Focus of Federal Illegal Immigrant Raid Shifts to ID Theft for Swift & Co.
Focus
of Federal Illegal Immigrant Raid Shifts to ID Theft for Swift & Co.
December 14, 2006
By Sudeep Reddy / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON – Stymied by Congress and a divided
public, federal authorities are launching a new
assault on illegal immigration: accusing workers
of hijacking the identities of unwitting U.S.
citizens.
The sweeping raids at Swift
& Co. plants across six states Tuesday
led to at least 1,282 arrests nationwide, making
it the government's single-largest worksite-enforcement
operation ever.
The Swift plant in Cactus, Texas,
accounted for 295 arrests on administrative immigration
charges or criminal charges, more than any other
Swift facility.
Government officials on Wednesday
sought to put the spotlight on how illegal workers
violated the rights of U.S. citizens and other
legal residents and participated in widespread
document-fraud rings that were still being unraveled.
Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used Tuesday's
action to call once again for congressional action
to overhaul immigrationenforcement tools. At the
same time, he said, Operation Wagon Train –
as the 10-month investigation was known –
should serve as a deterrent to illegal immigrants.
"I'm pretty much going to guarantee
you we're going to keep bringing these cases,"
Mr. Chertoff told reporters. "We're going
to try to make it inhospitable to break the law
here."
Immigration officials have struggled
to win over a divided Congress.
Rallying for a comprehensive approach –
stronger enforcement of laws and a worker program
sought by businesses – failed to draw enough
support on both sides of the aisle. And a stricter
approach pushed by some lawmakers – immediately
rounding up and deporting illegal workers –
brought stiff resistance from Americans who supported
the workers filling low-wage jobs in the U.S.
economy.
The latest effort, which included
65 arrests on criminal charges, focused sharply
on legal residents being abused by identity theft.
The raid by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement follows
a report by The Dallas Morning News last month
that workers at the Cactus plant were using documents
with the stolen identities of legal residents
– part of a series that chronicled the lives
of workers and the town whose very livelihood
depends on Swift. Immigration officials "changed
the rules of the game," said Mark Grey, an
expert in immigration and the meatpacking industry
at the University
of Northern Iowa.
"It may be a matter of trying
to get more sympathy for what they've done by
using the identity theft," Mr. Grey said,
"or it may just be that they wanted to ratchet
up the charges to send a message to the employers
and the employees that you can't just get a slap
on the wrist anymore."
The ICE investigation began in February
when its agents, while processing immigrants before
their removal from state or federal jails, repeatedly
interviewed people who said they had worked at
Swift and admitted assuming others' identities.
Those interviews in Marshalltown, Iowa, combined
with referrals from local police and anonymous
calls about Swift workers to an ICE hotline, led
to the wider inquiry, ICE chief Julie Myers said.
The use of fraudulent documents
had been a problem for two decades, Ms. Myers
said, but recently "evolved into a disturbing
new trend" of buying genuine documents with
real identities of U.S. citizens. "Identity
theft is widely reported as the largest and fastest-growing
crime in America," she said, "and this
case illustrates that illegal immigration may
be a driving force behind this growth."
The Federal
Trade Commission reports that it receives
as many as 20,000 complaints or inquiries a week
from consumers about identity theft. Officials
highlighted the case of a Texas man who lost his
wallet and later was arrested after someone who
had stolen his identity used it for illegal activity.
Another Texas resident's identity, they said,
was used after a purse theft to obtain utility
accounts and a Sprint cellphone account. The FTC
determined that both suspects worked at Swift.
Interests in conflict Swift's court battle with
ICE in the two weeks leading up to the raids brought
to bear the competing interests of immigrant workers rooted in the economy
and the devastating effect of identity theft on
its victims.
Officials at Swift & Co., which
is based in Greeley, Colo., and owned in part
by HM
Capital Partners of Dallas, learned of the
investigation and tried to force ICE to change
course.
In late November, the company unsuccessfully
sought an injunction from the federal district
court in Amarillo to block a single-day raid at
six plants. The raid appeared to be scheduled
originally for Dec. 4, according to a court document.
Swift told the court that as many of 40 percent
of its 13,000 employees at the time might be removed,
causing a disruption that could cost up to $100
million.
The company proposed a phased enforcement
action running between 10 weeks and four months,
one plant at a time. ICE said such an approach
would allow suspects to disappear with the stolen
documents and get employed elsewhere.
Even before the raids, Swift conducted
its own survey of workers across its plants. The
month-long review in October and November found
that 90 percent to 95 percent of 450 "suspect
employees" at Swift were either not eligible
for U.S. employment or were using identification
documents that were not theirs, according to the
court filing.
As a result, more than 400 workers
were fired or quit. "Swift did not notify
ICE," the order from U.S.
District Judge Mary Lou Robinson said. "Neither
Swift nor ICE knows where those 400 workers are
now." The court battle brought forth reports
from the FTC that 331 Swift employees used false
identities "to the harm of other citizens."
At the time, 170 of those still worked at Swift.
Evidence in the case showed "U.S.
citizens are being harmed, continually and daily,
by identity theft and document fraud," the
court ruling said. Mr. Chertoff said the company's
"good faith" involvement in a federal
program to authenticate workers' documents means
it won't face civil or criminal charges as a result
of using illegal workers.
Proving a Point
The widespread use of illegal workers across the
Swift plants demonstrated what officials have
known for years: The verification program that
ensures names match up with Social Security numbers
does almost nothing when a worker assumes the
identity of another person who has authentic documents.
In many cases those documents were
stolen, while in others a legal resident sold
them for use by an illegal worker. Some Social
Security numbers are used at hundreds of workplaces
without the employer's knowledge.
Ms. Myers of ICE said "most
employers want to do the right thing." But
she said she was "not prepared to comment"
on whether she thought Swift was doing its best
in this case. Swift, before it sought the court
injunction, was rebuffed in some of its efforts
to cooperate more closely with ICE in the worker
interviews. ICE officials indicated that Swift's
approach would slow efforts to catch identity
thieves.
Because the Swift plants use dangerous
equipment to slaughter and process animals, the
six facilities were shut down for much of Tuesday.
They started back up by the end of the day. Swift,
the nation's No. 3 beef processor, said Wednesday
that it was operating on all shifts but that its
output would be "below normal levels over
the short term."
It was unclear how the company would
be able to replace the workers who were removed,
especially for an industry that has become known
for its use of immigrants who endure tough working
conditions in exchange for modest wages.
The status of the arrested workers
was still up in the air. Johnny Rodriguez, president
of Local 540 of the United
Food and Commercial Workers, said he was fighting
to get legal counsel to the immigrant workers
caught in Tuesday's raids.
The Dallas-based union president
said 302 workers were removed, with many being
held at an ICE detention center in Amarillo. Some
workers signed documents for voluntary departure,
which is different from deportation under immigration
law. And those workers have already left the country,
Mr. Rodriguez said. When they signed those documents,
they waived their right to counsel, Mr. Rodriguez
said.
The arrests across the Swift system
included workers from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras,
El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan and Ethiopia, ICE
said. Mr. Rodriguez said Local 540 hoped to file
a temporary injunction with a federal judge in
Amarillo to get access to the workers.
"I want to get in there with
my attorney so I can address the people,"
Mr. Rodriguez said.
Staff writer Dianne Solís
in Dallas contributed to this report.
E-mail sreddy@dallasnews.com
Tuesday's raids at six Swift
& Co. plants yielded these arrests:
Cactus, Texas: 295
Greeley, Colo.: 261
Grand Island, Neb.: 261
Worthington, Minn.: 230
Hyrum, Utah: 145
Marshalltown, Iowa: 90
Total: 1,282
SOURCE: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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