May 17, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
Many residents question the idea of bringing Guard troops into the area. “It’s going to make people mad,” one person says.
Animas, N.M. – Delivering mail to ranchers in his gray truck,
Garland Johnson reckoned rattlesnakes soon may be the least of his
worries here amid mesquite and cactus-covered mountains near the
U.S.-Mexico border – a remote stretch where illegal immigrants,
including drug smugglers, cross at will.
President Bush’s decision to deploy National Guard soldiers to
support Border Patrol agents, Johnson feared, will bring increased
violence and suffering.
While he and others who live along the border are fed up with
illegal immigration, many questioned the effectiveness of military
methods for a problem they see as rooted in Mexican poverty.
The solution lies more “in your backyard” – cities such as Denver
and Chicago – “where the illegal immigrants find jobs, not here,”
said Johnson, 44, whose family runs cattle on 9,600 acres his
grandfather settled.
“Lining up the National Guard and Minutemen along the border isn’t
going to solve the problem,” he said. “It’s going to make people
mad.”
That sort of skepticism and concern spread across the southwestern
New Mexico borderlands Tuesday, even as officials emphasized that
under Bush’s plan, 6,000 Guard members would perform only support
tasks, such as building fences and roads and conducting
surveillance – not making arrests.
For Mexican shuttle driver Arturo Hernandez, on his daily – and
legal – run from Chihuahua to Phoenix, the news about the soldiers
sounded about as appealing as two black F-16 fighter jets in
training that whooshed across the sky in front of him.
The great nation he was entering – with border authority approval –
suddenly seemed less welcoming than ever. “Not like friends,” he
said.
Some interpreted the Bush move primarily as posturing. Yet “there
are struggling people who are dying behind this political game,”
said Lima McMillan, 55, an emergency medical technician at
Columbus, N.M.
Here, increased illegal immigration has led to violence. Shots
fired at the police chief outside a Family Dollar store last fall
prompted New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to declare a state of
emergency.
But if soldiers are sent in to free up more border agents for
patrols, McMillan said, the intensified enforcement will drive
immigrants into dangerous desert and mountain areas to make risky
crossings.
One man she treated recently had collapsed in a sun-baked field
after stepping on a mesquite stump that pierced his foot. He needed
surgery. Another was distraught because his young wife had lost
consciousness after they collapsed, dehydrated after days of
trekking from Mexico. The woman suffered brain damage that left her
unable to recognize her husband’s face, McMillan said.
“If I could, I’d give President Bush a few pictures of people who
become dehydrated – showing him what happens when their tongues are
swollen, their skin cracks and vessels break in their heads,” she
said.
Monday night, minutes after Bush announced he would call out the
National Guard, sirens flashed and an ambulance rushed to the
border gate between Columbus and Palomas, Mexico, where a pregnant
Mexican woman had walked up to guards begging for help delivering
her baby. The ambulance carried her north to a U.S. medical center
– and the birth there gave the baby automatic U.S. citizenship.
Meanwhile, an illegal immigrant slipped across the border into the
Family Dollar store just north of the gate – the scene of last
fall’s shooting. A Border Patrol agent, who asked not to be
identified, followed the immigrant into the store. He arrested him,
verified he had no proper papers and zip-tied his wrists.
The agent carried that man and two other illegal immigrants in the
back of his white-and-green patrol wagon to a substation for
processing and deportation.
Family Dollar clerks chafe when the Border Patrol agents enter
their aisles, assistant manager José Saenz said at the cash
register. “Sometimes customers are scared,” he said.
Smugglers use the store as a pickup point where they can rendezvous
with clients and carry them north, he said.
Calling out the National Guard to beef up enforcement seems
inappropriate, Saenz said, pointing at a Border Patrol surveillance
camera already trained on the front of his store.
“It’s not a war” between the United States and Mexico, he said.
“And there’s nothing you can do about it. People will just keep
coming.”
April 30, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
The no-fee service checks Social Security numbers but is rarely used. Soon, businesses may be required to verify every employee.
In 10 seconds, any U.S. employer voluntarily can check the
immigration status of workers using a free Web-based government
screening system that’s been available since 2004.
This system, which checks names and Social Security numbers against
federal records, weeds out hundreds of unauthorized workers, said
Brian Burke, a Denver-based manager for American Linen Supply Co.,
whose 400 local employees come mostly from Mexico.
“We want to work within the law. We’re trying to be good
citizens,” Burke said.
But most employers decline to use the system.
Congress is weighing whether to require that they do so. While
Monday’s planned street rallies and scuffles over border security
draw headlines, the role of employers hiring millions of
undocumented workers increasingly drives the behind-the-scenes
battle over record-high illegal immigration.
Only 6,191 out of the nation’s
8 million employers screen new hires using the system, according to
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services records.
In the Denver area, only 35 employers participate. Houston has 104,
Los Angeles 63, New York 50, Chicago 41.
Participation inched up a bit recently – from 5,855 nationwide a
month ago – amid the intense debate.
Yet the fraction of employers using the “Basic Pilot” system –
launched in 1996 and made available nationwide in 2004 – is
minuscule.
“Why don’t more participate?” said Chris Bentley, spokesman for
Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland
Security. “Employers can get answers on whether employees are
eligible to work in 8 to 10 seconds,” and an appeals process lets
workers correct errors within a week, Bentley said. The system is
“almost infallible because there is that ability to challenge
decisions.”
Authorities notified all employers through official bulletins, and
publicity efforts include government “business liaison” officers
available to guide employers through registering online and then
using a password to enter a Homeland Security website and submit
names, Social Security numbers and other basic data from new
workers.
Since 1986, it’s been illegal to “knowingly” hire unauthorized
workers. But fake documents and lax enforcement have led to
widespread reliance on unauthorized workers, with an estimated 12
million people in the country illegally – prompting a popular
backlash.
Immigration analysts say blocking employment for illegal immigrants
is fundamental in fixing what all sides see as a broken system.
Senate and House lawmakers are hashing out details of legislation
that would require companies to confirm that all workers they hire
are in the country legally. Homeland Security officials already
have budgeted $110 million for running “Basic Pilot” on a
mandatory basis.
Even political leaders who favor programs to bring in more foreign
workers support the effort to hold employers accountable.
“If we get a fair and appropriate guest-worker system, that has to
go with accountability in the private sector,” Denver Mayor John
Hickenlooper said. “Businesses have to make sure people they hire
have proper identification.”
Today’s low participation in voluntary screening is proof, some
activists contend, that employers prefer to avoid responsibility
for hiring illegal workers.
“Cheap labor is economic cocaine. People get addicted to it,”
said former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, a leading immigration
hard-liner. “Employers are happy to have an excuse to wink at the
law – and are taking advantage of that.”
Lobbyists for big business last week pressed for a gradual phase-in
of any required screening, and modifications.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report charges that 20 percent of Basic
Pilot’s initial readings are false. And challenging errors is a
hassle, said Angelo Amador, immigration policy director for the
chamber.
“We have no problem with electronic employee verification. But we
want to make sure it works before it’s mandatory,” Amador said.
The National Federation of Independent Business surveyed its
600,000 small-business members and found they “are somewhat
divided,” spokeswoman Melissa Sharp said. “We haven’t taken a
position.”
Major employers in Colorado were similarly noncommittal. Instead of
using the government system, Qwest Communications relies on a
contractor to handle hiring. Qwest won’t comment on whether the
company has violated immigration laws, spokesman Bob Toevs said.
Construction companies and the Colorado Association of Homebuilders
declined to comment, referring queries to national affiliates.
National Association of Homebuilders lobbyist Jenna Hamilton,
“very involved with current drafts of Senate legislation,” called
for a multiyear phase-in of any requirement, with big companies
leading the way, as well as modifications so that employers could
verify worker status using cellphones.
Few if any Colorado landscapers use the system to check worker
status voluntarily, “but if legislation passes mandating
verification or screening, our industry will comply,” said Kristen
Fefes, director of the Associated Landscape Contractors of
Colorado. “Any system put in place will need to be foolproof.”
Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Tamra Ward said
companies may not know about the system.
“Perhaps marketing it in a larger way would be a first step before
creating some mandated option,” Ward said.
At Homeland Security, verification chief Gerri Ratcliff said
today’s system “works for the employers participating in it, and
their numbers are growing every day.”
Once worker-screening is required, she said, “employers who have
avoided being in Basic Pilot because they didn’t want to know about
the legal status of their employees won’t be able to anymore.”
April 23, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
Some employers feel the heat from a crackdown last week, but also fear suits from fired workers.
Last week’s announcement by federal authorities of an aggressive
crackdown on hiring illegal immigrants – after years of lax
enforcement – has left employers like Chris Walter perplexed.
Walter’s company, TriStar Drywall, depends heavily on Mexican
immigrants to install walls in homes around Denver. When hiring,
“we do check two forms of ID,” said Walter, TriStar’s vice
president.
Then, if the Social Security Administration sends a letter
indicating an employee has submitted an invalid number, Walter
orders that worker to call the authorities and straighten it out.
That’s all the law requires of employers. But Walter still feels
“like the microscope is definitely out. We do try to go exactly by
the letter of the law, but we are concerned that the law doesn’t
seem to be very clear.”
Federal officials got employers’ attention Thursday when they
announced the roundup of nearly 1,200 workers for palletmaker IFCO
Systems in 26 states, including 38 at a Commerce City site, for
alleged immigration violations. Seven company managers were
arrested, accused of conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants, and
could face prison terms. And more raids could be coming. Federal
agents “have several things we are working on in the Denver
area,” said Jeff Copp, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
special agent.
“Companies need to take a hard look at what they are doing. If
they are doing something illegal, they ought to reassess what they
are gaining,” he said. But only employers who “knowingly” hire
illegal immigrants are at fault, federal officials say.
And Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s declaration
Thursday that “the status quo has changed” probably won’t impede
most employers, said Angelo Amador, immigration policy director for
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “It depends on how far
they go. Nobody is talking about going after the 12 million”
illegal immigrants, Amador said.
Behind the scenes in Congress, Amador and others opposed recent
efforts by some lawmakers to lower the legal standard so that
employers who “negligently” hire illegal workers could be
prosecuted.
The promised federal crackdown “shows the laws that are already in
place are good enough to go after the people who are really trying
to circumvent the law,” Amador said.
But some are pressing for stricter laws, including creation of a
fraud-proof work ID and verification system so that employers can
be required to make sure workers they hire are in the country
legally. Border Patrol union president T.J. Bonner, representing
about 10,500 frontline federal agents, dismissed the crackdown as
political posturing intended to defuse reform.
Homeland Security officials “are trying to convince Congress the
existing laws are adequate,” Bonner said, adding that the
crackdown “is not going to have any kind of deterrent effect on
the hundreds of thousands of employers out there employing illegal
aliens.”
Construction and landscaping companies have been identified in
recent studies as relying heavily on illegal immigrant workers.
Trade group officials declined to comment on federal enforcement
plans.
“We absolutely advise our members to follow the law all the
time,” Colorado Association of Homebuilders spokeswoman Amy Mayhew
said. “We expect our members are out there being outstanding
citizens.”
An illegal worker can fool an employer without much trouble,
Associated Landscape Contractors director Kristen Fefes said.
“There are some very good documents out there that look completely
legitimate,” she said. And when Social Security officials send
letters notifying employers that a worker’s number is invalid,
employers also are warned not to dismiss them based on that
letter.
Often, Fefes said, letters arrive up to three years late and are
based on inaccurate information.
At TriStar Drywall, Walker voiced similar concerns. “I want to
comply, but you are exposing yourself to possible litigation. There
are guys out there who will file charges against you for
discrimination.”
The whole system needs to be fixed, said Chris Thomas, a Denver
attorney who represents employers. “Employers find themselves in
this wild conundrum,” he said. “They worry, ‘If we don’t go far
enough, we’re going to find ourselves on the wrong side of Homeland
Security. If we go too far (in firing workers), we may find
ourselves on the wrong side of Social Security.”‘
Under the federal crackdown, agents will focus on employers showing
“total disregard for immigration law,” said Copp, the ICE special
agent. “But if we get workable information … on just about any
company in the city or in our four-state area, we’d be able to work
those cases, too.”
April 21, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
Immigration battle switches gears, feds say
1,187 ARRESTS MADE
The raids on IFCO Systems, including a local facility, may signal a
tough new era for employers.
Federal agents raided a Colorado work yard and arrested 38 Mexican
men – and 1,149 others nationwide – launching what the government
cast as an aggressive campaign against employers who hire illegal
foreign workers.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Thursday declared:
“Employers and workers alike should be on notice that the status
quo has changed.”
After years of lax work-site enforcement, the immigration sting
targeting pallet-supply company IFCO Systems in 26 states caught
business leaders by surprise. Seven company managers also were
arrested on charges of conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants.
Federal immigration chiefs rolled out plans for sustained work-site
and other “interior” immigration enforcement based on what they
say will be a fundamentally different approach. Instead of trying
just to fine employers caught hiring illegal workers, they’ll put
them in jail.
“Employers who were fined in the past felt it was little more than
a nuisance. When they’re looking at criminal prosecutions, they’re
going to take that a little more seriously,” said Jeff Copp, a
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent. Copp
oversaw Wednesday’s raid at IFCO’s yard at 5699 Dexter St. in
Commerce City.
Expect “several other cases in Denver” soon, Copp said.
“We know that companies constantly exploit illegal immigrants.
They know they are not going to go to law enforcement to report
them. … If they are going to run a business, they should do it
legally.”
The strategy Chertoff unveiled Thursday calls for 171 more
work-site enforcement agents nationwide – and 20 more teams to
track down and deport immigrants who commit crimes and the 590,000
immigrants ignoring orders to leave the country.
Immigration experts for years have been saying that effective
work-site enforcement – removing the job magnet that lures growing
numbers of foreign workers illegally into the United States – is
essential for fixing the nation’s broken immigration system.
New approach welcomed
For years, government enforcers have downplayed this mission, often
citing insufficient resources. The number of employers fined
decreased from hundreds a year in the 1990s to a handful last
year.
The federal raids Wednesday and Thursday “demonstrated that this
department has no patience for employers who tolerate or perpetuate
a shadow economy,” Chertoff said in Washington. “We intend to
find employers who knowingly or recklessly hire unauthorized
workers, and we will use every authority within our power to shut
down businesses that exploit an illegal workforce to turn a
profit.”
Congressional hard-liners welcomed the new approach.
“After years of calls, letters and protests, (homeland security)
leadership finally might be getting the message: Enforce the law,”
said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., leader of the House immigration
caucus.
“If this approach continues, the federal government might be on
its way to actually getting at the heart of the illegal-immigration
problem for the first time in memory,” he said.
Business leaders weighed how best to respond. The U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and other groups have lobbied against legislative efforts
to require employers to verify the immigration status of workers.
Current law lets employers off the hook if they make a good-faith
effort to check documents. Prosecutors must prove they knowingly
hired illegal immigrants.
“The federal government should enforce the laws that are on the
books,” Denver Chamber of Commerce vice president Tamra Ward said.
But “business should not be required to be ICE,” she said.
Some immigration activists, on both sides of a fervent popular
debate that has had millions protesting on city streets, said they
suspected a publicity stunt.
Homeland security chiefs launched the crackdown as the . Senate
prepares to resume debate next week on how to fix the immigration
system.
House legislation passed last year included provisions to curb
hiring of illegal immigrants. It would increase fines on employers
who break the law and encourage creation of a national system for
electronically verifying worker status.
The Senate has considered legislation that would legalize most of
the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and set up a visa
program for unskilled workers to enter legally to work.
Bid for more funding?
Most likely, homeland security officials are acting partly in an
effort to win more money from Congress, said Doris Meissner, chief
of immigration enforcement under President Clinton from 1993 to
2000 and now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in
Washington.
“They’re trying to demonstrate that they are a good investment,”
said Meissner, who lauded the new approach.
“Money spent on workplace enforcement is a far better investment
than fences at the border,” she said. “But it is ultimately not
going to go anywhere if there isn’t also legislation that requires
verification (of worker-immigration status) and gives employers a way to comply with the law.”
A federal affidavit alleges that more than half the U.S. employees
of IFCO Systems, a Netherlands-based multinational with North
American headquarters in Houston, had improper Social Security
numbers.
It alleges company officials transported illegal immigrants to and
from work, paid rent for housing illegal workers and deducted money
from their monthly paychecks to cover expenses.
Senior IFCO officials said they are cooperating fully with
immigration agents.
“We have no comment,” said a woman behind glass doors at the
Commerce City work yard.
Outside, trucks came and went through dust Thursday while workers
behind fences still toiled loading and unloading pallets. A federal
agent looked on.
———————————–
IFCO Systems
World headquarters:
Amsterdam, Netherlands
North American headquarters: Houston
Sales (2004): $495.9 million worldwide, $280.7 million in U.S.
Business: Makes pallets, containers, crates and packaging;
recycling operations
Territory: North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia
Sources: Hoover’s Company Records & Internet sources
Compiled by Barry Osborne, Denver Post Research Library
————————————-
Key points of the immigration-enforcement program
Work-site enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it is shifting its
attention toward employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants,
bringing criminal charges and seizing assets rather than relying on
administrative fines. The Bush administration seeks an extra $41.7
million and nearly 200 additional agents to boost work-site
enforcement efforts.
Crackdown on criminals
ICE says it will work with local prison authorities to identify the
estimated 630,000 foreign-born nationals held in U.S. jails on
criminal charges so that they are deported once they finish their
sentences.
Officials want to expand “fugitive operations” teams from 35 to
52 to locate the more than 590,000 fugitive immigrants who have
been ordered removed by an immigration judge. They also seek $10
million to expand efforts to track down visa violators.
Smuggling targeted
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE are working to improve
the pooling of intelligence information from various agencies to
attack human-smuggling organizations and track their criminal
profits.
Sources: DHS, ICE
March 26, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
More non-Mexicans are crossing border
Illegal immigrants from nations the U.S. considers hotbeds of
terrorism enter regularly, despite increased enforcement.
U.S. agents along the southwestern border increasingly catch
illegal immigrants from throughout the world – not just from Mexico
– as they try to slip into the country.
Some come from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and other countries U.S.
officials regard as hotbeds of terrorism. Many more may enter
undetected.
New data obtained by The Denver Post show that Border Patrol agents
over the past five months caught 46,058 non-Mexican migrants along
the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, up 12 percent from the 40,953 caught
during the same period last year.
Annual apprehensions have increased fivefold since 2002, with
155,000 non-Mexican migrants caught last year, according to
government data from congressional and other sources.
The widening flood of illegal immigration raises security concerns
as Congress debates how to fix an immigration system all sides see
as broken.
Agents “haven’t encountered a terrorist crossing the southwest
border at this point. But we’re concerned about the possibility,”
said Dean Boyd, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
There’s no way to know how many illegal immigrants enter
undetected. The latest estimates based on census surveys show
850,000 people a year enter illegally, more than double the influx
in the early 1990s – despite a decade of beefing up border
enforcement.
Easy path for terrorists
In Denver, growing numbers of undocumented asylum-seekers from Somalia, Ethiopia and elsewhere tell social workers of harrowing passages through multiple countries before sneaking in from Mexico.
They sometimes “get lost in the mix” of unauthorized job-seekers, said Regina Germain, legal director at the Rocky Mountain Survivors Center in Denver.
Having a system that can help asylum-seekers, as well as ensure
security, is an imperative “that goes back to our very roots,”
Germain said. “The people who founded our country were fleeing
persecution.”
On the security front, the United States remains vulnerable,
despite post-Sept. 11, 2001, efforts, and terrorists easily could
infiltrate, said T.J. Bonner, president of the union that
represents Border Patrol agents.
The data show “just the ones we catch; a lot of people get by
us,” Bonner said, estimating that border guards catch 25 percent
to 33 percent of illegal border-crossers. “The borders remain out of control.” Congress is debating proposals such as deploying hundreds more border guards and using more motion detectors, surveillance cameras and aerial
drones, along with allowing more legal foreign workers and possibly
granting amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants already here.
But the government already has been increasing the number of Border
Patrol agents steadily from 4,000 in 1993 to 11,300 today, and the
agency’s budget more than tripled from about $380 million to $1.4
billion.
Bonner and others contend that further intensifying border
enforcement is futile unless the government also cracks down on
employers who hire illegal immigrants.
“Take away the reason most people are coming in the first place,”
Bonner said.
Former government demographer Jeff Passell, now with the Pew
Hispanic Center, says surging non-Mexican illegal immigration “is
a phenomenon we haven’t figured out a way to stop, or even to
control.”
“There’s every indication these people are coming here to work. …
And we haven’t put in place anything to deal with the jobs magnet
which is attracting people,” he said. “The flattening world makes
it easier for people to get close to the United States. People who
might have come on tourist visas in the past now may be getting to
Mexico and Canada.”
Caught, then let go
Non-Mexican migrants caught entering the United States illegally in
fiscal years 2002 to 2005 came mostly from Central America and
Brazil. Also among them were: Iranians (95), Iraqis (74),
Pakistanis (660), Syrians (52), Yemenis (40), Egyptians (106) and
Lebanese (91).
Those figures cover all ports of entry. Along the southwestern
border, non-Mexican migrants caught from 2002 to 2004 – the latest
years for which data could be obtained – included Pakistanis (113),
Egyptians (41), Jordanians (55), Iranians (39), Iraqis (22),
Yemenis (15) and Saudis (13).
They are from among 35 “special-interest” nations the State Department lists as hotbeds for terrorism. U.S. officials increasingly restrict visas for
travelers from these nations.
Even when non-Mexican migrants are caught, some are released into
the United States with notices to appear in immigration court for
lack of jail bed space. Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff has vowed to end that practice on the southwestern border
this year. Immigration authorities are trying to deport non-Mexican
migrants more quickly. Mexico refuses to take them back, and U.S.
agents must fly them home if their countries will accept them.
The concern experts raise is that beefed-up border patrols now
force determined migrants to rely on increasingly sophisticated
global smuggling networks to get them through undetected. This
business is booming, with networks proliferating, drawing in
drug-crime cartels and transnational gangs.
Violence is up – attacks on Border Patrol agents topped 700 last
year – further encouraging reliance on smugglers. A recent FBI
intelligence bulletin warned that one smuggling kingpin “has
instructed his employees to shoot at” U.S. border agents. All this
favors terrorists who easily could use smuggling networks to enter,
said Walter Ewing, a researcher at the Immigration Policy
Institute.
“The best way to enhance security would be to take labor migration
out of the equation. If we were channeling workers from abroad
through legal channels, border-control resources could be channeled
towards catching potential terrorists as opposed to just tracking
down job-seekers,” Ewing said.
If Congress could reduce the number of illegal job-seekers, he
said, “terrorists would find it more difficult to hide among the
masses of undocumented aliens.”
“And they wouldn’t be able to rely on such good smuggling networks
because the market for those networks would be undercut,” Ewing
said. Congressional leaders in the past have considered proposals
to introduce fraud-proof IDs and hold employers responsible for
screening out illegal workers.
“It’s hard to talk about closing down the border when, by and
large, immigrants who come to this country are working. And who are
they working for? Small firms. Large firms. It’s pretty
pervasive,” said Audrey Singer, immigration specialist at the
Brookings Institution.
Targeting employers
Illegal immigrants occupy nearly 5 percent of U.S. jobs, Passell,
of the Pew Hispanic Center, found in a new study.
And removing the jobs magnet means “you have to give employers the
tools, and then you have to hold them accountable,” he said.
“That means finding employers, prosecuting employers, and possibly
putting some out of business.
“That’s just not politically popular. It’s the work that is
drawing people here. If you don’t deal with that, it’s hard to
think how you can control” illegal immigration.
Homeland Security teams have developed “a world-class
identification card” that could help employers verify whether
workers are here legally, said Emilio Gonzalez, Homeland Security’s
chief of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Today, “everyone can come up with 10 or 15 pieces of
identification to prove they are legal. But quite frankly,
employers have no idea what they are looking for,” Gonzalez said.
March 12, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
International gangs operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico
border are spreading to cities nationwide, including Denver,
officials say.
Federal immigration authorities on Friday announced the arrests of
375 suspected members and associates of Central American, Mexican
and other gangs across the country over the past two weeks – the
latest in a year-long effort that has caught 2,388.
In Denver, immigration agents have arrested 70 suspected members of
gangs such as MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, since July, including
seven in the past two weeks, said Jeff Copp, regional chief of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
All those arrested locally lacked legal immigration papers or had
been involved in burglaries, car thefts or fake document
trafficking, Copp said. All, he said, had “verified gang
tattoos.”
Federal agents teamed with local police to identify and arrest the
seven arrested most recently in Denver. Nationwide, of those
arrested this past year, 533 face criminal charges, and 1,855 were
charged with immigration violations.
In some cities, international gangs have preyed on
illegal-immigrant workers who owe money to smugglers.
No links to al-Qaeda have been established, said Claude Arnold,
chief of anti-gang operations at immigration headquarters in
Washington.
March 12, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
Of 375 arrests in past 2 weeks, seven were made in Denver
Immigration officials are cracking down on gangs operating on both
sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to prosecute and deport.
International gangs operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico
border are spreading to cities nationwide, including Denver,
officials say.
Federal immigration authorities on Friday announced the arrests of
375 suspected members and associates of Central American, Mexican
and other gangs across the country over the past two weeks – the
latest in a year-long effort that has caught 2,388.
In Denver, immigration agents have arrested 70 suspected members of
gangs such as MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, since July, including
seven in the past two weeks, said Jeff Copp, regional chief of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
All those arrested locally lacked legal immigration papers or had
been involved in burglaries, car thefts or fake document
trafficking, Copp said. All, he said, had “verified gang
tattoos.”
International gangs “are spreading across the country, and they
are going to move anywhere they have a community that will support
them and a network set up,” he said.
Federal agents teamed with local police to identify and arrest the
seven arrested most recently in Denver. Nationwide, of those
arrested this past year, 533 face criminal charges, and 1,855 were
charged with immigration violations.
Authorities said 260 of those arrested over the past two weeks
nationwide are suspected of crimes including drug-dealing, rape and
murder.
In some cities, international gangs have preyed on
illegal-immigrant workers who owe money to smugglers.
No links to al-Qaeda have been established, said Claude Arnold,
chief of anti-gang operations at immigration headquarters in
Washington.
The gangs “commit acts of violence wherever they are. They rob.
They do carjacking. They do drive-by shootings,” Arnold said.
“They’re a threat to public safety.”
Along the U.S.-Mexico border, gangs increasingly team up with
cartels that smuggle drugs and people, authorities said. Attacks on
U.S. Border Patrol agents are increasing, with more than 700 last
year.
A recent FBI intelligence bulletin warned that “a known alien
smuggler operating near Rio Bravo, Texas, has instructed his
employees to shoot at U.S. Border Patrol agents.”
Years ago, migrants from Central America formed MS-13, the 18th
Street Gang and others in Los Angeles. As U.S. authorities in the
1990s deported members convicted of crimes, the gangs spread south
of the border. The gangs now threaten security across Central
America and Mexico.
Some of those detained in recent sweeps are to be deported. “The
alternative is to leave them on the streets,” said Dean Boyd,
spokesman at immigration headquarters.
“If we have criminal evidence, we are going to use it, put ’em in
jail for a long time,” Boyd said. “If we don’t, we are going to
deport ’em.”
January 30, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
Colorado ski areas hire hundreds of college students from South America to fill seasonal jobs, but the practice is drawing criticism.
Copper Mountain – Colorado ski resorts that have exhausted their
quotas for hiring foreign temporary workers are resurrecting a
1960s tradition: enlisting college students to meet low-wage labor
needs.
But these days, the students come from South America.
Ski towns now employ hundreds of foreign students – from Brazil,
Chile, Argentina, Peru and elsewhere – under a U.S. government
cultural-exchange program that allows them to work while
experiencing life in America.
Critics complain that this growing reliance on foreign students
strains the spirit of cultural exchange and hurts U.S. workers.
Congressional investigators also recently found that the government
is failing to oversee the program as required.
Across the Colorado mountains, South American students now tune
skis, greet guests, run cash registers, flip burgers, wait tables
and more – generally for around $8 an hour, but sometimes for as
little as $2.50 an hour, plus tips.
They often juggle two jobs to afford housing. Some learned the hard
way this year that the life of a resort worker entails scrambling
for bed space and gobbling too much fast food.
Even so, “it’s been a good deal for me,” said Brazilian Leo
Cavalcante, 21, herding minivans through a snowpacked parking lot
here. He’s motivated more to hone his English and have an adventure
than to earn money, he said.
The government’s program for bringing in students “was developed
as an exchange program to expose foreign nationals to the United
States. It was not intended to take over jobs,” said Sally
Lawrence, administrator at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of
Education and Cultural Affairs.
The rules let students on summer vacation – which in the Southern
Hemisphere coincides with winter here – work for up to four months,
Lawrence said. “A lot of people in the United States don’t want
these jobs. As I understand, there’s a (labor) shortage.”
Not fair, contends Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for
Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which favors stricter
limits on hiring abroad to fill U.S. jobs.
“A cultural visa is turning into a work visa,” Krikorian said.
Hiring U.S. college students instead of foreign students “might
make a lift ticket cost more,” he said. “But is importing foreign
labor to keep ticket costs low a proper function of government?”
A Government Accountability Office investigation concluded in
October that State Department overseers must do more to guard
against abuses, such as students overstaying visas and exploitation
of students. A State Department “compliance unit” was not fully
funded, the GAO report said.
Each year before ski season, Colorado resort operators dip into an
alphabet soup of government visa programs to build their workforce.
First, they line up as many as 14,000 “H2B” foreign temporary
workers. Then they hire hundreds of South American students under
the J-1 “summer work travel” program.
The State Department issued 106,000 J-1 visas to admit foreign
students under the work-travel program in 2005, up from 71,218 in
2001.
Unlike the 66,000 H2B visas the government gives – a
congressionally set national quota exhausted for this year by
mid-December – J-1 visas let students roam and switch jobs, and
there’s no cap.
Some 52 private companies, designated by the State Department,
recruit foreign students through agents abroad. The students and
their families pay up to $2,500 for visas, airfare and other fees.
The sponsoring companies then must supervise students and report
their whereabouts to the Department of Homeland Security.
If evidence arises that a sponsor isn’t fulfilling its
responsibilities, the company would get a telephone call to “find
out what’s going on,” Lawrence said.
In Colorado, Copper Mountain this year hired about 200 South
American students, said Sarah Wing, the resort’s human resources
manager. Copper’s parent, Vancouver, British Columbia-based
Intrawest Corp., also relies on foreign students at its Winter Park
and Mary Jane ski areas.
Vail Resorts Inc., which owns Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Keystone
and Vail, employs “a few hundred,” said Nicole Greener,
international staffing manager.
Without foreign workers, Greener said, Vail Resorts would have to
rethink its labor strategy. The downside of hiring students is that
they can only work for four months. “They don’t get you through
the whole season,” she said.
Colorado ski resorts’ “increasing reliance on foreign workers
suggests that they can’t hire Americans at the wage that they’re
paying,” U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., leader of the House
immigration reform caucus, said in a written statement.
“The J-1 program is being used not to expand a foreign student’s
understanding of the United States, but to undercut American
workers,” Tancredo said.
Beyond that, “our myriad visa categories actually encourage
abuse.”
Tancredo favors a single worker visa system.
This winter, South American exchange students in Summit County
discovered what U.S. workers long have lamented: Although the
resorts are eager to hire, housing is scarce and often
unaffordable.
Dozens of Brazilians were left crunching through dark, icy streets
on a night in December, with temperatures below 10 degrees,
searching for vacant motel rooms. Some clashed with managers over
occupancy limits. A window was broken. Tempers flared.
Some huddled daily at the Frisco Information Center between work
shifts for warmth and free access to e-mail. Copper Mountain
managers, whose 500-unit worker dormitory was full, directed
students to Leadville, 25 miles away over 11,300-foot Fremont Pass,
to find rooms.
Cramming into various motels for a month became “a huge problem
for me,” said Gabriella Rocha, 19, a Brazilian working two jobs in
Breckenridge.
“It’s not the way I wanted it to be. I don’t want to be
vulnerable. I want to know how much I’m going to pay each month,
and where I’m going to stay.”
Local mothers got involved, opening church doors and taking
students into their homes.
“Somebody needs to be overseeing this closely,” said Jill
Clement, director of the Frisco Information Center, who adopted two
Brazilians and a New Zealander. “We don’t want to see this happen
again.”
Foreign students were told in advance about job and housing
opportunities, and many chose to make arrangements on their own,
said Janice Haigh, vice president of Camp Counselors USA, a
California-based sponsor company that recruited 6,000 students on
J-1 visas – including many working in Colorado.
Most have reported an address as required, Haigh said, though
there’s nobody on-site in Colorado to verify their whereabouts.
“We’re assuming we have an honest bunch of participants,” she
said.
After an initial scramble, exchange students this month were
settling in and, after 12-hour workdays, partying. Many flock to
the Salt Creek disco at Breckenridge, where bouncers now check
passports instead of driver licenses.
On the job, South Americans bring “a work ethic you don’t find in
twentysomething Americans. They’re polite, friendly. They’re always
here,” said Leslie Holmes, assistant manager in Spencer’s
restaurant at the Beaver Run Hotel. “And the younger workforce
revitalizes the nightlife of the town – absolutely.”
Foreign students say that in spite of hardships, they’re also
glimpsing modern U.S. values.
“I’m working three jobs. I’m sharing a house with 12 guys,” said
Bruno Cunha, 24, of Brazil, behind the counter at Frisco’s
Loaf-N-Jug around midnight.
Now he and his girlfriend want to leave, he said. Soon they’ll have
enough money. They plan on savoring some free days drifting around
Europe.
December 22, 2005 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Counter-Terrorism, Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
In Denver, it’s been three years since any fine was imposed for failure to verify workers’ immigration status.
While Congress wrestles with new legislation to crack down on
employers who hire illegal-immigrant workers, enforcement of an
existing prohibition has all but ceased.
Not a single employer in the Denver area has been fined for three
years, records show, and federal authorities have targeted only a
handful of employers nationwide.
This week, experts on all sides of the intensifying national
immigration debate agreed: Work- site enforcement will be crucial
in efforts to deal effectively with growing numbers of illegal
foreign-born workers.
“If I could do one thing in the area of immigration reform, it
would be to stop employers from providing the magnet. Then we’d
have much of this problem solved,” said Rep. Tom Tancredo,
R-Colo., leader of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.
A 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that Tancredo and a
majority of fellow lawmakers demand, costing hundreds of millions
of dollars, “is a symbol as much as it is a practical obstacle
…,” Tancredo said. “I certainly believe we should have that
symbol, but the real key is work-site enforcement.”
Longtime federal immigration chief Doris Meisner, now a senior
fellow at the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington,
called current work-site enforcement “a charade,” a
“wink-and-nod system” vulnerable to fraud and fakery.
The 1986 law that makes hiring illegal workers a crime “is an
unworkable law because of the verification issue. There’s no way
for employers to know whether the documents they see are valid,”
she said.
“And they don’t have a requirement to verify those documents. That
has to be fixed,” said Meisner, who ran the Immigration and
Naturalization Service under President Clinton.
“You have to have a way that’s straightforward” – similar to
credit-card verification using photo identification and Social
Security numbers – to check workers, she said.
Establishing penalties and a database for screening workers “is an
important step in developing a credible immigration system,” said
Marshall Fitz, advocacy director for the American Immigration
Lawyers Association.
That group and Meisner contend work-site enforcement must be
combined with bringing in more temporary workers to ensure U.S.
economic competitiveness.
Even business advocates at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce favor
required work-site screening “as long as it is fast, reliable and
accurate,” chamber vice president Randy Johnson said. “We
recognize that improved employer verification has to be part of
reform.”
Senate lawmakers now are expected to offer “guest worker”
proposals. House lawmakers have passed broad enforcement-
oriented legislation that would require employers to verify workers
are legal and impose fines of $25,000 per violation.
Today, federal enforcers let companies police themselves. Under a
nationwide pilot program, only 4,830 employers nationwide (131 in
Colorado, 31 in Denver) voluntarily checked Social Security numbers
against a federal database last year.
Federal enforcers also have failed for nearly a decade to issue
guidelines on which identification documents employers should
review, a Government Accountability Office investigation found.
Wide use of fake documents and identities complicates enforcement.
Government statistics show that workplace arrests of illegal
workers nationwide decreased from 17,554 in 1997 to 159 in 2004.
Notices of intent to fine employers decreased from 865 in 1997 to
three in 2004.
In Denver, no employer has been fined for three years for hiring
illegal workers, said Carl Rusnok, regional Homeland Security
spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Immigration officials blame their lagging enforcement of the
current work-site law on post-
9/11 security priorities. Field agents focus on sensitive work
sites: nuclear power plants, military bases and airports.
Now Homeland Security chiefs are beginning to “look at giving
employers better tools to determine the legality of their
workforce. Some of these things are going to be unveiled pretty soon,” said Dean Boyd, national Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman in Washington.
“If employers don’t take those steps,” he said, “we are looking at what sanctions are available.”
December 5, 2005 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
He came from Sudan. He found a job and saw a more prosperous
future.
But Arif Mobasher, 43, still questions America’s promise of true
freedom, especially amid reports that President Bush ordered the
National Security Agency to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails
between U.S. residents and people in other countries without court
approval in an effort to track al-Qaeda.
Even longtime U.S. residents – from those in shiny glass
headquarters for international business to the U.S. Capitol – were
asking questions Friday.
Mobasher dials Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, every week to speak with
his father, mother and brother.
“I’m not talking about anything political,” he said.
But his safest course now, he said, is to assume U.S. spies always
listen and to give up notions of privacy.
“I feel like: Let the government know about everything, so they
can know I’m on a straight line,” he said.
Mobasher was one among several who, finishing Friday prayers at the
Colorado Muslim Society’s southeast Denver mosque, mulled the
implications if the eavesdropping of international communications
without warrants, as reported Friday in The New York Times, is
accepted.
Like him, many come from what the U.S. government calls “countries
of concern.” All make regular phone calls home.
“When I came here, I came for the freedom,” said Miloud Haddou,
33, of Morocco, who heard radio reports at dawn and realized he
could be affected.
Today, in the name of fighting terrorism, the U.S. government “can
do anything to you – get into your business, into your privacy. …
I’m not angry. I never could be angry. But this is kind of
disappointing,” said Haddou, who arrived in the U.S. five years
ago.
Now, in his twice-a-week phone calls to Casablanca, he’ll have to
skirt subjects such as “the situation in Morocco,” he said.
“You’ll kind of worry more about the conversation.”
The question is whether this is legal, said Jim Reis, president of
the World Trade Center Denver, which helps Colorado companies doing
business abroad.
Increased surveillance to stop terrorism “is very unfortunate,”
he said. “… It’s become part of our lives. But it’s got to be done
within the (laws) that govern our country.”
Any eavesdropping “should be stopped until it has court
approval,” Reis said. Computer technology “creates a lot of
opportunities for government to do monitoring. At the same time, it
really begins to infringe on individual rights.”
In Washington, the reports may have influenced U.S. senators who
blocked a vote Friday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the
anti-terrorism law giving law enforcement groups new power.
The NSA surveillance inside the country without warrants is
“deeply troubling,” said U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.
“If we needed a wake-up call about the need for adequate
civil-liberties protections to be written into our laws, this is
it.”
He stopped short of calling for stopping the practice, however,
saying, “We need more information.”
Some in the Senate have called for oversight hearings.
At the Denver mosque – as merchants sold fruit, cloth and couscous
– some said phone and e-mail snooping may be needed.
“The way the world is going, let them do it. It’s for everybody’s
safety,” said Camran Naimi, 31, who arrived with his mother from
Afghanistan in 1990.
Another person from Sudan, part-time law student Abubakr El-Noor,
31, said he really wants privacy when he calls his girlfriend and
would prefer that U.S. spies “go through the courts” because
“sometimes there’s a good reason … (but) not all the time,” for
surveillance.
But he also figured that “sometimes, to control your security, you
need to do something illegal.”
Grilling chicken in her couscous trailer, Sally Ben, 42, of Morocco
shook her head. When she read the news, “I couldn’t believe it,”
she said.
“I thought: It can’t be. This is the United States.”
« Previous entries ·
Next entries »
A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
