What
Do the Latest ICE Raids Augur?
·
This week’s ICE
raids of chicken plants in Mississippi, which apprehended 680
illegal workers, has generated the usual howls of outrage from the
pro-illegal-immigration crowd. There was a tsunami of “but
look at the crying children!” variety of coverage, but the award for
the most unhinged response goes to the League of United Latin American Citizens
(LULAC), founded 90 years ago as a pro-assimilation patriotic organization,
which denounced the raids as “state
terrorism“.
Actually, it’s long overdue. Enforcement the ban on hiring
illegal aliens has been laughably flaccid, under both Republicans and
Democrats, as Pulitzer Prize winner Jerry Kammer laid out here.
Tom Homan pledged two years ago that ICE would step
up worksite enforcement and there has, in fact, been an
increase. One of the obstacles, though, has been bureaucratic — the bureau
within ICE responsible for such work, Homeland Security Investigations, is
largely led by former Customs Service guys who couldn’t
care less about immigration. That’s one reason under Obama the ICE
press releases were mainly about counterfeit Gucci handbags and illegal imports
of ancient artifacts and the like.
Fine, but without illegal aliens, who will debone the chicken?
As happened after the 2006
Swift & Co. meatpacking raids, the targeted plants will raise
wages and cast their recruitment net wider. And there are plenty of potential
workers. My colleague Steven Camarota coincidentally published a report this
week showing that Mississippi has the
lowest labor-force participation rate of any state; in the
first quarter of this year, only 62 percent of non-college native-born adults
in Mississippi were working or actively looking for work. That’s fully 20
points lower than first-place Iowa, and a 12-point drop even from Mississippi’s
rate during the same period in 2000. The idea that we’re running out of
potential workers, even in today’s good economy, is comical. It may well be
that those American workers who don’t already have a job are harder to employ –
ex-cons, maybe, or recovering addicts or what have you. But importing foreign
workers to fill entry-level jobs not only does nothing to address their
employability problems; instead, it’s a crutch that enables us to ignore the
problems of our own workers. To be blunt, too many employers are satisfied with
leaving marginal American workers to their welfare checks and opioids, and
importing foreigners to take their place.
Another critique of such raids is that they’re just body-count
exercises – a few illegals are deported, the rest get jobs elsewhere, and the
employers get a slap on the wrist, if that. This is a real danger. But a clue
that this operation might be different comes in the ICE
press release, which referred to “seizing business records
pertaining to the ongoing federal criminal investigation”. While it can be easy
to deport the illegal workers, especially if they’re among the 1 million
illegals who’ve ignored deportation orders and become fugitives, the law makes
it much more difficult to make a criminal case stick against the employers. But
even here, raids like this are essential, as we saw with the 2008
raid against a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. That plant had
been suspected of all kinds of labor violations for years – wage and hour,
occupational safety, child labor, you name it – but neither state nor federal
investigators could ever get the evidence they needed. But when the plant was
raided, many of the illegal workers were charged with their own crimes – ID
theft, tax fraud, perjury, etc. – and that gave prosecutors leverage
to get them to rat out the management in exchange for leniency. Let’s hope
that’s what the feds have in mind in Mississippi.
Also this week, the Washington Post published the latest in its
series of stories on illegal
workers at various Trump properties. There’s nothing particularly
new in this story, which focuses on illegal aliens who worked at a Trump-owned
construction company – the paper has been documenting for months now that
illegals have worked at Trump golf clubs and resorts, and the president’s sons,
who run the operations, have said they’re signing up all their properties with
E-Verify (a few had already been using it, but most weren’t). They should have
enrolled in E-Verify in 2015, at the latest, in preparation for the campaign,
but better late than never. Reporting like this is important to make sure they
follow through.
But one nugget from the story was interesting, if unsurprising:
“Another immigrant who worked for the Trump construction crew, Edmundo Morocho,
said he was told by a Trump supervisor to buy fake identity documents on a New
York street corner.” This is probably true, though it happened 19 years ago,
and the supervisor is both retired and blind, so it’s too late to make any
charges stick. Nonetheless, the Post should turn over to ICE the
names of any current supervisors they’re told about who engaged in illegal
activity. ICE may follow through, or not – either way it’s news and people
should know.
But something the president had said last month points to assignment
for ICE: “Probably every club in the United States has that [illegal workers],
because it seems to me, from what I understand, a way that people did
business.”
So let’s see some arrests at golf courses, too.
Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants Arrested in Mississippi ICE Raids
Source: AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday its officers detained roughly 680 “removable aliens” after raiding seven food processing plants in Mississippi.
"The execution of federal search warrants today was simply about enforcing the rule of law in our state and throughout our great country," U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst said in a statement. "I commend these federal agents, our state and local law enforcement partners, and our federal prosecutors for their professionalism and dedication to ensure that those who violate our laws are held accountable."
The operation, which involved nearly 600 agents, targeted plants in Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol.
"All the unlawfully present foreign nationals arrested Wednesday are being interviewed by ICE staff to record any potential mitigating humanitarian situations," ICE said in a statement. "Based on these interviews, and consideration of their criminality and prior immigration history, ICE is determining on a case-by-case basis based on the totality of the circumstances which individuals will be detained and which persons may be released from custody at present."
Jere Miles, HSI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge, said in a statement that enforcement efforts are focused on both the illegal alien employees and the employers who hired them knowing their immigration status.
In addition to executing federal search warrants & seizing business records pertaining to the ongoing federal criminal investigation, deportation officers with ICE ERO in partnership with HSI detained approximately 680 removable aliens who were unlawfully working at the plants pic.twitter.com/JORXd7NAYy— ICE (@ICEgov) August 8, 2019
This HSI-led operation was conducted in coordination with the @SDMSNews, of which @USAttyHurst will prosecute any resulting federal criminal charges. ice.gov/news/releases/ …
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Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants Arrested in Mississippi ICE Raids
Source: AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday its officers detained roughly 680 “removable aliens” after raiding seven food processing plants in Mississippi.
"The execution of federal search warrants today was simply about enforcing the rule of law in our state and throughout our great country," U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst said in a statement. "I commend these federal agents, our state and local law enforcement partners, and our federal prosecutors for their professionalism and dedication to ensure that those who violate our laws are held accountable."
The operation, which involved nearly 600 agents, targeted plants in Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie and Sebastapol.
"All the unlawfully present foreign nationals arrested Wednesday are being interviewed by ICE staff to record any potential mitigating humanitarian situations," ICE said in a statement. "Based on these interviews, and consideration of their criminality and prior immigration history, ICE is determining on a case-by-case basis based on the totality of the circumstances which individuals will be detained and which persons may be released from custody at present."
Jere Miles, HSI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge, said in a statement that enforcement efforts are focused on both the illegal alien employees and the employers who hired them knowing their immigration status.
This HSI-led operation was conducted in coordination with the @SDMSNews, of which @USAttyHurst will prosecute any resulting federal criminal charges. ice.gov/news/releases/ …
ICE Arrests 680 Illegal Aliens in Largest Single-State Raid in U.S. History
2:28
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency arrested 680 illegal aliens who had been working at seven Mississippi food processing plants, federal officials confirmed on Wednesday.
ICE agents conducted the largest single-state raid in United States history and the largest workplace raid in the last 11 years when they arrested 680 illegal aliens at seven food processing plants across six cities in Mississippi, including plants in Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie, and Sebastapol.
Not since 2008 — when about 595 illegal workers were arrested — has this many illegal aliens been arrested in a workplace raid by ICE.
According to federal officials, some of the hundreds of illegal aliens arrested on Wednesday have already been ordered deported by an immigration judge and have refused to self-deport. Those illegal aliens will be quickly deported.
Other illegal aliens have yet to go through the immigration courts and will be afforded a review process where they will make a case to remain in the U.S.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst told the media at a press conference:
We are first and foremost a nation of laws and the Rule of Law is the bedrock, the very foundation, of our great country. I heard someone say that a country without borders is not a country at all and while I agree with that, I would also add that without law there is no order. Without the enforcement of law, there is no justice.
The food processing plants raided by ICE include the Koch Foods Inc. facility in Morton, Mississippi. The plant is not associated with the GOP mega-donor billionaires Charles and David Koch.
ICE officials said the investigation into the illegal aliens and their employers is ongoing and could not comment on specifics of the case.
“These are not victimless crimes,” an ICE official said. “Illegal workers create vulnerabilities in the marketplace … as well as stealing the identities of legal U.S. workers, citizens, and legal immigrants alike, who must suffer the long-lasting consequences of their stolen identities.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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