Thread: VA: ICE arrests 33 illegals at courthouse construction site

Posted May 7, 2008

ILLEGALS: ICE arrests 33 at Va. courthouse construction site
By The Associated Press

RICHMOND — Thirty-three workers have been arrested on immigration charges at the construction site for the new federal courthouse in downtown Richmond.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took 29 men and four women into custody Wednesday. ICE spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs said they were charged with immigration violations and are being detained for further processing.

She said the workers’ native countries included Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru.

State police assisted in the raid at the seven-story building, which is expected to open this summer.

The builder is Tompkins Builders Inc., which is owned by New York-based Turner Construction Co.

Turner said in a statement that the company is cooperating in the investigation, which it said does not involve any employees of Tompkins Builders or Turner.

http://www.dailytimesonline.com/apps/pb ... 07058/1002

Immigration raid draws protest

Friday, May 09, 2008 - 09:00 PM

BY LINDA DUNHAM

Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

More than three dozen people gathered today across the street from the nearly completed federal courthouse in downtown Richmond to protest Wednesday's immigration raid there.

The protesters carried signs reading "No human is illegal" and "Slavery splits families" and other messages.

The Virginia Immigration People's Coalition organized the protest to help create awareness of the increasingly volatile issue of illegal immigration and its impact on the immigrant community.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the site of the $104 million courthouse on Wednesday and took into custody 33 construction workers suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Rachel Mehl, an activist with the coalition, said the group had been in touch with family members of the 33 detained workers. The group is putting them in contact with legal resources.

The Rev. Shay Auerbach, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in South Richmond, said the raid sent shock waves through his heavily Latino parish.

"They are going after the hard-working element of the community, and that just drives them deeper underground," Auerbach said. "It's so scary for them."

www.inrich.com

2 of 33 immigrant workers from raid appear in court

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 09:48 AM


• REACTION: Immigration agents arrest 33 workers
By MARK BOWES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Two of 33 workers arrested during last week's immigration raid at the new federal courthouse in Richmond will appear in court this afternoon on criminal charges of reentering the country after being deported and possessing a fake resident alien card.

Hugo Dominguez Cano, 33, of Mexico, was charged reentering the U.S. after being deported in March 2006, according to a federal affidavit.

The other worker, Juan Perez-Hernandez, 23, also from Mexico, was charged with possessing a counterfeit alien resident card with a registration number assigned to someone else.

So far, none of the other 31 workers arrested last week on charges of violating federal immigration laws and being in the U.S. illegally have been charged with more serious federal crimes.

According to charging documents, Cano told federal immigration agents that he entered the U.S. illegally through Arizona in March 2007 after being deported about two years earlier.

After checking immigration records, authorities learned that Cano was arrested in Topeka, Kan, on Feb. 21, 2006 for illegally entering the country eight days earlier. A judge in Kansas City, Kan., ordered him deported on Feb. 27 of that year, and he was sent back to Mexico on March 1.

In Perez-Hernandez's case, an immigration agent found him to be in possession of a resident alien card bearing his name and photo after he was arrested last week and searched, according to his charging document.

A check with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revealed that the alien identification number on the card was not registered to Perez-Hernandez, but to a female resident alien from Mexico, the affidavit says.



http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx. ... -0181.html