Federal immigration authorities arrested nine people linked to IFCO Systems and rounded up more than 1,000 illegal immigrants in multistate raids, federal law enforcement officials said.
How about that. A German-based company, with 9 sites all over the US, was apparently running quite an operation — complete with Social Security numbers of deceased people to manufacture documentation for its workers.
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.
There’s been a lot of pressure from the conservatives to “do something” about the illegal immigrants, and the companies that hire them. One has to wonder whether this will appease those folks who have been after a crackdown on the situation. A quick check of a couple sites brought mixed results:
LaShawn Barber is pleased regardless of motivation, but Michelle Malkin say the entire stunt was politically timed. (Malkin’s post on this is quite detailed.) As it happens, Polimom agrees with Michelle Malkin (Ack! Did I just say that?).
This looks (to me) like Bush & Co. have metaphorically wet a finger, and are holding it up to see how the wind will blow from their base. Their reading is likely to figure largely in what we hear from the Republicans (and the Democrats) as we get closer to November.
Still - it was an interesting raid, yes?
At least we are no longer elavating the threat level on demand. Immigration is the new whipping boy - they might be able to ride this through to November.
Then again, there is always the back up plan: bombs over Tehran.