegally.

Dave Crowl, who runs a family-owned masonry firm in Elysburg, spent thousands of dollars putting together a bid for the strip mall job — only to see it go to D&W.

“Northumberland County is a very depressed economic area,” Crowl said. “We have bricklayers who were counting on us to get that job.”
The workers employed by D&W worked 12 hours per day, seven days a week, and were paid $15 an hour in cash under the table, Rosini said. Crowl said it costs him $42 an hour in wages and benefits to put a bricklayer to work.

Les Kauffman, president of Local 5 of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, said he called ICE about the construction site and was told there wasn’t enough evidence to conduct a raid.

“They (always) say, ’Give us a call if you see anything that might be suspicious,’” Kauffman said. “Why do we waste our time, then? They at least got to act on tips. It should warrant at least an agent just to go out and inspect the job.”

[/quote]

http://www.dailyitem.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... /-1/NEWS10

Look at these , that I found on the bottom of the article about The great enforcement.

Statistics on workplace enforcement of immigration laws
EMPLOYERS ARRESTED
Fiscal Year 1999: 24
2000: 49
2001: 19
2002: 25
2003: 72
2004: 160
2005: 176
2006 (through May 31): 382

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARRESTED
Fiscal Year 1999: 2,849
2000: 953
2001: 735
2002: 485
2003: 445
2004: 685
2005: 1,116
2006 (through May 31): 2,100

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Harter noticed all the workers spoke Spanish. The owner of the masonry company “looked at the Mexicans, looked at me, and said, ’I don’t think you’d fit in,’” said Harter, 38, of Nescopeck. “It made me mad.”

I wonder what would happen if an all white business said that to a latino applicant?

Does anybody doubt that the full weight of the Federal Government would fall on his head within an hour or so?

It's amazing how illegals are exempt from nearly every law there is.

ICE

I
Can't
Enforce

I emailed copies of this and other articles in addition to calling Sens Kyl, Cornyn, Sessions, Isaacson, and Chambliss and told them Julie Meyers is a lying fool for testifying in front of you as she did stating ICE is cracking down on illegal aliens, is ensuring deportees don't return to the US and is responsive to calls from citizens. I also sent to them the article about the morning stop on a van going the wrong way on an interstate filled with 20 illegal Mexicans with several being prior deportees in which ICE told the cop to let all of them go. In addition I sent a scathing letter to ICE with all those articles, told them I sent this to the senators and I said they need to start doing their damn jobs. I was beyond livid.

I emailed copies of this and other articles in addition to calling Sens Kyl, Cornyn, Sessions, Isaacson, and Chambliss and told them Julie Meyers is a lying fool for testifying in front of you as she did stating ICE is cracking down on illegal aliens, is ensuring deportees don't return to the US and is responsive to calls from citizens.

Thats a great idea! BTW, I caught that hearing (CSPAN showed it late at night) and watching Julie "deer in the headlights" Meyers and Stewart A. "CFR Guy" Baker literally sickened me, knowing what we know.

“Northumberland County is a very depressed economic area,” Crowl said. “We have bricklayers who were counting on us to get that job.”

The workers employed by D&W worked 12 hours per day, seven days a week, and were paid $15 an hour in cash under the table, Rosini said. Crowl said it costs him $42 an hour in wages and benefits to put a bricklayer to work.

This is a perfect example of how greed, not need, is the motivating factor behind the guestworker/amnesty drive.

And they just are filling jobs Americans won't do!!!! They are stealing jobs and degrading wages!! With out them we wouldn't have to raise minimum wage!!!!!!!!!!