Federal agents targeting illegal immigrants raided meatpacking plants in six states yesterday, arresting hundreds of workers on the uncommon charge of identity theft and shutting down the world's second-largest meat processing company for much of the day.About 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with search warrants entered plants owned by Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., charging that "large numbers" of workers illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens or legal residents by using their Social Security numbers to get work, ICE officials said.
Company and union officials said agents, some dressed in riot gear, locked down six beef and pork processing plants early in the morning, segregating workers into groups of citizens and non-citizens after questioning. Some illegal workers were bused to detention facilities hours away, labor officials said.
ICE officials would not say how many people were arrested pending a news conference today in Washington. About 90 percent of Swift's 15,000 U.S. employees work in three shifts at the plants, company officials said.
The crackdown was another step in the federal government's stepped-up campaign against illegal immigration, and like some recent raids it targeted job sites, the magnet drawing many of the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants. But the move was unusual for several reasons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121200525_pf.html**BIG BAZOO's take: F-I-N-A-L-L-Y....enforcement of US immigration laws.....what a concept!!....Let's hope that these raids are just the tip of the iceberg....these illegals are stealing the IDs of real Americans to get jobs they are not entitled to!..Send 'em back to Mexico..NOW!
illegal+immigrants mexico deportation identity+theft day+laborers immigration+customs+enforcement
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