September 12, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Counter-Terrorism, Security
AID FROM CITIZENS
The ACLU denounces the use of a website to report “suspicious” activity as an encouragement to spy.
Colorado counterterrorism officials used the 9/11 anniversary to
launch an Internet system that lets ordinary people electronically
report “suspicious activity” – ferreting out possible terrorist
bombers or plotters in their midst.
“One person can make a difference in thwarting terrorism,” State
Patrol Chief Mark Tostel said Monday in unveiling the system.
Civil-liberties leaders immediately denounced the move as deeply
destructive.
The system lets anybody with Internet access send a report and
photos (via www.ciac.co.gov) documenting anything that strikes them
as suspicious.
Officials said suspicious activity may include “unusual requests
for information,” “unusual interest in high-risk or symbolic
targets,” “unusual purchases or thefts,” “suspicious or
unattended packages,” “suspicious persons who appear out of
place” or people acquiring weapons, uniforms or fraudulent
identification.
A report sent through the system would ping the e-mail of a law
enforcement staffer at an intelligence relay station, the Colorado
Information Analysis Center, located in Centennial in a secure
building looped into federal computer networks.
Multi-agency teams in this “fusion” center, with access to
classified data, then would review the report, perhaps running
license-plate or other personal- data checks, and could notify the
FBI.
About 300 tips about possible terrorism-related activity in
Colorado, fielded at the center over the past 18 months, were
deemed significant enough to forward to the FBI, state officials
said. The new electronic system is designed to increase the flow of
information that could be used to stop terrorism.
It’s unclear what happens to names, locations and other information
sent to the FBI. Everybody who sends in a tip will get a response,
officials said.
Coloradans could abuse the system “to undermine their neighbors or
their enemies,” said State Patrol Sgt. Jack Cowart, a former Air
Force intelligence officer who manages the center. But that risk
already exists with the rise of phone-oriented systems that let
Coloradans report “road rage” and crime, Cowart said.
“This is just one more. … We need information from the public to
keep the public safe,” Cowart said.
A counterterrorism telephone hotline (720-852-6705) already draws
up to 20 tips a week to the fusion center. Surveillance crews
sometimes contact police dispatchers, who can send officers to
check out people or places, said State Patrol Capt. Brenda Leffler,
commander at the center.
“I hate it,” said Cathryn Hazouri, executive director of the
American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado. “This is encouraging
people to spy on one another.”
It moves modern America in the direction of communist societies of
the Soviet Union and China, “where people were encouraged to turn
in their family members, or their neighbors, if they believed those
people were not toeing the government line,” Hazouri said.
“Be careful. Be aware that you could ruin people’s reputations,
ruin their ability to go on an airplane,” Hazouri said. “There
are so many things that grow out of this kind of program.
“It’s almost as though they are trying to tell people that they
need to be afraid. Very afraid. Afraid of people they know, and
especially of people they don’t know.”
September 1, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Latin America, Migration
The Hudson couple have pleaded guilty to holding illegal laborers in a camp and skimming their pay.
Hudson – Leaning on her fence, retiree Ann Hoyt looked across at
the dilapidated white barracks and winced. She had no clue they had
held illegal Mexican workers who toiled on farms to pay smuggling
debts.
“Remember Auschwitz and the people in Germany saying, ‘We didn’t
know it was there’? Well, I didn’t know this was there, and it was
in my backyard,” said Hoyt, a retired microbiologist who raises
llamas half a mile away.
Today in federal court, Hudson residents Moises Rodriguez and his
wife, Maria, are scheduled to be sentenced for transporting and
harboring illegal immigrants in this case of migrants who were
smuggled into the country and then worked to the bone.
Foremen bused them from the barracks to farms where they picked
crops for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Supervisors deducted
“smuggling fees” totaling $1,100 to $1,300 from the workers’
pay.
In October, when federal agents raided the fenced barracks compound
at Hudson, 30 miles northeast of Denver, they found automatic
weapons and cocaine in a trailer where a supervisor stayed, court
records show.
This is one of several recent cases around the country involving
smuggled foreign workers who labored under financial duress, owing
money to those who sneaked them into the United States.
Moises and Maria Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty in May, face up to
40 years in prison for their role in transporting and harboring
scores of illegal workers from Mexico, then deducting fees from
their pay. Prosecutors say they supplied workers to agricultural
employers around northern Colorado, including the state’s largest
organic vegetable farm.
Their son, Javier Rodriguez, who lived in a trailer by the
barracks, has agreed in a plea deal to share what he knows about
smuggling, employment of illegal workers, drug trafficking, violent
crime and gun dealing in return for leniency in sentencing.
Farm owners who used the illegal workers were not charged.
Attorney Jeff Edelman, representing Javier Rodriguez, said
employers are key players who ought to be targeted.
For the workers, “it’s sort of an indentured servitude you can
never get out from under,” Edelman said. “You ought to get the
big shots. It’s against the law to hire illegal aliens
knowingly.”
At Grant Family Farms, a large organic grower where Moises
Rodriguez sent workers, owner Andy Grant said he has championed
worker rights and pays at least $7.25 an hour.
“The whole thing about the smuggling, I have no knowledge of it,
and as far as the housing, I don’t know where people live. We offer
jobs,” Grant said.
Grant questioned federal priorities in targeting farms rather than
other sectors of the economy that rely heavily on illegal workers.
“What’s going to happen is, agriculture is going to be driven out
of the United States to Mexico,” he said.
Among other U.S. cases involving indebted foreign workers:
FBI and immigration agents just arrested 31 Koreans accused of
running a trafficking ring that placed smuggled women at spas and
brothels across the northeastern states.
Federal prosecutors in Seattle charged nine Koreans for their
alleged role in an operation that smuggled women from Asia, often
across the U.S.-Canada border, and put them to work as prostitutes
in spas nationwide.
A Colorado court on Thursday sentenced Saudi Arabian immigrant
Homaidan Al-Turki to 28 years to life in prison on charges of false
imprisonment and unlawful sexual contact involving an illegal
worker from Indonesia kept as a virtual slave. Federal charges are
pending.
And federal immigration agents in Colorado are investigating
several other cases involving smuggled foreign workers, said Jeff
Copp, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s Denver district.
As in most of these cases, the Mexican men and women smuggled to
Hudson apparently came willingly, agreeing to work and live at the
barracks until free from their debts to smugglers.
First, the workers in Mexico telephoned Moises Rodriguez, court
records show. He directed them to hotels at Palomas and Agua Prieta
on the Mexico side of the border, where they met “coyote” guides
who led them on multi-day treks across dry open land near Douglas,
Ariz.
Then, after receiving cellphone calls from the guides on the U.S.
side of the border, Rodriguez picked up the workers and drove them
via Phoenix to Hudson, the records show.
Some Hudson townspeople never knew. But a few sensed an ugly
situation.
Construction worker Loren Winstead recalled delivering surplus food
from a supermarket to the barracks. “They would surround my truck
and help unload it,” he said. “I didn’t think they were abused.
But people took advantage of them.”
Others cringed at hearing regular automatic weapons fire from
inside the compound, Hudson Mayor Neal Pontius said. Town leaders
repeatedly complained to Weld County authorities, he said. “People
didn’t like going to our town park in the evenings because you
didn’t know if a stray bullet would come your way.”
Deporting the smuggled workers, as federal authorities have done,
and jailing members of the Rodriguez family won’t make much
difference in the overall immigration conundrum, Pontius said.
“There will be another person who takes their place in a
heartbeat. It’s a never-ending cycle.”
August 6, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
The only son of an Egyptian immigrant, Troy Eid is looking ahead to
his job as the government’s top prosecutor in Colorado.
Confirmed by the Senate late Thursday as U.S. attorney for
Colorado, Eid said that among his priorities for his 70-lawyer
Denver office will be enforcement of immigration law.
“I respect what immigrants bring to the country so much,” Eid
said in an interview Friday. “We just have to enforce the law.
It’s a really tough issue.”
Eid, 42, is a former legal counsel to Gov. Bill Owens and a lawyer
specializing in cases involving environmental issues and Indian
affairs. He awaits his formal commissioning by President Bush.
Recent debate over immigration has been “very positive” – leading
to a new awareness among employers, local authorities and state
officials, Eid said. “People are realizing we all have a role to
play in it. It’s not just one or two government agencies.”
Eid brings an intimate knowledge of immigration issues. His father,
the late Edward Eid, moved to the United States from Cairo with
$100 in 1957 after military dictator Gamal Nasser took power.
Edward Eid worked at a steel factory and as an accountant in a
candle factory – and later served as a leader of the Colorado State
Soccer Association.
Troy Eid grew up in Wheat Ridge. He attended Stanford University,
graduating in 1986, and earned his law degree from the University
of Chicago in 1991.
His wife, Allison Eid, became a Colorado Supreme Court justice in
February. They have two children.
Eid will replace acting U.S. attorney William Leone, who has served
since December 2004, when John Suthers resigned to become Colorado
attorney general after Ken Salazar left that position for the U.S.
Senate.
Eid expressed thanks to Sens. Salazar and Wayne Allard for their
support.
His other priorities:
“Preventing children from being exploited over the Internet.”
Building up his staff by luring more top prosecutors. “We have a
natural recruiting advantage in Colorado,” he said.
Establishing better relations between the federal government and
Indian tribal authorities. Admitted to the Navajo Nation bar, Eid
said he visited tribal territory 41 times over the past two years.
“It starts with respect,” he said.
Working more closely with local police. “I’m going to spend a lot
of time listening to local law enforcement.”
July 28, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Counter-Terrorism, Security
Duties at the Colorado Springs-area military post, touted as America’s safest spot, are moving to Peterson.
Colorado Springs – The military is relegating its newly renovated
airspace and missile defense complex in Cheyenne Mountain to
standby status – clouding the future of a Cold War nerve center
touted as the most secure spot in America.
The green-jumpsuited sentries who electronically scan the skies
from deep inside this granite cocoon southwest of Colorado Springs
– built in the 1960s to withstand Soviet nuclear blasts – now are
to blend into broader homeland defense operations under prairie
skies at nearby Peterson Air Force Base.
“I can’t be in two places at one time,” said Adm. Tim Keating,
commander of both U.S. Northern Command, set up in 2002 to fight
terrorism, and North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.
Both NORAD and Northcom have their headquarters at Peterson.
U.S. strategists created the mountain complex to prevent nuclear
missile and bomber attacks. But today the government’s best
intelligence “leads us to believe a missile attack from China or
Russia is very unlikely,” Keating said in an interview this week.
The emergence of varied terrorist threats such as suicide bombers
“is what recommends to us that we don’t need to maintain Cheyenne
Mountain in a 24/7 status. We can put it on ‘warm standby,”‘
Keating said.
Just how warm depends on money to maintain the complex, military
officials said. Keating said his goal is to be able to fire up the
complex in an hour.
Keating today is scheduled to announce the decision he made after
consulting with military chiefs in Washington. He’ll move 230
surveillance crewmembers and an undetermined number of about 700
support staffers – as quickly and inexpensively as possible. The
time frame: within two years.
About 1,100 people now work in the mountain. Military leaders
promised there’d be no net job loss from the move.
Whether money can be saved is uncertain, Keating said. Mountain
operations cost taxpayers $250 million a year.
Budgets at first may increase, officials said, depending on how
much money is available to maintain mountain facilities, but in the
future could decrease.
The move itself will cost “tens of millions of dollars,” said Air
Force Col. Lou Christensen, deputy director of operations.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the government began
a $467 million modernization of the mountain facility. A recent
congressional probe found cost overruns – modernizers spent more
than $700 million, and the work isn’t done.
Moving surveillance crews out marks a twist in nearly 50 years of
secretive activity at the mountain. Blasting a 4 1/2-acre cavern
about 60 feet high was the first of many engineering feats that led
to construction of 15 free-standing buildings mounted on 1,319
springs, which allow a 12-inch sway. The total cost, $142 million,
raised eyebrows back then.
Since the mid-1960s, joint U.S.-Canadian crews in the mountain have
guarded North America, poised to send warnings that could initiate
nuclear missile launches. Strategists long were locked into notions
of superpower security through “mutually assured destruction.”
Now military analysts ponder strategic implications of a move that
reflects a growing concern with terrorism by small groups against a
military superpower.
While odds of a nuclear missile attack now seem slim, “take it 15
years down the road,” said John Pike, director of Global Security,
a Washington think tank. “Maybe the Chinese will try to take us
on. They might start blowing up military targets. And though
currently we’re not concerned about the Russians, that may change.
What would be required to get back into that mountain?”
The decision to move surveillance crews out followed an internal
study launched in February. The study explored consolidation of two
overlapping surveillance operations – the one in the mountain and
the new homeland defense center at Peterson, about 12 miles from
the mountain at the eastern edge of Colorado Springs.
There, homeland defense surveillance crews surrounded by wall-sized
video screens try to detect and track threats – with access to the
same data available inside the mountain.
These crews track threats as varied as U.S.-bound ships carrying
unidentified cargo and suspicious cars idling around power plants.
Today, protecting America is increasingly complicated, said Army
Col. Tom Muir, who directs the new center and helped run the
internal study. “Is Hezbollah going to attack the United States?”
he asked.
During the 9/11 attacks, the NORAD commander at the time, Air Force
Gen. Ralph Eberhart, was caught shuttling from headquarters at
Peterson to the mountain command post and couldn’t receive
telephone calls as senior officials weighed how to respond.
Consolidating surveillance operations is aimed at “strengthening
the command center here,” Muir said. “This is an efficiency
move.”
Canadian defense partners who helped run mountain operations also
sit at the new surveillance center. It has been renamed N2C2, short
for NORAD-Northcom Command Center.
“I have found, over the course of several pretty extensive,
rigorous exercises, that I’m able to get as good or better
situational awareness in the command center … at Peterson,”
Keating said.
Besides NORAD and Northcom, other military forces work in the
mountain today. An Air Force Space Command squadron of 100 people
tracks space debris and satellites. U.S. missile command crews and
intelligence teams from the National Reconnaissance Office and
other agencies also are there – all supported by 700 cooks, a
barber, medics, recreational center staff, engineers, guards and
others.
Air Force Space Command, too, is looking into moving its operations
out of the mountain to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California –
raising the prospect of a virtually empty mountain.
Keating said he and other commanders have talked about this. “I’m
aware of the plans” that would move a majority of remaining forces
out, he said. Yet “we appreciate the importance of Cheyenne
Mountain. That is exactly why we are going to maintain it … in the
event we would need it.
“This is not Step One that will lead, inevitably and inexorably,
to closing Cheyenne Mountain.”
One possibility: using the mountain as a second seat for the U.S.
government in a crisis. Keating said he knew of no discussions on
this, but he characterized that option as reasonable.
Timeline
Key events in Cheyenne Mountain’s history:
Early 1950s: The Cold War with the Soviet Union leads U.S.
authorities to find a place where military warning facilities could
survive a nuclear attack.
1958: The U.S. and Canada establish the North American Air Defense
Command, or NORAD, to monitor and defend North American airspace
from attack.
1959: Cheyenne Mountain is selected for the NORAD command site.
1961: Excavation and construction begin. More than 693,000 tons of
granite is removed from the mountain. Eventually, 15 buildings,
some mounted on springs, are constructed behind 25-ton blast doors,
1,400 feet inside the mountain.
1966: The NORAD Operations Center inside the mountain becomes fully
operational.
1979: A simulation of a large Soviet missile attack is mistakenly
interpreted as real by Cheyenne Mountain personnel and almost leads
to a massive launch of U.S. nuclear missiles before the error is
detected.
1981: NORAD changes its name to North American Aerospace Defense
Command. The Air Force starts computer-system upgrades at an
estimated cost of $968 million.
1983: The hit sci-fi movie “WarGames,” starring Matthew Broderick
and set at NORAD, is released. It is one of several Hollywood
productions that have used Cheyenne Mountain as a setting,
including the films “Sum of All Fears” and “Deep Impact” and
TV’s “Stargate SG-1.”
1989: NORAD begins military support of agencies fighting transport
of illegal drugs into the U.S.
1998: Computer upgrades started in 1981 are declared operational,
at a total cost of about $1.8 billion.
2000: The Air Force starts another program to modernize and
integrate Cheyenne Mountain systems.
Sept. 11, 2001: In the wake of the terrorist attacks that day, the
complex closes its blast doors for the first time in decades when
it’s suspected that a hijacked aircraft is headed for the mountain.
The doors reopen when it’s determined no such threat exists.
2001: NORAD’s mission expands to include monitoring air traffic
within North America in response to 9/11.
2002: U.S. Northern Command, or Northcom, is established to fight
terrorism at home and to lead the land, aerospace and sea defense
of the United States. It is based at nearby Peterson Air Force Base
in Colorado Springs. It carries out much of the same surveillance,
with access to all the same data, as the NORAD command post.
2004: Cheyenne Mountain is upgraded, doubling the command center’s
540 square feet. The overhaul is to accommodate the increased staff
from Northcom and the Federal Aviation Administration.
February 2006: U.S. Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of
Northcom and NORAD, tells The Denver Post he has launched an
“internal study” of whether to keep the NORAD command post at
Cheyenne Mountain.
July 2006: A report by Congress’ Government Accountability Office
says poor management has delayed needed upgrades to early-warning
systems at Cheyenne Mountain and pushed the cost more than 50
percent over budget.
Sources: Denver Post archives, www.norad.mil, www.afspc.af.mil, GAO, The Associated Press, Answers.com.
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 23, 2006 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Latin America, Migration
Tijuana man rejoices at being reunited with his wife but struggles with heart trouble, bleak job prospects
Their illegal journey to Denver taught them that they might be
better off together at home.
If only he could get his heart fixed.
It started when burnt-out taxi driver Amador Venegas, 43, of
Tijuana, Mexico, decided to cross into Texas.
But two weeks alone in an El Paso safe house without Blanca, his
bride of two years, was too much.
Amador still hadn’t found work. He’d labored before in U.S. potato
fields, sending money home to his previous wife, and knew how
lonely he’d be. Now with his heart trouble, he might never see
Blanca again.
“It’s a question of a man and a woman being together,” he said,
telling his story Wednesday afternoon in a Denver homeless
shelter.
So Amador telephoned Blanca in Sinaloa and told her to go to the
border.
They had no money for a high-end “coyote” who, for $1,000 or
more, could haul Blanca in a jam-packed van all the way through to
a job. Those rides are dangerous, anyway.
Amador arranged a crossing for $200, relayed directions to a house
in a colonia at the edge of Juarez.
Blanca, 32, left her kids with her mother and met the coyote. “I
had to trust him,” she said. They hiked for six hours, up and down
steep mountains.
Amador paid up at the “plaza of the alligators” (Jacinto Plaza)
in El Paso.
Now they were free. But the church-run safe house stank. “Like a
cage,” Amador said. And he wasn’t well. Medicine from a Tijuana
doctor was running out.
Migrants there dreaded the trip north. U.S. Homeland Security
agents ran a checkpoint at Las Cruces, N.M.
But Amador told Blanca: “We have to risk it. If they catch us, we
go back to Sinaloa. And if not … .”
She borrowed $57 from a mother with three kids for a bus ticket to
Denver and promised to call Amador when she got there.
At Las Cruces, two security agents boarded. Blanca sat still in the
very back row – “thinking they’ll make me get off the bus and go
back to Mexico.”
They didn’t ask for her papers.
And she made it.
Reaching Amador proved difficult. No phone. Amador followed to
Denver anyway. He wandered around lost and found a place in the
homeless shelter.
At a nearby day shelter, he telephoned the El Paso safe house. “If
Blanca calls … .”
She did. And two days later, they met in the lobby of the day
shelter. They hugged, crying.
Now they’re together whenever possible.
For $100, Blanca bought a fake work ID. She found a job cleaning at
a restaurant that brings them $180 a week – not much more than what
she earned cleaning houses in Tijuana while he drove a cab.
He went to an emergency room and got a doctor to check out his
heart. Bad news. “The operation I need costs a lot of money, more
than $50,000.” A doctor gave him medicine that has helped hugely –
“he didn’t say anything about money.”
Now by day, Amador wanders the icy streets north of downtown
looking for day jobs while Blanca cleans. In their one month here,
he’s worked about seven days.
One minute they talk about buying an apartment and getting out of
the shelter, the next about going back to Mexico.
She put her arms around him.
“I want to go back to Mexico,” he said.
She acknowledged she thinks about it, too.
“Mexico is poor – poor but noble,” he said as rush-hour traffic
whizzed past.
“Here, there’s no sun.”
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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.
