Immigration arrests 9 bosses along with 1,000 workers
Strategy to focus more on companies that employ illegal workers
From Terry Frieden and Mike M. Ahlers
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal immigration authorities arrested nine people linked to the firm IFCO Systems and rounded up more than 1,000 illegal immigrants in multistate raids, federal law enforcement officials said.

Among those arrested and charged in connection with the employment of immigrants are seven current and former managers and two lower-level employees of the company, said U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby.

The operation came as Bush administration officials and a federal prosecutor plan a new strategy aimed at companies that employ illegal immigrants. IFCO is an industry leader in the manufacture of wooden pallets, crates and containers. The criminal complaint involving IFCO charges the seven managers with conspiracy to transport, harbor, and employ illegal immigrants for private gain. (Watch the young woman whose boyfriend got hauled in -- 1:06)

Federal authorities checked a sample of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.(Watch how bosses allegedly helped workers fake records -- 1:25)

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Minutemen to Bush: Build fence or we will
By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/GREGORY BULL

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Minuteman border watch leader Chris Simcox has a message for President Bush: Build new security fencing along the border with Mexico or private citizens will.

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

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

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Mexican Consulate criticizes sheriff's role in arrests
Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

The immigration raid that found 26 undocumented immigrants at a far East quarry Monday was conducted by El Paso sheriff's deputies, prompting officials at the Mexican Consulate in El Paso to complain that the agency has been overstepping its duties.

Consulate spokeswoman Socorro Cordova said her office has talked to Sheriff Leo Samaniego on two occasions, asking him not to intervene in immigration matters.

"It's the sixth incident, counting the raids on hotels and motels," she said, referring to the detention last month of 57 undocumented immigrants in Downtown hotels. In February, the Sheriff's Office boasted the arrest of 229 undocumented immigrants at motels in the county and at other locations.

What gives the Mexican government the right to tell US Law Enforcement what it can and cannot do? -mm

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Chertoff downplays Mexican military incursions
Homeland Security chief insists reports of past 10 years 'overblown'
World Net Daily

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff downplayed reports by the U.S. Border Patrol of more than 200 incursions by the Mexican military over the last 10 years, calling them "scare tactics."

While acknowledging the Border Patrol reports of crossings by uniformed troops, Chertoff told reporters in Washington yesterday he believes many of the incursions could have been innocent mistakes, according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif.

"I think the stories are overblown," Chertoff said. "I asked the chief of the Border Patrol about it. The number has not increased; in fact, it had decreased a little bit."

In some cases, Chertoff suggested, it could be a matter of Mexican authorities crossing where the dividing line is unclear or criminals in camouflage are mistaken for soldiers.

T.J. Bonner, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, asserted Chertoff is uninformed.

"Were he to go out there on actual patrol with Border Patrol agents ... and experience what we experience – where you encounter a group of highly trained, very well-armed Mexican soldiers coming across our border, and your closest backup is an hour or more away – I think he would be a lot more concerned about it," he told the Ontario newspaper.

Some Border Patrol agents contend Mexican military officers have been colluding with drug-smuggling cartels.

Mr. Secretary. you are either trying to be politically correct, afraid to face the issues, naive, misinformed or a coward. -mm

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Nevada senator studies immigration in Yuma area
BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, SUN STAFF WRITER
PHOTO BY TERRY KETRON/THE SUN

A Nevada senator who came to Yuma to get an up-close look at the situation along the southern border said providing a path to citizenship should not be included in any new immigration reform plan Congress considers.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., toured the operations at the Yuma sector Border Patrol Wednesday with a focus on advancing technologies being used by agents in the field. He said resources are stretched thin and will only get thinner if immigration reform rewards illegal aliens through anything approaching amnesty.

"If you offer amnesty, you'll have a flood," he said. "And we're finding that about 10 percent of those who are captured have a criminal record."