Feds arrest 1,187 illegal workers
WASHINGTON – Federal immigration agents, carrying out the largest workplace bust in U.S. history, arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants employed by a nationwide pallet services company and filed criminal conspiracy charges against seven current and former managers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Thursday.
The 26-state roundup, conducted Wednesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, targeted Houston-based IFCO Systems North America Inc. and capped a 14-month investigation that involved a former illegal immigrant working as an undercover operative for ICE.
IFCO managers actively recruited illegal immigrants and provided housing, transportation and bogus work documents, officials said. Approximately 53 percent of the Social Security numbers for 5,800 IFCO workers during 2005 were either invalid, belonged to children or dead people, or did not match the names registered with the Social Security Administration, according to investigators.
Chertoff, underscoring the investigation’s scope, said the roundup surpassed the 2005 total of 1,125 worksite arrests. ICE agents, assisted by the Justice Department, executed criminal search warrants at 40 plant sites.
On its Web site, IFCO describes itself as a national leader in pallet systems, which are used as platforms for shipping. E-mail and phone messages to an IFCO spokesman were not returned. In a statement, the firm said it was cooperating with authorities.
Chertoff said the raid exemplifies an emerging strategy by his department to beef up and expand workplace enforcement. The strategy, Chertoff said, includes aggressive criminal prosecution against “bad actors” who knowingly and consistently hire illegal aliens, as well as a crackdown against widespread misuse of Social Security numbers.
The toughened enforcement occurred as Congress grapples with an array of legislative proposals to deal with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.
The seven current and former IFCO supervisors were arrested and named in criminal complaints that could result in maximum 10-year prison sentences and fines of up to $250,000 for each alien. They were charged with conspiring to transport and harbor illegal aliens for commercial and financial gain.
Two other employees were arrested on criminal charges relating to fraudulent documents. The alien workers, predominately from Mexico and Latin America, were arrested on civil violations on being in the country illegally and face deportation to their home countries. More than 200 had been returned by midday Thursday, ICE officials said.
According to a government affidavit, the investigation began in February 2005 when a company employee at the Guilderland, N.Y., plant called ICE agents to report that he had seen Hispanic workers ripping up W-2 forms. The employee said a manger told him that the Hispanics were illegal aliens, had fake Social Security cards and did not intend to file their taxes.
ICE, a branch of Homeland Security, worked with the New York State Police in the expanding probe and enlisted a “confidential informant” who had helped ICE in an earlier prosecution against alien smugglers in Texas. The informant began working with ICE after he was arrested by the Border Patrol for entering the country illegally, according to the affidavit.