Too Little -- Too Late

Source: CNN

Immigration arrests 9 bosses along with 1,000 workers

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal immigration authorities arrested nine people linked to the firm IFCO Systems and rounded up more than 1,000 illegal immigrants in multistate raids, federal law enforcement officials said.

Among those arrested and charged in connection with the employment of immigrants are seven current and former managers and two lower-level employees of the company, said U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby.

The operation came as Bush administration officials and a federal prosecutor plan a new strategy aimed at companies that employ illegal immigrants. IFCO is an industry leader in the manufacture of wooden pallets, crates and containers. The criminal complaint involving IFCO charges the seven managers with conspiracy to transport, harbor, and employ illegal immigrants for private gain. (Watch the young woman whose boyfriend got hauled in -- 1:06)

Federal authorities checked a sample of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.(Watch how workers allegedly got help faking records -- 1:25)

"That is, they were using Social Security numbers of people that were dead, of children or just different individuals that did not work at IFCO," ICE chief Julie Myers told CNN.

"The Social Security Administration had written IFCO over 13 times and told them, 'Listen, You have a problem. You have over a thousand employees that have faulty Social Security numbers. And we consider that to be a big problem,'" said Myers. "And IFCO did not do anything about it."

A yearlong investigation revealed that IFCO managers had induced illegal aliens to work there, telling some to doctor W-2 tax forms and others that no documentation was needed at all, Myers said.

As public concern over illegal immigration has grown in recent months, federal law enforcement officials have sought to tighten enforcement of immigration laws, through criminal charges against those who employ illegal aliens. Those charges would include money laundering, alien harboring, illegal alien employment and wire fraud.

And had they been doing this all along we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But they hadn't so we are.

It's more than a little curious that we are seeing enforcement now after several years of virtually none. The president could have made this happen at any point during the last five years, but he didn't, president Clinton could have encouraged serious enforcement, but he didn't.

So now we're to believe that the administration is serious because they conducted one day of raids?

Yeah, I don't think so. They haven't earned my trust on this matter, keep this up for a couple more years and maybe we can talk.

Michelle Malkin sez: Based on my reporting and interviews with ICE agents, I can also tell you that this week's dog-and-pony show will result in very few of the arrested illegal aliens actually being deported. Despite what the administration claims, "catch and release" is still the order of the day.

Just ask local and federal law enforcement officers in the Galveston, Texas, area, where in January of this year, following a collaborative effort between local police and area ICE agents, some 62 illegal aliens were caught at a day labor site...and released after local open-borders activists from LULAC kicked up a fuss and Washington ordered its local ICE agents to cave in. It happens every day.

This is kabuki theater for the rubes, don't believe the hype.

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, deportation, ICE, Please!