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Suspected Illegal Immigrant Talks About Arrests
LAST UPDATE: 5/20/2006 5:54:41 AM

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For the first time, we're hearing from the suspected illegal workers taken into custody by Butler County Sheriff's deputies.

A caller to 911 said there was a fight brewing between immigrant workers and American workers.

Local 12 Reporter Shawn Ley has been sorting through the conflicting stories.

Rogelio Lopez is one of 18 workers detained Thursday by Butler County Sheriff's deputies.

Lopez is from San Luis, Mexico and admits he didn't have a legal work visa when he crossed the border in Lorado, Texas three weeks ago. Within days, an employer hired him at about $8 an hour to lay brick at new homes on Wayne Township's Windy Meadow Drive.

"We don't know what happened," said Lopez. "We were working normal. All of a sudden we saw police."

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones tells Local 12, seven cruisers, lights on, sirens blaring, were sent to the work site after receiving this 911 call from a man named Joe Payne.

Dispatcher: "What's going on there?"

Caller: "There's about 20, 30 Mexicans and five or six Americans, and we're about ready to have a fight because uh, they're all illegal aliens out here, and we're Americans, and they're out here taking our jobs."

"We were very surprised, because we hadn't seen anybody," said Lopez.

Lopez and the rest of the workers maintain there was no fight, no argument, and they didn't see any American workers onsite.

The sheriff says, as in any case, the men were detained until they could be identified, and until investigators simply found out what happened.

By law, deputies can't make arrests for immigration violations, but investigators can report the men and their employer to immigration officials.

These men are skilled laborers. They say it's worth illegally crossing the border, starting at $8 an hour for a job that pays $5 a day in Mexico.

"Maybe the American's don't like us, because they think we are here to take away their jobs," said Lopez.

Local 12 spoke with the man who called 911 for help. He says a fight never broke out, and he's more upset with his employer, he accuses of hiring illegal workers.

He is a 30 year Journeyman brick layer, starting at least at $25 an hour, not the $8 paid to the immigrants.