Immigration News

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Illegal aliens recruit workers

SASABE, Mexico -- A growing number of U.S. employers in need of cheap labor are turning to illegal workers to recruit friends and relatives back home, and to smugglers to find job seekers.
    "It continues to become clear who controls immigration: It's not governments, but rather the market," said Jorge Santibanez, director of the Tijuana think tank Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
    When Pedro Lopez Vazquez crossed illegally into the United States last week, he already had a job.
    His future employer even paid $1,000 for a smuggler to help Mr. Vazquez make his way from the central Mexican city of Puebla to Aspen, Colo.
    "We're going to Colorado to work in carpentry because we have a friend who was going to give us a job," Mr. Vazquez said.
    Mr. Vazquez, 41, was interviewed along the Arizona border after being deported twice by the U.S. Border Patrol. He said he would keep trying until he got to Aspen.
    His story is not unusual.
    Darcy Tromanhauser of the nonprofit law project Nebraska Appleseed said companies in need of workers rely on the underground employment networks to "pass along the information more effectively than billboards."
    "It started out more explicitly, where [meatpacking] companies used to have buses to transport people to come up, and they would advertise directly in Mexico," she said. "Now I think that happens more informally."
    At the same time, it has become less risky for companies to recruit illegal aliens. Since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, U.S. prosecution of employers who hire such workers has dwindled to a trickle as the government puts its resources toward national security.
    The few cases that are prosecuted, however, highlight how lucrative a business recruiting undocumented workers has become.
    In one case, a single smuggler purportedly earned $900,000 over 15 months placing 6,000 migrants in jobs at Chinese restaurants across the upper Midwest.
    Shan Wei Yu, a 51-year-old Chinese-American, was sentenced in December to nine years in federal prison on charges involving the transportation of 40 of those migrants. Investigations involving the others continue.
    Rick Hilzendager, special agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Grand Forks, N.D., said Yu connected 6,000 migrants from Latin America with jobs in Chinese restaurants in Illinois, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
    Based in Yu's home in McKinney, Texas, the Great Texas Employment Agency placed ads in Chinese-language newspapers in the Chicago area offering cheap labor from Latin America, investigators said.
    Yu sent a recruiter with Spanish interpreters to find illegal aliens in Dallas willing to be fry cooks and dishwashers, Mr. Hilzendager said. A team made up mostly of illegal Chinese aliens rented cars and drove them up.
    Yu charged a $150 finder's fee for each illegal while the drivers earned $300 per worker. Restaurant owners deducted the $450 from workers' first-month paychecks of $1,000.
    Nick Chase, assistant U.S. attorney in North Dakota, said Yu even offered to replace workers free of charge if one left within two weeks of starting.
    "It was a 2-for-1 special -- like a pizza," Mr. Chase said. "Everything about it was ugly."
    The case broke open in August 2004 after two Mexican illegal aliens working at the Buffet House in Grand Forks fled poor conditions and were picked up along a highway by Border Patrol agents.
    Many of the drivers involved in the scheme were deported to China. Two North Dakota restaurant owners were sentenced to four months each for harboring illegal aliens.
    But many illegal aliens, and many employers, say the recruiters provide a valuable service. Sergio Sosa, who organizes Nebraska meatpackers, said many are seen as heroes in the workers' Mexican hometowns.
    Mr. Sosa, speaking by telephone from Omaha, said that in the 1990s, companies bused illegal aliens from the U.S.-Mexico border, paying them room and board plus salaries of $100 a week. But after a government crackdown, they began to rely more on their workers to recruit friends and family back in Mexico.
    "One of the meatpacking supervisors is from Michoacan, and most of the people working for him come from his town," Mr. Sosa said. "There's no official recruiting -- it's more internal through family."
    Migrants setting out along the border confirmed his account. Guadalupe Mendez, 26, said her sister found her work as a seamstress in Los Angeles. Lorenzo Garcia Ruiz, 38, said friends arranged a gardening job for him in Kentucky.
    To make a real dent in the network, the U.S. government would need to go after employers or make them pay the costs of legalizing workers, migration activists say.
    Investigators say fake documents make it difficult to prove an employer has knowingly hired an undocumented worker. Businesses argue that employers aren't equipped to spot fraud and warn that more investigations could lead to workplace discrimination.

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 Hundreds seized in immigration raids
Managers, employees of pallet maker arrested in several states

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal immigration authorities rounded up more than 1,000 illegal immigrants at dozens of sites and charged nine individuals of the firm that employed them, federal law enforcement officials announced Wednesday.

Seven current and former managers of IFCO Systems, which has offices in several states, were arrested and charged in connection with the employment of illegal immigrants, said U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby in Albany, New York.

Suddaby said two lower level employees were also charged in the case.

The action against IFCO Systems -- an industry leader in the manufacture of wooden pallets, crates and containers -- came as Homeland Security and Justice Department officials prepared to announce steps to toughen internal enforcement of the nation's immigration laws.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Bush administration officials and a federal prosecutor will appear at the agency's Washington headquarters Thursday. They will announce the new strategy aimed at employers and disclose the results of the enforcement actions targeting IFCO Systems.

Customs officials said agents made more than a thousand arrests in nearly 40 locations including Houston, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; and Albany, New York.

A customs official said federal authorities checked a "sample" of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers.

"They were using Social Security numbers of people that were dead, of children or just different individuals that did not work at IFCO," Immigration and Customs agency 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.' And IFCO did not do anything about it," Myers said.

Myers said a yearlong investigation revealed that IFCO managers had induced illegal immigrants to work there, telling some of them to doctor W-2 tax forms or saying that they did not need to fill out any documentation at all.

Myers and Suddaby will join Chertoff for Thursday's announcement.

Immigration legislation pending in Congress would increase penalties for companies that employ illegal immigrants.

The strictest immigration measures proposed have spurred a series of demonstrations by opponents nationwide in recent weeks. On Wednesday, hundreds of high school students protested at the Colorado Capitol in support of illegal immigrants, The Associated Press reported.

As public concern over illegal immigration has grown, federal law enforcement officials have sought to tighten enforcement of laws against employment of illegal immigrants. The charges include money laundering, harboring immigrants, illegal immigrant employment and wire fraud.

"It used to be in these cases that they amounted mainly to a slap on the wrist or a small civil fine," Myers told CNN. "We're now focusing on criminal cases and bringing as many criminal charges as we can when we find employers that blatantly violate work site enforcement laws."

Asked if senior managers knew or should have known about the alleged violations, Myers said, "There's no allegation of that at this time. It's certainly an ongoing investigation. I will tell you, though, that we are troubled by some of the things that we've seen at IFCO."

She said the company is cooperating with the investigation.

The criminal complaint against the seven managers charges them with conspiracy to transport, harbor, and employ illegal immigrants for private gain.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison for each illegal immigrant, officials said.

IFCO Systems, based in Germany, with more than 40 offices across the U.S., issued a statement late Wednesday acknowledging the federal action.

"IFCO Systems is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating a workplace free of discrimination," the company said. "It is our policy to comply with all federal and state employee requirements."

But the IFCO statement did not directly address the charges.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials today conducted employee background checks at a number of IFCO facilities across the country. We are cooperating fully with representatives from ICE and hope to have this matter resolved as soon as possible," the statement said.

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Proposed work boycott splits immigration activists


WASHINGTON - Just weeks after huge pro-immigration marches across the nation to protest congressional proposals to get tough on illegal immigrants, a split has developed in the movement over whether to embrace a planned May 1 work and school boycott by undocumented workers and their supporters.

Activists in Chicago, where a large demonstration is planned that day, said Wednesday they aren't joining the call for a boycott, and leaders of several immigrant-advocacy groups at a news conference in Washington said they opposed the plan as well.

The advocates in Washington said the timing for a boycott is wrong since it is scheduled to take place shortly after Congress returns from its spring recess. Senate leaders plan to resume work on immigration-reform legislation upon their return, having failed to pass legislation before their break.

At the Washington news conference, concern was apparent that a boycott in which millions of immigrant workers stay away from their jobs could trigger an anti-immigrant backlash. That could destroy any slim chance that the immigrant groups, already facing an uphill fight, might win approval in an election year for the kind of legislation they want that would give millions of those here illegally a path to citizenship.

Straining to show their disagreement over the idea of a May 1 boycott without seeming to criticize the boycott's proponents, the immigration advocates said there was unity in the movement's overall goals despite disagreements over tactics.

"We believe that the boycott and the strike is a legitimate tool that we need to utilize and we support it, but not right now because we believe right now the ball is in the hands of the Senate," said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland.

His group helped organize the April 10 march in Washington that drew between 100,000 and 200,000 people to the National Mall.

Advocates in Chicago, where police estimated that 100,000 demonstrated in March, said they were discouraging any boycott May 1 and want workers to seek employers' permission to miss work in order to attend the march.

At a news conference in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, activist Martin Unzueta said groups have been distributing letters for workers to present their bosses, politely asking for the day off.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, echoed that approach at the Washington news conference.

"We're encouraging people to arrange their schedules so they can come to the march in the afternoon and participate to lift up the contribution of immigrant workers," Hoyt said.

Still, the idea of a May 1 boycott, which supporters have called a "Day Without Immigrants," has fired the imagination of many undocumented immigrants and their supporters.

The boycott, whose supporters hope will also lead to illegal immigrants and their supporters not spending money that day, has been widely discussed in the Spanish-language media and Latino communities. Its supporters say the idea has such momentum that it would be impossible to stop.

"May 1 is a decentralized action that has really taken on a life of its own," said Carlos Alvarez, a spokesman with the Los Angeles chapter of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), which has contributed grassroots organizing to the immigration demonstrations.

At a news conference, Chicago organizers said that while they rejected calls for a boycott, they did not oppose that tactic in general.

Jorge Mujica, a journalist and member of the March 10 Movement organizing committee, said organizers want to save that tactic as a "last resort" if Congress is close to passing a final immigration bill that does not provide a clear path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.

In that scenario, Chicago organizers said they might call for a lengthy general strike or boycott, not just a one-day event.

Jaime Contreras, chairman of the National Capital Immigrant Coalition, said organizers in the Washington metropolitan area were asking those wishing to participate on May 1 to attend events planned for after work and school hours.

"You're not always going to have agreement in a movement," he said. "Malcolm X and Martin Luther King never agreed until the end, right?

"You're always going to have the same thing here . . . ," he said. "We want to make sure that we have unity at least around real immigration reform and (against) HR 4437," he said, referring to legislation approved by the House in December.

Critics say that legislation, which focuses on immigration enforcement, would make undocumented immigrants felons for the fact that they're living in the United States. It would also increase border enforcement with construction of a 700-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and step up work site crackdowns.

Immigrant advocates have been lobbying hard to keep the Senate from passing a bill as draconian as they view the House-passed measure. They also are seeking language in a Senate version that would provide a path to legalization and eventual citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Opponents of such legalization have disparaged such a step as an amnesty, a reward for people who broke the law by illegally crossing the U.S. border and jumped ahead of those who have been waiting to enter the U.S. legally

A work and school boycott might not only alienate members of Congress but many Americans, suggested Angela Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"It is critical for us as we move forward that we're also embraced by the American public," Salas said.

Organizers of the large immigration marches that have taken place nationally in recent weeks have been sensitive to the potential for backlash.

The first large marches, where many marchers waved Mexican and other Latin American flags, drew criticisms that illegal immigrants weren't sufficiently loyal to the U.S. The next marches featured many more U.S. flags and many fewer Latin American ones.

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Simcox ultimatum to Bush: `Build fence or Minutemen will'

Minuteman border watch leader Chris Simcox has a message for President Bush: Build new security fencing along the border with Mexico or private citizens will.

Simcox said Wednesday that he's sending an ultimatum to the president, through the media, "You can't get through to the president any other way," to deploy military reserves and the National Guard to the Arizona border by May 25.

Or, Simcox said, by the Memorial Day weekend Minuteman Civil Defense Corps volunteers and supporters will break ground to start erecting fencing privately.

"We have had landowners approach," Simcox said in an interview. "We've been working on this idea for a while. We're going to show the federal government how easy it is to build these security fences, how inexpensively they can be built when built by private people and free enterprise."

Simcox said a half-dozen landowners along the Arizona-Mexico border have said they will allow fencing to be placed on their borderlands, and others in California, Texas and New Mexico have agreed to do so as well.

"Certainly, as with everything else, we're only able to cover a small portion of the border," Simcox said. "The state and federal government have bought up most of the land around the border. I suspect that's why we'll never get control of the border."

But he said the plan is to put up secure fencing that truly will be an effective deterrent, and to show how easily it can be accomplished.

Simcox gave this description of the envisioned barrier-and-fencing complex:

Start with a 6-foot deep trench so a vehicle can't crash through; behind it, roll of concertina (coiled, razor-edged barbed wire), in front of a 15-foot high heavy-gauge steel mesh fence angled outward at the top.

Behind the fence will be a 60- to 70-foot wide unpaved but graded dirt road, along with inexpensive, mounted video cameras that can be monitored from home computers. On the other side of the road will be a second, 15-foot fence, with more concertina wire on its outside.

"It's a very simple, effective design based on feedback we've had from Border Patrol and the military," Simcox said. "It's a fence that can be built on the cheap, effective and secure."

Simcox said supporters will try to build the fencing with volunteer labor. Surveyors and contractors have offered to help with the design and survey work, he said, and some have said they will provide heavy equipment.

Simcox said those involved in the planning hope to keep costs to between $125 and $150 a foot.

Access to land literally on the border is an issue because so much is state-leased trust property or federally owned, he said.

"You may have to deal with a situation where private property owners erect their own fences and may be faced with the president sending the National Guard to prevent them from protecting their private property," Simcox said.

He said the Minuteman plan is "to keep turning up the heat" until President Bush has to respond somehow.

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Buses used in pro-immigration rally burned

The owner of a bus line who provided free transportation to some of the people attending a pro-immigration rally last week said today that three of his buses were burned overnight while they sat in a Doraville parking area.

Carlos Ochoa, who owns Royal Bus Lines, said he was notified by employees about 7 a.m. that the 20-passenger buses he keeps in a private parking lot off Church Street had burned.

"I would not want to believe that this happened because of the march," said Ochoa, who offered six buses to provide free transportation to the April 10 rally in Atlanta that was part of a nationwide protest against federal immigration legislation.

"But looking at the buses like this, makes me feel sad," said Ochoa, a a naturalized citizen from Colombia. "At the same time, it gives me courage to continue what we are trying to do" in supporting the Hispanic community's efforts to fight proposed tougher federal laws against illegal immigration.

Two of Ochoa's drivers live in a house across the street from the parking lot, which is surrounded by chain-link fence.

Miguel Tercero, one of the drivers, said the son of his housemate heard a noise about 12:45 a.m., possibly from a tire exploding, and went out to see what was going on. He saw the burning buses, and police and firefighters at the scene.

"It is a very difficult and hard thing; it makes you wonder what is happening," said Tercero, a 54-year-old naturalized citizen from Honduras.

Royal's bright yellow buses are most familiar on Buford Highway. Ochoa said the 6-year-old company serves riders in the Lindbergh area of Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Doraville.

Ochoa said one of his buses was torched in the same storage yard last year. He said police determined it was arson but no arrests have been made.

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Frist says he will revive immigration bill
In nod to conservatives, senator to seek money for border protection

WASHINGTON - Majority Leader Bill Frist intends to seek Senate passage of immigration legislation by Memorial Day, hoping to revive a bill that tightens border security while giving millions of illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship, Republican leadership aides said Friday.

In a gesture to conservative critics of the measure, Frist and other Republicans also intend to seek roughly $2 billion in immediate additional spending for border protection.

The aides said the money would allow for training of Border Patrol agents, construction of detention facilities for immigrants caught entering the country illegally, the purchase of helicopters and surveillance aircraft and construction of a fence in high-traffic areas.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to pre-empt a formal announcement.

“The goal here is to make sure that the Senate does act on this problem,” said one of the aides.

Protests, political bickering
Frist’s decision signals a determination by Republicans to press ahead toward passage of election-year legislation. The issue has triggered large, peaceful street protests by immigrants’ rights supporters as well as internal disputes in both political parties and partisan bickering.

A sweeping immigration bill was gridlocked as lawmakers left town two weeks ago after Frist and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada failed to agree on a procedure for voting on amendments sought by Republicans opposed to the bill. Supporters of the measure claimed at the time they had as many as 70 votes for the bill.

President Bush has repeatedly urged Congress to approve a bill that tightens border security at the same time it addresses the problem of the estimated 11 million men, women and children in the country illegally.

House Republicans have passed a bill that is limited to border security, but leaders have recently signaled they would be receptive to broader legislation.

The measure at the center of the Senate stalemate would provide for stronger border security, regulate the future entry of foreign workers and create a complex new set of regulations for the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. Officials said an estimated 9 million of them, those who could show they had been in the United States for more than two years, would eventually become eligible for citizenship under the proposal.

Critics of the measure argue it amounts to amnesty, and they have worked over the past two weeks to undermine its support. But Bush has made it clear he wants legislation, and some Republicans hope they can send him a bill and gain credit with voters increasingly dissatisfied with Congress.

Billions more for border security
The attempt to add $2 billion to border security spending is expected next week, when the Senate is due to debate legislation providing funding for the war in Iraq and relief from last fall’s hurricanes.

Some critics of the bill have argued that it makes little sense to pass legislation affecting the current population of illegal immigrants as long as the border remains porous.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters this week he intends to increase enforcement efforts at places of employment.

“We are going to move beyond the current level of activity to a higher level in each month and year to come,” he said, pledging to “come down as hard as possible” on violators.

Federal agents on Wednesday arrested seven current and former managers of IFCO Systems, a manufacturer of crates and pallets, on criminal charges, and more than 1,100 people were arrested on administrative immigration charges at more than 40 IFCO sites in the United States.

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Rumors fly about possible Reno immigration raids


Rumors spread around Northern Nevada Friday about possible immigration raids targeting Reno businesses and workers.

News 4, the Reno Gazette-Journal and a Reno Spanish-language TV station received several phone calls and e-mails about immigration enforcement agents rounding up suspected undocumented workers at a number of Reno-area businesses.

A federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency representative told News 4 no such operations had taken place in Reno. Other attempts to confirm the reports of immigration raids did not substantiate any of the rumors.

The rumors may have been spawned from real immigration raids that took place days earlier in many major cities.

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IRS, Social Security Administration could slow illegal immigration


WASHINGTON - Two federal agencies are refusing to turn over a mountain of evidence that investigators could use to indict the nation's burgeoning workforce of illegal immigrants and the firms that employ them.

Last week, immigration cops trumpeted the arrests of nearly 1,200 illegal workers in a massive sting on a single company, but they admit that they relied on old-fashioned confidential informants and an unsolicited tip to get their investigation going.

It didn't have to be that hard.

The IRS and the Social Security Administration routinely collect strong evidence of potential workplace crimes, including names and addresses of millions of people who are using bogus Social Security numbers, their wage records and the identities of the bosses who knowingly hire them.

But they keep those facts secret.

"If the government bothered to look, it could find abundant evidence of illegal aliens gaming our system and the unscrupulous employers who are aiding and abetting them," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz.

The two agencies don't analyze their data to root out likely immigration fraud - and they won't share their millions of records so that law enforcement agencies can do that, either.

Privacy laws, they say, prohibit them from sharing their files with anyone, except in rare criminal investigations.

But the agencies don't even use the power they have.

The IRS doesn't fine even the most egregious employers who repeatedly submit inaccurate data about their workers. Social Security does virtually nothing to alert citizens whose Social Security numbers are being used by others.

Evidence abounds within their files, according to an analysis by Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Charlotte Observer.

One internal study found that a restaurant company had submitted 4,100 duplicate Social Security numbers for workers. Other firms submit inaccurate names or numbers reports for nearly all of their employees. One child's Social Security number was used 742 times by workers in 42 states.

"That's the kind of evidence we want," says Paul Charlton, the U.S. attorney in Arizona. He regularly prosecutes unauthorized workers, but says it's hard to prove employers are involved in the crime.

"Anything that suggests they had knowledge . . . is a good starting point. If you see the same Social Security number a thousand times, it's kind of hard for them to argue they didn't know."

The potential crimes are so obvious that the failure to provide such information to investigators raises questions about Washington's determination to end the widespread hiring of illegal immigrants at cut-rate pay.

For years, the illicit workforce has ballooned.

An estimated 7 million unauthorized workers are gainfully employed in the United States. They're picking crops, building homes and tending yards in a shadow economy at work every day. In some cases, they work for the government on public projects that pay them with taxpayer money. They've built roads in North Carolina, military housing in California and even helped reconstruct the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attacks, until law enforcement got word.

They also work at airports, seaports, nuclear plants and other sites vulnerable to U.S. security.

Those are the sites where immigration officials have focused their attention. But on Thursday, they announced a new push toward busting bosses who hire unauthorized workers.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has asked Congress for access to the secret earnings files, a tool he says would help "get control of this illegal workforce."

In last week's bust at IFCO Systems North America Inc., a Houston-based maker of wooden pallets, more than half the workers were using invalid or stolen Social Security numbers.

"We need to be able to ... spot that kind of widespread abuse and not really just have to wait for tips," Chertoff said.

The IRS wants to protect the privacy of its records because disclosing them might cause companies and employees to stop reporting income and paying taxes - and go underground where exploitation is more certain.

"At least now," IRS commissioner Mark Everson told Congress in February, "we are collecting some taxes in these areas, and we are working to collect even more."

The records at issue are the earnings reports, sent by employers along with money withheld for taxes and Social Security.

They contain workers' names and Social Security numbers, and when they don't match Social Security records, the information is set aside in what's called the Earnings Suspense File.

Created in 1937, the file contains about 255 million unmatched wage reports representing $520 billion paid to workers but not credited to their Social Security earnings records.

Typos and name changes can cause wage reports not to match Social Security records. But increasingly, officials cite unauthorized workers using bogus Social Security numbers as a driving force behind the mismatch files.

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The incorrect worker files mushroomed during the 1990s, as migrants poured into the United States. Almost half of the inaccurate reports come from such industries as agriculture, construction and restaurants, which rely on unauthorized labor.

"We believe the chief cause of (unmatched) wage items . . . is unauthorized work by non-citizens," Social Security's Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll told Congress in February.

The IRS also receives the mismatch information. It tries to match workers involved to its records, then probes to see whether the workers are paying taxes.

Particularly disturbing is that possibly millions of the Social Security numbers belong to other people.

In Utah, after Social Security provided data for one criminal probe, investigators discovered that Social Security numbers of 2,000 children were being used by other people.

"What do you think we'd find if we had the ability to analyze all of their information?" said Kirk Torgensen, Utah's chief deputy attorney general. "It would be invaluable. How short-sighted is it that the government doesn't follow this trail?"

Getting a job is easy for illegal immigrants.

One Honduran man, who crossed the U.S. border in Texas and settled in Charlotte, N.C., paid $50 for a Social Security card, but the construction company that hired him never asked to see it.

He's grateful. The job has allowed him to buy a home, a computer for his two boys and an aquarium filled with goldfish for the living room.

He's worked for the company for four years and now earns in a day what he made in a week back in Central America.

"I'm happy here," said the man, 37, who asked not to be named for fear he'd get fired and deported. "Over there, we don't have anything. You can't even afford to go to McDonald's."

Many of his fellow workers are illegal, he said. He thinks the company knows.

To work lawfully in the United States, individuals must have valid Social Security numbers or authorization from the Department of Homeland Security.

But the law doesn't require companies to verify that workers give them names and numbers that match Social Security records.

So most companies don't check.

That loophole, created by Congress in 1986, makes it hard to prove whether employers know they're hiring illegal workers.

Internal federal studies suggest that errors are so frequent that some companies must be aware of the illegal status of their employees.

Auditors found:

_About 8,900 of the nation's 6 million employers accounted for 30 percent of inaccurate reports.

_Ten states account for 48 percent of the U.S. workforce, but have 72 percent of the unmatched earnings reports.

_Some companies repeatedly have reporting problems, including 40 that made the worst 100 list repeatedly over a span of eight years. One company submitted 33,000 errant earnings reports in a single year.

Some of the country's most successful prosecutions have come with help from Social Security, which will open specific files once a criminal investigation is under way.

The records played an important role in last week's nationwide sting at IFCO, but investigators didn't learn about the company's immigrant workforce until a year after Social Security began sending notices asking the company and employees about the errors.

"The only reason we got onto this case was because of a lucky tip," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Dean Boyd. "We could have launched this case a year earlier. It sure would make our jobs easier and save the taxpayers a lot of money if we had access to their information."

Most immigrants simply use Social Security numbers to get work, experts say.

They make up numbers, buy them on forged cards, or steal them.

But their demand has fueled a massive industry of suppliers who make fraudulent documents or steal real ones.

Federal officials downplay the risks that people face when others use their numbers for work. Safeguards are in place to protect retirement and disability benefits, they say.

Lenders, too, say most won't lend money if an applicant's Social Security number doesn't match the name on record.

But sometimes those safeguards fail.

Prosecutors and consumer groups say they see plenty of fraud committed with stolen Social Security numbers.

In Utah, prosecutors charged dozens of immigrants who got lured into a fraud ring to buy homes. The immigrants managed to obtain 87 home loans using Social Security numbers they'd obtained.

"The whole world revolves around the Social Security number. You need it to get employment, a driver's license, credit. . . . The more demand there is for stolen numbers, the odds are they're going to hit your number," said Torgensen, Utah's deputy attorney general.

Jay Foley warned that obtaining someone's number can also be the first step toward total identity theft. He started the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego after his wife became a victim.

"Someone can open credit in your name. You can be hounded by collection agencies," he said. "I've seen people lose their homes and their marriages over this.

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Hispanic leaders split
over boycott tactics
Mexican government calls meeting with Latinos,
expected to urge U.S. leaders to reconsider May 1


Latino organizers of a May 1 economic boycott in the U.S. remain confident participation will be high, but factionalism has developed over planned tactics and, now, the government of Mexico is interjecting itself in what some see as an attempt to derail the protest altogether.

The boycott, announced in the wake of congressional debate on immigration reform that included making presence in the U.S. illegally a felony, was originally planned as a day on which Latinos and immigrants would refrain from spending. It garnered support from many labor and church leaders in the border states.

According to Hispanic Business magazine, Latino consumers in the U.S. account for over $820 billion in annual purchases – a number that is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2010.

"Not spending any money at all would show the economic impact of Latino purchasing power," United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

But those wishing to send a stronger message to Congress and the public are also advocating workers stay home and students skip school on May 1, and that proposal is dividing boycott organizers.

"There would be a backlash against all of the positive energy that was created," said Linda Arreola of the Office for Social Ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. "The message would be one that immigrants really don't want to be part of America, and that what they are really doing is hurting the U.S., and that would be hurting the movement."

Proponents of the work boycott, like Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association, counter that it's also important to focus on the value of immigrant employees.

"Why this tactic? All working people create value when they are participating in the production process," Lopez said. "That value is used by owners of industry to expand their business, reinvest and pocket the money for personal wealth. We are focusing on moving the power equation into the hands of workers who produce value."

While some Hispanic-owned businesses say they will close in support of their workers, they acknowledge it will be costly to do so.

"We're supporting them, but it makes it harder for us," said Hector Luevano, a native of Mazatlan and owner of a downtown San Diego coffeehouse and deli. "If we close, people will just go somewhere else. But if we stay open, and people ask why they have to wait, maybe when we explain it to them, it will be a better way to get a message across."

Labor unions with contracts that bar members from engaging in strikes and boycotts unrelated to a collective labor action are opposed to the work boycott and have told their members they cannot condone participation by members "in any action that violates our contracts."

"We think there are other ways to get the point across other than directing it at the economy of the nation and of families," said Ben Monterroso, executive director of SEUI Local 2028 in San Diego. "Most of the people we are talking about here ... are living paycheck to paycheck."

George Whalin, president of Retail Management Consultants in San Marcos, says participation in a full boycott is hard to predict, as is the possible economic impact.

"It's a little difficult to get a handle on how meaningful it will be," he said. "But if it gets big, it could have an impact on retail, gasoline, all kinds of things" due to a lack of staffing.

It is that potential for a negative impact on the U.S. economy that appears to be behind an unusual meeting called for Monday by Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry. Government officials have invited U.S. Latino leaders to Mexico City to discuss the May 1 boycott. It is expected officials will ask that the economic action be reconsidered.

"We're in favor of a more moderate tone," one Mexican official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Dallas Morning News.

The meeting, called at the request of U.S. Latino leaders who sit on a Mexican government advisory council, is aimed to give more information "about the current debate about immigration in the U.S. Congress." Mexican officials are reportedly worried the boycott could undermine their efforts on behalf of immigrants in the U.S.

"We want America to notice us, to notice our economic and consumer power, to take us into account for that one day," said Nancy Guerrero of Dallas, who plans to go to Mexico City. "We pay on time and we pay in cash. We're great consumers. Don't take us for granted."

But Guerrero - like many Mexican immigrants - questions the Mexican government's intentions.

"The Mexican government shouldn't be involved in any of this," Guerrero said. "They shouldn't try to tell us what to do. We have to defend our rights on our own."

Mexican immigrants in the U.S. repatriate $20 billion annually to Mexico, a source of foreign dollars nearly as large as what the nation receives from petroleum sales. With that much economic clout over Mexico's economy, it's unclear how much influence the government can wield with immigrants in the U.S.

Jean Towell, the Dallas-based president of Citizens for Immigration Reform, a group that supports tougher immigration laws, isn't waiting for the planned boycott to fizzle over internal disputes over tactics or Mexico City tossing a wet blanket on the protests.

"We're telling our members if you have a big-ticket item that you want to purchase, wait till May 1 to shop," she said. "We're saying to our group, go out and shop and show that we can carry the economy without illegal immigrants."

[Soldier4Christ]

Hatch aide bombarded with anti-amnesty calls

L.A. talk-show hosts urged listeners to express their views

      WASHINGTON — Hosts of a Los Angeles radio talk show listed a link to Sen. Orrin Hatch's press secretary's phone number on their Web site for their listeners to call to express views on the pending immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate.
      Hatch's spokesman Peter Carr is used to fielding a lot of phone calls in one day from reporters looking for information about the senator or Utah, but so far he has received at least 70 calls from California residents wanting to make sure the senator does not support any bill that would allow amnesty for illegal residents.
      Carr said the calls started last weekend and he came in the office on Monday to a number of voice mails — somewhat uncommon when the Senate is on recess, but even more uncommon because none of them were from reporters or anyone related to the media. He said everyone has been cordial but he had to resort to e-mail and using his cell phone to attend to his other responsibilities and avoid long conversations with people. He reminded the callers that Hatch does not support amnesty and has voted against it.

Talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of the "The John and Ken Show," which airs on KFI AM 640 out of Los Angeles, listed the direct phone numbers of all the Senate Judiciary Committee members' press secretaries with the instruction "Grab a snack and beverage, find a comfortable chair and start calling everyone on this list."
      "Call them during the Easter break and tell them NO AMNESTY!," said the show Web site www.johnandkenshow.com.
      Show producer Ray Lopez said they purposely listed the press secretaries hoping to try a new avenue of getting to the lawmakers' offices. He said often the main numbers "get you nowhere" and that regular staff members do not have time to listen to such phone calls.
      He said they knew it was "not the cool thing to do" but that people in Southern California pay a big price for illegal immigrants and they want to be sure their voices are heard.
      The station gets classified as conservative, but Lopez said the show is more moderate. It has about 1 million listeners during its afternoon time slot from 3 to 7 p.m.

[Soldier4Christ]

Latino stars record U.S. anthem in Spanish
Adaptation of ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ a show of support for migrants

NEW YORK - Mexican pop diva Gloria Trevi, Puerto Rican reggaeton Ivy Queen and Tito El Bambino and other Latino artists are recording a Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem in a show of support for migrants in the United States.

The Latino-oriented record label Urban Box Office (UBO) said Saturday it plans to release the new version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to coincide with the U.S. Senate’s debate on immigration legislation next week.

Congressional debate over immigration bills proposing everything from toughened border security to the legalization of undocumented migrants in America have triggered huge demonstrations across the United States in recent weeks.

“We chose to re-record ’The Star-Spangled Banner’ to show our solidarity with the undocumented immigrants and their quest for basic civil rights,” UBO President Adam Kidron said in a news release.

The recording, dubbed “Nuestro Himno” or “Our Anthem,” is set to “rhythmic Latin musical arrangement” but respects the song’s traditional structure, UBO said. The song will be primarily in Spanish with a few words sung in English.

The song is on the album “Somos Americanos,” which will be sold for $10, with a portion going to Washington-based National Capital Immigration Coalition, UBO said.

Others participating in the Spanish version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” include Voz a Voz, Frank Reyes and Kalimba. UBO said it had also approached other artists, including Daddy Yankee and Don Omar, about taking part in the project.

[Soldier4Christ]

26 area arrests in nationwide immigration raid

A nationwide raid by immigration and customs agents on Monday led to the arrest of seven managers and 1,187 illegal alien employees of IFCO Systems of North America in 26 states, including 26 Mexican nationals who were arrested in Chicago, according to a release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

IFCO, a pallet services company headquartered in Houston, Texas, has plants nationwide and allegedly houses and uses illegal alien employees, according to the release. Criminal complaints filed in New York led to criminal charges and the arrest of seven managers and two employees at the New York, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio plants for conspiring to transport, harbor, and encourage and induce illegal aliens to reside in the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain, the release said.

In addition to the arrests, ICE agents conducted consent searches or executed criminal warrants at 40 IFCO plants in 26 states and apprehended about 1,187 illegals, the release said. Of those, 26 -- 24 males and two females -- were arrested at the IFO plant at 2000 W. 32nd St. in Chicago, the release said. They are currently being processed and placed into removal proceedings.

According to a federal affidavit filed in the Northern District of New York, IFCO officials transport illegals to and from work, pay rent for their housing and deduct money from their monthly checks for these expenses, the release said. Former employees also said it was common practice to hire workers without Social Security cards or any valid identification, the affidavit states.

The affidavit also states that of about 5,800 workers on IFCO payrolls in 2005, more than 50 percent had Social Security numbers that either did not match their name, were invalid or belonged to children or deceased persons.

[Soldier4Christ]

Black Activists Join To March With Minutemen

Several black activists plan to join members of the Minutemen Project to protest illegal immigration, which organizer Ted Hayes touted as the “biggest threat to blacks in America since slavery.�

The protest, organized by Hayes’ Crispus Attucks Brigade and the American Black Citizens Opposed to Illegal Immigration Invasion, is scheduled to start at 1 p.m.

Hayes, a homeless activist, alleged that most homeless people in Los Angeles are black and illegal immigration compounds the problem since blacks refuse to accept the “slave wages� that many illegal immigrants accept.

Many pro-immigration rallies were held in recent weeks; most of which, called for amnesty to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Many Southland public officials, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, supported the protesters.

"While all Americans are suffering from this invasion, we blacks are suffering the most," Hayes said. "We feel like the leaders promoting this issue are being insensitive. This country wasn't built on the backs of immigrants like (Villaraigosa) says. It was built on the back of West African slaves."

Immigrant activist Nativo Lopez believes Hayes is out of step with most black leaders and that both blacks and Hispanics face the same problems.

"Unfortunately, (Hayes) thinks that way," Lopez said. "He has a right to express his opinion, but I don't agree with him. Many and most African American leaders think otherwise and we're appreciative of their support. I'm not interested in Latinos being pitted against African Americans," he said. "We are all in the same boat. We will pull ourselves up together."

The Minutemen Project formed by Jim Gilchrist, patrols the Mexican border. He may attend the protest along with other Minutemen Project members. Hayes said that Minutemen Project members have been unfairly portrayed as racist.

"I've been down to the border with them. They're not racist," Hayes said. "They don't care what color you are."

[Soldier4Christ]

Bush says massive deportation is not realistic

President Bush, rebutting lawmakers advocating a law-and-order approach to immigration, said Monday that those who are calling for massive deportation of the estimated 11 million foreigners living illegally in the United States are not being realistic.

"Massive deportation of the people here is not going to work," Bush said as a Congress divided over immigration returned from a two-week recess. "It's just not going to work."

Bush spoke in support of a stalled Senate bill that includes provisions that would allow for eventual citizenship to some of the illegal immigrants already here. Some conservatives say that would amount to amnesty.

"This is one of the really important questions Congress is going to have to deal with," Bush said. The president said he thought the Senate "had an interesting approach by saying that if you'd been here for five years or less, you're treated one way, and five years or more, you're treated another."

Standing in the center of a theater-in-the-round setting with an audience full of business people, Bush spoke sympathetically about the plight of foreigners who risk their lives to sneak into the United States to earn a decent wage. He said the U.S. needs a temporary guest worker program to stop people from paying to be smuggled in the back of a truck.

"I know this is an emotional debate," Bush told the Orange County Business Council. "But one thing we can't lose site of is that we are talking about human beings, decent human beings."

Lawmakers, with an eye on Election Day in just over six months, remain far apart on whether to crack down on illegal immigrants or embrace them as vital contributors to the U.S. economy.

Bush said it's important to enforce border laws that are on the books and boasted that 6 million immigrants have been captured and turned back since he took office.

"You can be a nation of law and be a compassionate nation at the same time," he said to applause.

The White House's immediate goal is to get legislation approved by the Senate and into a conference committee. The president's aides hope a compromise can be reached with House members who passed a tougher bill that would impose criminal penalties on those who try to sneak into this country and would build fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., intends to seek passage of immigration legislation by Memorial Day by reviving the Senate bill that stalled earlier this month due to internal disputes in both parties as well as political maneuvering.

In a gesture to conservative critics of the measure, Republican leadership aides said last week that Frist also will seek roughly $2 billion in immediate additional spending for border protection.

After his immigration speech, Bush was ending a four-day stay in California that also featured speeches on U.S. competitiveness and his energy plan, meetings with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Ford and plenty of time on his bike.

Bush's massive entourage took an overnight detour to Napa Valley just so he could bike through the picturesque wine country Saturday, and he rode Sunday morning to a peak overlooking Palm Springs.

He planned to stop in Las Vegas on his way home Monday to raise money for Republican Rep. Jon Porter at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino.