At least 120 nabbed in immigration raid (Building Military Housing)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5007796,00.html

About 70 federal agents descended on a site near Buckley Air Force Base today and arrested at least 120 suspected illegal immigrants who were building military housing.

In what may be the largest immigration raid in state history, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, some from as far away as California, loaded the men they detained onto three buses and took them away to be processed. Some family members arrived at the construction site, panicked at the possibility a loved one would be deported.

ICE agents also made early morning raids in Pennsylvania and Delaware this morning, arresting 115 illegal immigrants, including some criminals and fugitives who had ducked previous deportation orders.

Officials with the Mexican consulate in Denver said they were told by ICE that 98 immigrants, including three minors, had already been put on a bus to Mexico.

[gumby]

1. What?

Outsourcing at its finest. :wow:

[saigon68]

11. Please the Corporation employing them was just "TRYING TO MAKE A BUCK"

Did they have benefits, Workers Comp insurance, did they follow any OSHA rules?


BET NOT.

LOL

[peacetalksforall]

2. Uniter policy in action. We are in a police state. We invite

them in to work for mega and small companies then crap on them and their families. My heart cries for their families. How utterly cruel. And the subcontractor who may have been using Mexicans for years or decades is left hanging with a contract and no laborers. A military contract.

Who called this. Atrocious. No warning.

We are in a police state. It's here.

[williesgirl]

5. How can you have sympathy for the subcontractor? He's been breaking

the law for years. Let him cope with his contract with the military. He may just have to hire legal workers, whether immigrant or citizens, and pay them a living wage. I think he should be arrested & fined heavily as well.

I feel for the families caught up in this but they also knew the risk when they came here illegally. Maybe once word gets out that the well is running dry, they'll even force the Mexican government to do whats right for its own citizens, end the corruption and move toward allowing Mexican families to stay home and yet live decently.

I've known quite a few men who've come here to work illegally. It's also heartbreaking to hear how lonely they are away from their families, never watching their kids grow up. They're treated horribly by American employers, threatening them for minor things they wouldn't dare do to American workers. They work them like dogs and pay them poorly, knowing they'll take it since they have no recourse. This has to end.

[file83]

6. Why is everyone seeming to miss the BIG point of this story?

120 undocumented foreign citizens were on a U.S. military base. Can you say "breach of security"? Not to mention, did anyone notice that the ICE investigators said they had been working on this case for 3 months? So that means that they knowingly allowed these 120 undocumented foreigners onto a military base!!

I'm just saying, doesn't sound like the smartest plan considering we are a nation at war. I guess it's no big deal, yeah sure, fuck it - who cares about who's on our military bases.

[Ragin_mad]

9. They were not on the base

The housing complex is located outside the base.

[peacetalksforall]

7. Are you kidding? I don't have sympathy with meg-corporations

who have lobbied the leaders to look the other way on illegals for decades. I have some sympathy with small businesses whose busines can crash because they did what the biggies are doing - and who don't have a national or international financial support to plug the deficit.

My point is that this stupid government is attempting to get tough with one contractor - on a federal site, no less - while they would NEVER touch one of their mega corporations meaning a significant or mega contributor to a Party - most likely Republicans. Name one mega company who has been targeted.

A warning should have gone out to all employers of illegals. This appears to be a drastic action without fair coordination.

I went to sleep crying for the families of those left behind and what it must be like for them. And I woke up in the same sorry place.

I think this country is sick. There is NO justice, NO negotiable talent, NO fairness.

And you have to ask if this was not a local political move - government helping a candidate?

Nothing is beyond my imagination after the horrors of the last six years and the last 43 years.

IT STINKS. There are FEW people doing anything Christian about this problem that WE THE PEOPLE OF THE US CREATED. You can't mix profit and crappy inhuman terror on these people. You can't tolerate illegal, look the other way, then pull the carpet uout from under these poor women.

[pampango]

8. The immigration issue is incredibly complicated

Every country has the right to decide who is admitted for residence, work and citizenship, whether that country is the US, Canada, Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, France, etc.

I lived in the Philippines for four years and, while they have a more difficult time getting to the US, many do so illegally. All of them that I know are hard workers, contribute to society more than many American citizens do, and strive to become citizens as soon as they can.

I have seen many posts at DU expressing support for the strategy of targeting employers who are hiring workers here illegally, while not building fences or otherwise targeting the immigrants directly. In this case, if the employer, and perhaps the general contractor or someone higher up the ladder, is significantly sanctioned for hiring illegal workers, that would appear to be consistent with what some have posted here.

I realize that we could wish that the government went after bigger employers, not just the small guys, but this would cause an even bigger outcry in some circles, because it would affect even more immigrants.

[peacetalksforall]

10. Do you think our leaders are not going to go after the mega-employers?

If so, I would assume it's for the same old reasons - stockholders and contributions.

A smaller company can't compete on the contributions.

That means an illegal would be better off trying to get in with a mega-corporation.

I am going to be very interested in knowing how this pans out for politicians. If any Republican or Democrat plays this up for their benefit our touts this outrageous atrocity against families as cleaning up our country, I will scream.

We must find a more human and Christian way of dealing with the families.

We must come up with a way to deal with this. We let them stay and milked them for their obedience and back breaking labor and they paid their taxes and contributed to many economies and now we do this?

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. A government contractor

Is obliged to pay his employees the prevailing wage. The prevailing wage is generally (in my experience) higher than the *real* prevailing wage.

The contractor hired illegals so that he could pay them $6 of the $45 that he charged the government for their time, without risk of the employees reporting the contractor.

The contractor should go to jail, and the workers should be returned home with an apology and a reminder that there is a legal process that must be followed in order to work here.

[Nozebro]

3. That only leaves about how many million more? 12million? 25M? nt

nt

[lpbk2713]

4. It's just a mere technicality.

The construction jobs were sent offshore.


It's just an oversight that the jobsite wasn't sent offshore.



:eyes: :eyes:

[judaspriestess]

13. this should make lots of people happy

Wages are gonna go up in just a few days :eyes: