Associated Press Study Proves ICE Detention Centers Inhumane, Violate their own Standards and Cost Taxpayers Billions!

AP/USA Today reports: (summary)
An Associated Press computer analysis conducted in Jan. 2009 indicates the total detainee population of 32,000, most in crony-owned private prisons. Since 2003, the incarceration expenses for these detainees have nearly doubled to an annual amount of $1.7 billion as furor over "criminal aliens" intertwined with post-9/11 fears and anti-immigrant political rhetoric. The data show nearly 60% (18,690) of the detainees have no criminal conviction, including none for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years. Nearly 10,000 had been in custody longer than 31 days -- the average detention stay that ICE cites as evidence of its effective detention management. Especially tough bail conditions are exacerbated by disregard or bending of the rules regarding how long immigrants can be detained. Based on a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, ICE has about six months to deport or release immigrants after their case is decided, however that deadline is routinely missed. In the system snapshot provided to the AP, 950 people were in that category.
Most detainees have not had their day in court, are not provided a lawyer, are not classified as prisoners, nor are they allowed to post bond, even those with no criminal record. U.S. taxpayers pay about $141 a night for each detainees to these crony owned private prisons. The use of detention to ensure immigrants show up for immigration court comes at a high cost compared to alternatives like electronic ankle monitoring, which can track people for an average daily cost of $13 per day and, per ICE stats, has an almost perfect compliance rate. Taxpayers are grossly overpaying political cronies for inhumane, understaffed and vermin/disease infested private prisons.
Examples of Detainees: an honors student who was raised in Orlando, Fla.; a convenience store clerk who begged to go back to Canada; and a Pentecostal minister who was forcibly drugged by ICE agents after he asked to contact his wife, according to court records.
Many Detainees are Asylum Seekers vs Illegal Immigrants:
Immigration lawyers note that substantial numbers of detainees, from 177 countries in the data provided, are not illegal immigrants at all. Many of the longest-term non-criminal detainees are asylum seekers fighting to stay here because they fear being killed in their home country. Others are longtime residents who may be eligible to stay under other criteria, or whose applications for permanent residency were lost or mishandled, the lawyers say.
Still other long-term detainees include people who can't be deported because their home country won't accept them or people who seemingly have been forgotten in the behemoth system, where 58 percent have no lawyers or anyone else advocating on their behalf.
-----------------
Longer Detention Means More Taxpayer Money for Cronies:
But even giving up, or winning a claim, doesn't always spell freedom for detainees because ICE acts as police officer, arraignment judge, jailer and prosecutor. It has sole jurisdiction over when a detained immigrant is sent back after a deportation order is issued, and can continue to hold immigrants while it appeals a decision that didn't go its way. In 2007, an immigration judge ruled that Samuel Kambo, a former energy minister of Sierra Leone who had a master's degree and no criminal history, should be granted permanent residency after being detained for eight months. But ICE continued to hold him for four more months while it appealed. Kambo was released only after his lawyer went to federal court and made a successful constitutional challenge.
In another telling case, Ahmad Al-Shrmany, a 34-year-old Iraqi with no appeal pending, begged for a year to be deported and yet remained in detention. He wanted to be allowed to go to his native Iraq or his adopted Canada, where he had been granted asylum a decade ago. A lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition in December that went unanswered. "Just deport me. That's your job," he said in a late January interview with the AP that ICE officials tried to block minutes before it was scheduled at a Houston lockup. Less than a week after the interview, Al-Shrmany was deported to Canada, said his lawyer, Afreen Ahmed. ICE said later the timing of the deportation was "completely coincidental."

Bush Enacts Last Minute Legislation to Abuse Migrant Workers and Pander to Farm Owners! Dissing American Workers, Regardless of Economy!

President Bush should be charged for his criminal pandering to Big Ag Business! As my long time readers know, I am a former Migrant Worker, as was my family including my Beloved Father and Mother!
There has been a long history of abuse in our country of Farm Workers. And this month, President Bush has continued this evil tradition!
The Bush administration has announced new rules this week to make it easier for farm owners to bypass American workers, exploit Guest Workers and provide very poor working conditions! Here are two reports of this story:
The New York Times reports:
LOS ANGELES — The Bush administration announced new rules on Thursday that it said would lessen the bureaucratic burden on employers seeking to hire foreign farm workers. Advocates for the workers, however, contended the changes would depress wages and working conditions...The changes apply to a guest worker program known as H-2A, after the visa that allows farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis for field jobs they cannot fill with Americans...Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group that opposes the changes. He said, “The intent is a massive expansion of the guest worker program by enticing employers into a program with low wages and poor working conditions.”
Harvesting Injustice reports:
“This parting gift on behalf of the Bush Administration to our nation's farmworkers is irresponsible and completely unacceptable. The H-2A guestworker program is already rife with abuse. These changes will only make a bad program worse. That's why today, Farmworker Justice is releasing a special report, Litany of Abuses: Why more -not fewer-labor protections are needed in the H-2A program. This report explains the current protections within the program and highlights some recent court cases illustrating the harm caused to both U.S. farmworkers and guestworkers alike. We urge you to take a look at the report then act now to urge Congress to take action to stop the Bush Administration from formally issuing the regulations. There are reasonable alternatives to solve the farm labor crisis that have won bipartisan support. The Bush Administration's harmful changes are completely unnecessary.”
The regulations go into effect on Jan. 18, 2009, just two days before President Obama is inaugurated. Bush, in this last minute, lame duck moment, is pandering to PAC Contributors and Farm Owners. This change is bad for American Workers and Bad for migrant workers. Who does it benefit? Big business farm owners, the Lobbyists and the pocket-books of the RNC.
Kudos to the Unapologetic Mexican Blog and Harvesting Injustice for their investigative reporting!

Bush Legacy: Another Raid, Another 300 to Crony Owned Prisons

Another 300 are "detained" in a SC Poultry Plant ICE Raid. Families are being ripped apart. Children are crying in the streets searching for their parents. Their families do not know where their loved ones are being "detained." The inhumanity of it all!
As the days dwindle down to a precious few, Dubya is ensuring his crony owned private prisons are filled to the Maximum.
The House of Raeford Chicken processing plants are well known for hiring illegal immigrants, particularly from Guatemala. As recently as last February, managers from their SC plant bragged to local newspapers of their hiring practices. In June, several Supervisors and Managers were arrested. As I read through this article, two things struck me.
1. The ICE investigation and Supervisor arrests occurred months ago. Why did ICE delay so many months to conduct the ice raid? Why not in June?
2. The Detention Center the detainees are going to is not listed in any article I could find on the web . Why not? I suspect they will be sent to another crony owned private prison. Why isn´t the name being reported as in other cases?
I find this whole story Very Curious. I will be following up on this story.
GREENVILLE, S.C. Federal authorities raided a House of Raeford Farms plant Tuesday, detaining more than 300 workers believed to be in the country illegally and searching for evidence of unlawful hiring practices. It was the largest immigration raid ever conducted in the Carolinas. It came after authorities determined that 777 of 825 workers at the plant had apparently submitted false documents to get their jobs.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they'll continue their long-running investigation to determine who allowed illegal immigrants to work at the plant, known locally as Columbia Farms. Investigating the employers, they said, is as large a priority as identifying illegal workers.
The detained employees will be questioned about the company's hiring procedures, authorities said, and may be deported. Investigators will ask workers how they were paid, whether they knew anything about hiring practices and whether anyone at the company offered them false documents...
In a February series about working conditions in the poultry industry, five current and former supervisors told the Observer that some House of Raeford managers knew they employed illegal immigrants. They said the plant prefers undocumented workers because they are less likely to question working conditions for fear of losing their jobs or being deported. In a statement Tuesday night, House of Raeford denied knowingly hiring illegal workers. Federal law, the company said, requires it to accept documents that appear to be valid, and to be sensitive to nondiscrimination laws...
Raeford managers await trial
Over the summer, ICE arrested 11 plant supervisors at their homes and charged them with immigration violations. Seven plant supervisors have pleaded guilty to using false Social Security numbers or alien registration numbers. Two are awaiting trial and two more are considered fugitives. The plant's human resources director, Elaine Crump, was arrested in July. She was indicted on 20 felony counts charging that she instructed employees to use fraudulent employment eligibility forms. She is expected in court later this month. Authorities allege Crump instructed human resource employees to use previously signed employment verification documents for new hires. Crump knew that the company official who had signed the verification papers could not have witnessed whether immigrant job applicants provided the required documentation, the indictment states. That's because the company official was no longer working at the plant. Since the initial arrests in June, dozens of workers have left their jobs. The company has been hiring fewer Latinos and has turned to state prisons to fill its production lines.

Prez pays off Cronies before Leaving Office! Chertoff Authorizes Seven Miles of Fence for $37M

As the Prez is leaving office, he is making his list and checking it twice! He wants to be sure all of his friends and cronies are taken care of before he leaves office.

Bush To Do List before he leaves Office:
1. Mortgage Co. Bailout
2. Gas prices through the roof ($5)
3. Nafta-Cafta extended to other countries
4. Filling up Crony Owned Private Prisons

5. Hiring Cronies to build the Border Fence in 3 sleepy little towns along the border! 7.6 miles of fence = $37M to cronies!

(List will be updated as the Prez updates it)

Who will build the fence?
U.S. government awards 3 contracts for border barrier construction - September 23, 2008 - 10:14PM
Contracts to build the border fence in Cameron County were awarded to three private companies Monday, after Congress approved a $378 million appropriations request to continue the barrier's construction.
Despite longstanding opposition from the county's residents and politicians, construction could begin soon on the Texas border's southernmost stretch. The contracts are for fence segments in Bluetown, Los Indios, El Calaboz and La Paloma, all rural communities established by 18th century Spanish land grants. The communities are now home to some of the border fence's most vociferous opponents, many of whom have been fighting the barrier in court for nearly a year.

Clute, Texas-based Jaco Construction, Colorado-based MCC Construction and Omaha-based Kiewit Corporation were each awarded contracts to build a total of 7.6 miles of fencing for almost $37 million. The government must now clear mounting judicial obstacles in order to meet Congress' mandate to build 670 miles of fencing by Dec. 31. So far, 340 miles of fencing have been constructed along the southwest border. Ninety-seven landowners in the Rio Grande Valley have refused to sell their property to the federal government, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Sept. 10. Some of those property owners, including Eloisa Tamez of El Calaboz, wonder how contracts can be awarded before lawsuits have been resolved. "(Homeland Security Secretary) Chertoff is going completely outside of the Constitution, not allowing the federal court to make its decision before he moves on," Tamez said. Cameron County Judge Carlos H. Cascos said he had always maintained that DHS was going to build "something" if the county did not offer an alternative to them. "I still think that the border/levee combo project was a viable alternative, and I'm just saddened that DHS thought it was not," Cascos said. "For now, we are just going to wait and see what the fence is going to look like." The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not announce when construction is expected to begin in Cameron County.

The Bailout, the Economy and Immigration! Why the Republicans are Primarily Responsible!

As I have written in previous blogs, Immigration is not the root cause of the economic disasters our country faces today. The Primary Issue is the Global Economy. Lupita, an old friend of many of the members of this blog said about the US economy, "Our economy is just an illusion of economic growth. Big business has partnered with the Administrations from Reagan forward to develop a method to expand our labor force, push wages down and increase corporate profits." She often predicted we would face economic disasters due to our greed. Lupita´s words came back to haunt me this week as I saw news of the bailouts.

Here are the recent headlines of this crisis:

U.S. Drafts Sweeping Plan to Fight Crisis

Treasury Announces Plan To Buy Troubled Mortgage Assets

"WASHINGTON -- The federal government is working on a sweeping series of programs that would represent perhaps the biggest intervention in financial markets since the 1930s, embracing the need for a comprehensive approach to the financial crisis after a series of ad hoc rescues. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced plans Friday to quickly set up a "bold" government program to take over troubled mortgage assets from financial institutions, along with other efforts to step up the purchase of mortgage-backed securities. "The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy," Mr. Paulson said in prepared remarks for a press conference."

I tend to agree with Lupita. The blame for this economic downfall is Greed, good old fashioned American Greed! Here is my view of why we are in the mess we are in. From 2002 to 2007, countless mortgage companies, many of them "no-name", mailed me and everyone else I know mortgage offers. "Refinance Now!" read the headlines. TV and Radio ads heralded the same "Refinance Now!" Remember the annoying Ditech commercials? Everyone was pushing these loans. I remember my daughter in law speaking of a friend of a friend who was in the mortgage game and selling mortgages from her house. She said anyone could afford a house now and if we were ever in the market for a new mortgage or refinance, they would get us a good "deal." (Everybody and their brother had a friend of a friend like this pushing and pushing these predatory loans).

I also remember a peer from work who lived in a pricey California neighborhood. She and her new husband decided to purchase one of those "interest only" loans for her very pricey $400K, 2B condo. I asked how she could do that. Why didn´t she try to move to a more affordable location. She said her mortgage person persuaded her it was affordable and with property being so valuable in that area, reselling would be easy. I told her I was nervous for her and I would never buy a home without a conventional mortgage. She called me a worry wart. Now I think about her and that balloon mortgage. How many others are foreclosing now because now they can´t refinance their ballooned mortgages and they can no longer afford their tripled or quadrupled monthly rates?

I remember the phone calls from the telemarketers. They were relentless in trying to sell, sell, sell these new mortgages. My mailbox was always full of offers. Again, this started in 2002-2003. I ask everyone to use their own memory on when these changes happened. Don´t rely on someone else who wants to scapegoat.

Why is it important to remember what happened and the timing? Because then you can pinpoint for yourself who is primarily accountable. (besides our greedy selves).

Politicians from both sides are busy trying to point fingers at one another. The most ludicrous accusations were from Republican politicians who pointed to legislation from the Clinton era stopping the heinous act of "redlining." Redlining, for those who may not know, is the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The most devastating, mortgage discrimination. So the right wing nuts try to point to the anti-redlining legislation as the root cause. Ludicrous.

If one were to point towards any legislation that most contributed to this turn of economic events they would point to the "Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000." This legislation provided certainty that products offered by banking institutions would not be regulated as futures contracts. This law creates a LOOPHOLE for many GOP cronies (e.g. Enron) which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets. The "loophole" was drafted by Enron Lobbyists working with Senator Phil Gramm (Sen. McCain´s best friend) seeking a deregulated atmosphere for their new experiment, "Enron On-line". The act specifically banned regulation of credit default swaps. These unregulated instruments, insurance policies against default on risky investments like mortgage backed securities.

This is very important to understand. Mortgage companies were NO LONGER REGULATED nor were they accountable for risky mortgages. They often sold these "risks" to foreign lenders.

HR5660 and S.3283 were introduced in December 2000 by Republicans: Sen Phil Gramm, Sen Charles Hagel, Sen Peter Fitzgerald Rep Tom Ewing, Rep Tom Bliley, Rep Larry Combest, Rep James Leach, with some Dem support including Rep LaFalce and Sens Harkin and Johnson. These bills were NEVER debated in the House or the Senate. Since then, several attempts have been made to overturn them. While these bills were championed by the Republicans, they did have some support by some Democrats, so we cannot point blame at one party. Since then however, several attempts (championed by the Dems) have been made to overturn this act. In fact, an attempt to repeal the policy was vetoed by President Bush in 2008.

However, beyond legislation, the plain facts are, the primary root cause is Greed and Corruption. Here is what Robert Reich said about Fannie and Freddie:

Fannie and Freddie, as Predicted

"Apologists will say that Fannie and Freddie exist to make housing loans to low-income Americans, so it was inevitable that the two giants would get caught in the quagmire of the housing burst. But the fact is, Fannie and Freddie -- and the executives who ran them and still run them -- have been out to maximize profits. Period. Just the same as every other mortgage and investment bank. High-risk sub-prime loans offered a higher rate of return, so Fannie and Freddie went into them big time. And because of the implicit government guarantee, Fannie and Freddie could take on even more risks and make even more money. Until now. It's another case of socialized capitalism, folks. The largest, yet. Along with making lots of money for investors and their executives, Fannie and Freddie corrupted our political process. They blocked any attempt to reign in the risks. Their lobbyists were and are the most sophisticated and among the most ubiquitous in Washington."

On Fannie & Freddie Accounting Gimmicks

Accounting gimmicks first came to light at Fannie and Freddie in 2003, at which time Fannie's and Freddie's former CEOs were sacked. Why, then, did they continue for another five years, even under new CEOs, even after policymakers first learned of them? Three reasons: (1) Top executives and shareholders continued to profit from them so there was no incentive to stop them, (2) everyone involved kept expecting home values to continue to rise -- or, when they fell, rise again soon enough -- to make up for the accounting shortfalls, and (3) Fannie and Freddie continued to be in bed with Congress and the administration. Democrats and Republicans alike have been complicit in this outrage.

Now, we are told, we have no recourse but to rescue these companies, otherwise we risk a Depression far worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. The $700B plan Secretary Paulson is championing should be reviewed by every American. This Rescue Plan will bill the American Taxpayers trillions of dollars. This bail out for $700 BILLION dollars (probably trillions) our children and our grandchildren will be in debt for the next several decades. Additionally, the initial draft of this proposal is only bailing out the companies and their investors, NOT the citizens with mortgages. The Dems are asking that the citizens (who took these risky loans) be bailed out as well. The plans are being put in place now. We ALL should study them so we know what we are asking our grandkids to support.

Final Note:

I find the timing of these events incredible. These crises happen just months before the end of the Bush Presidency. He is bailing out his friends and his cronies now, before the Republicans are out of office. How many more of these type of coincidents will we see?

Bush Legacy:

1. Mortgage Co. Bailout

2. Gas prices through the roof ($5)

3. Nafta-Cafta extended to other countries

4. (I am sure there are many more... we should start a list.)

References:

Commodity Futures Act

Redlining

Robert Reich´s Blogs

U.S. Drafts Sweeping Plan to Fight Crisis

Bush Cronies Deny American Latino Soldier´s Medal of Honor! His Mother Cries!

Sgt. Rafael Peralta died a war hero serving his country in Iraq. His mother Rosa cried when President Bush cited Peralta's heroism in a Memorial Day speech in 2005, saying the Marine "understood that America faces dangerous enemies, and he knew the sacrifices required to defeat them." Rosa was told her son would get the Medal of Honor in a November 2007 telephone call from an undersecretary of the Navy, who told her the nomination was to be forwarded to the White House.
Then, last Thursday, her memories of a grateful nation for her son´s heriosm were stolen from her. Rosa was told the nomination was denied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates because of questions about the final act. Gates, during his review, took the unprecented extra step of asking five other individuals to review the case - a former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, a Medal of Honor recipient, a civilian neurosurgeon who is retired from the military and two forensic pathologists who also are military retirees. The five were given medical reports that had not been available in the initial review. They thoroughly reviewed the case again, including inspecting the evidence and re-enacting the event, Whitman said. "Each independently recommended to the secretary that the evidence did not support the award of Medal of Honor," he said. Gates made his decision this month.

Details of Rafael´s Herioc Actions:

Peralta was shot several times in the face and body during a house-to-house search in Fallujah on Nov. 15, 2004, during some of the fiercest fighting of the war. According to witness accounts, Peralta lay mortally wounded on the floor of a house and grabbed a grenade lobbed by fleeing insurgents. His body absorbed the blast and he died immediately.
In a rare move, the Marine Corps Thursday released a redacted copy of the Medal of Honor nomination by Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski and an investigative report detailing the "friendly fire" shooting of the sergeant.
The report found sufficient evidence existed to believe that Peralta was probably shot by a fellow Marine and that a gunshot wound to the head and injuries to the head from a grenade caused his death. The nomination, which relies on witness statements, forensics, bomb fragment analysis and an autopsy, concluded that although Peralta was shot in the head, he made "a conscious, heroic decision to cover the grenade and minimize the effects he knew it would have on the rest of his Marine team."
The nomination details Peralta's actions in the final minutes of his life, with several witnesses recounting how the Marine lay face down and used his arm to pull the grenade to him. It also says a forensic analysis of Peralta's clothing and flak jacket show the grenade was underneath him when it exploded.

Rosa plans to appeal to Congress to award her son the nation's highest military honor after learning it was denied. She made the decision after a Marine general told her that her son would be awarded the Navy Cross rather than the Medal of Honor because the nomination was tainted by reports he was accidentally shot by a fellow Marine shortly before an insurgent lobbed the grenade. "I'm going to see what can be done, because I'm not satisfied with what they want to do now," she said. "The president spoke of him. So how is this now possible that they do this," Rosa Peralta said.

About Rafael:

Rafael was born in Mexico City on April 7, 1979 to Rafael and Rosa Peralta. He grew up as the oldest of four siblings, with sisters Icela and Karen, and brother Ricardo. Upon emigrating to the United States, he attended San Diego's Morse High School. After graduation, he began working for the California Conservation Corps, being selected as a crew leader within six months. The day he received his green card he enlisted, as planned, in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Last Letter from a Hero:
"Tomorrow, at 1900 hours, we are going to declare war in the holy city of Fallujah. We are going to defeat the insurgents. Watch the news, it's going to be all over. Be proud of me, bro, I'm going to make history and do something that I always wanted to do.... If anything happens to me, just remember I lived my life to the fullest and I'm happy with what I lived." -- Nov. 6, 2004 letter to brother, Ricardo, then 14

Update: SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- A California congressional delegation asked President Bush on Friday to posthumously award the Medal of Honor to a Marine who was chosen to receive only the second-highest medal the Navy can bestow for valor. A copy of the letter given to The Associated Press was signed by a bipartisan group of five other representatives and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. It urges Bush to award the nation's highest honor, the same medal he gave to Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, who was killed in 2004 after covering a grenade with his helmet.
"Intentionally absorbing a grenade blast to protect one's comrades in arms has been traditionally recognized by awarding the Medal of Honor. The sacrifice of Sergeant Peralta manifests the same devotion to one's comrade's and country as that displayed by Jason Dunham," the letter said.
The White House had no immediate comment Friday.

References:

Mother to ask Congress to award son Medal of Honor

Breaking News: Republican Scandal - Sex, Drugs, Oil - A Culture of Ethical Failure!

Do you wonder why gas prices are so high?

As many of us have suspected for some time, recent reports indicate the Bush Administration is up to its elbows in bed, literally and figuratively, with the Oil Companies, including Chevron, Shell, Hess and Williams Energy. The Office of Minerals Management Service (MMS), particularly the Royalty-in-Kind (RIK) Program (started in 2003) , where offshore drilling meets the U.S. government, has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct. In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

Financial Self Dealing & Cronyism:

1. Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules. Ms. Denet´s husband is Paul A. Denett, who was the top procurement official in the White House Office of Management and Budget.

2. In late 2002, when he was about to retire, Mr. Jimmy Mayberry drafted a “statement of work” for a consulting contract to perform essentially identical functions to his own. He then retired, started a company, and in June 2003 won the contract with the help of Ms. Denett and Milton Dial, another friend at the agency.

3. Gregory W. Smith, program director of the royalty-in-kind program, improperly used his position with the royalty program to get an outside consulting job helping a technical services firm seek deals with oil and gas companies with which he was also conducting official business. The report also accused Mr. Smith of improperly accepting gifts from the oil and gas industry, of engaging in sex with two subordinates (including his secretary) and of using cocaine (which were called "office supplies") that he purchased from his secretary or her boyfriend several times a year between 2002 and 2005. He sometimes asked for the drugs and received them in his office during work hours.

4. A Chevron representative who had won a bid to purchase some of the government’s oil to pay taxpayers a lower amount than his winning offer because he said he made a mistake in his calculations. A report from Mr. Devaney’s office earlier this year found that the program frequently allowed companies that purchased the oil and gas to revise their bids downward after they won contracts. It documented 118 such occasions that cost taxpayers about $4.4 million.

5. One of the officials shared (inside) information about the confidential price a pipeline company was charging the government.

Lavish Expense Accounts:

Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s Royalty-in-Kind (RIK) program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties. Based in suburban Denver and modeled to operate like a private sector energy company, the royalty-in-kind program sells oil and gas on the open market. Its employees are subject to government ethics rules, such as restrictions on taking gifts from people and companies with whom they conduct official business. One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives, “a pattern of abuses and mismanagement” costing taxpayers billions. The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials — a third of the staff — took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said.

Sex, Drugs, Ethics Violations

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game. The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”
The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine. The culture of the organization “appeared to be devoid of both the ethical standards and internal controls sufficient to protect the integrity of this vital revenue-producing program,” one report said. The director of the Minerals Management Service, Randall Luthi, said in a conference call with reporters that the officials implicated in the reports had violated the public’s trust.

1. Greg Smith, the assistant RIK program director, who, according to the inspector general's report, referred to "cocaine" as "office supplies" and who moonlighted for an environmental services firm that hired him to set up meetings with MMS clients, comes off as a one-of-a-kind wild man.

2. Two of the officials who marketed taxpayers’ oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging. Two female employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts.”

They said they did not view socializing with oil company representatives and taking gifts as inappropriate because they said they needed to be part of the marketing culture in order to market the program’s oil and gas.

About the MMS:

The Minerals Management Service is an agency within the Department of Interior, set up during the Reagan administration to manage natural mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and some federal and Indian lands. MMS generates about $8 billion in revenue from leasing the rights to drill for oil and gas -- that's the single largest non-tax source of revenue for the federal government. MMS has two mechanisms for carving out that revenue. In the Royalty-in-Value program, it gets a cut off the top of whatever the oil companies are able to sell their mineral resources for. In the Royalty-in-Kind program -- which is where all the above abuses occurred -- the energy companies physically deliver oil and gas to MMS, which then pockets the proceeds from selling the goods itself. Of course, MMS does not actually own any transportation pipelines or storage facilities, so it has to contract out for these services from the private sector. Such a scenario carries with it obvious potential for conflicts of interest and corruption.

McCain and the Scandal:

Think about this every time you hear John McCain chant "drill, baby, drill." You might be familiar with the name of one of the oil companies lavishing gifts on MMS employees: the Hess Corp. You may recall that at precisely the moment that McCain recanted his long-held position against offshore drilling, he was showered with campaign contributions from Hess family members and company employees. I guess that's how the oil business works -- you pay off your government officials, and you get the contract.

References:

US Interior Secy 'outraged' by oil-sex scandal

Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department

Snorting speed off of toaster ovens

BREAKING NEWS: AGRIPROCESSOR´S EMPLOYERS FINALLY CHARGED!!!!

Agriprocessor´s Slaughterhouse charged with using child labor

BREAKING NEWS from CNN:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The owner and managers of the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant were charged Tuesday with more than 9,000 misdemeanors alleging child labor law violations. They're accused of hiring minors and, in some cases, having children younger than 16 handle dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders and power shears. The allegations are the first criminal charges against operators of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, where nearly 400 illegal immigrants working at the facility were arrested in May in one of the largest single-site immigration raids in U.S. history. The complaint filed by the Iowa attorney general's office said the violations involved 32 illegal-immigrant children under age 18, including seven who were younger than 16. The complaint says in addition to handling dangerous equipment, the children were exposed to hazardous chemicals such as chlorine solutions and dry ice. The attorney general's office said the violations occurred from September 9, 2007, to May 12, 2008, when the plant was raided by federal immigration agents. Charged are the company itself, Agriprocessors Inc.; plant owner Abraham Aaron Rubashkin; former plant manager Sholom Rubashkin; human resources manager Elizabeth Billmeyer; and Laura Althouse and Karina Freund, management employees in the company's human resources division. (Yes!!)
Each defendant faces 9,311 individual counts -- one for each day a particular violation is alleged for each worker. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said at a news conference on Tuesday that he would not elaborate on what evidence led to the indictment.

"All of the named individual defendants possessed shared knowledge that Agriprocessors employed undocumented aliens. It was likewise shared knowledge among the defendants that many of those workers were minors," the affidavit said. The charges are simple misdemeanors, each carrying a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a fine of $65 to $625.
Miller said the case is the largest of its type he'd handled in his 26 years as attorney general. Chaim Abrams, a manager at the plant, said in a statement that Agriprocessors "vehemently denies" the allegations. He said the underage workers -- not the company -- are to blame. "All of the minors at issue lied about their age in order to gain employment at the company," he said. "At the time of hiring, all of the minors, like all job applicants, presented and signed documents stating that they were over 18. They knew that, if they told the truth about their age, they would not be hired."
Abrams said the state wouldn't be able to back up its case.
"In order to convict, the state is going to have to prove that the defendants willfully violated the child labor laws," he said. " ... The state will not be able to carry this burden of proof. Agriprocessors acted in good faith on the child labor issue. We look forward to our day in court."
Sonia Parras Konrad, an attorney representing more than 20 of the children, said her clients were as young as 14 when they started working at the plant. "We don't need to see any papers to see that someone is a child," she said. "This was not one mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes, but many, many mistakes." Parras Konrad said minors in the plant were treated the same as adults and often worked in the same conditions.
"They were hungry all the time, it was freezing cold or burning hot," Parras Konrad said the children told her.
The attorney general's office said the company encouraged job applicants to submit forged identification documents that were known to contain false information about their resident status, age and identity.
"Each defendant ... hired children, retained the employment of children observed working throughout the plant, and/or participated in efforts to conceal children when federal and state labor department officials inspected that plant," the affidavit said.
The more than 9,000 violations the state alleges fall into five categories: employing a child under age 18 in a meatpacking plant; employing a child under age 18 in an occupation that exposes the child to dangerous or poisonous chemicals; employing a child under age 16 who operated power machinery; employing a child under age 16 who worked during prohibited hours or more hours in a day than permitted by law; and employing a child under 16 who worked more days in a week than permitted by law.
It said the company's records also show that employees were not paid for all overtime worked. Postville resident Dave Hartley, 50, said the allegations were unsettling. "Everything is unsettling because Agri's a huge employer in this town," he said. "So you want to see the town strive and move forward." He said one troubling aspect of the charges is that Postville will again be thrust into the spotlight. "You want things to get back to normal," Hartley said. "I wouldn't say it's turmoil in town, per se, but people are just wondering what's going to happen."

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Why Largest ICE Raid in US History Happened Monday!

Another ICE Raid occurred on Monday. This time at Howard Industries in Laurel, MS. Nearly 600 workers were detained, far larger than the previous largest raid of Agriprocessors in Postville (400). I was curious about why! Why would ICE suddenly ramp up their RAID Activities, so close to the end of George Bush´s tenure in office?

In order to find the answers, my instincts told me to "Follow the Money! Follow the Money!"

About Howard Industries:

Howard Industries, a producer of electrical power products, does big business with Government. From 2000 - 2008, Howard received $15 Million in government contracts. Of course it helps that CEO Billy Howard and his family are big time GOP Contributors. Howard Industries is similar to Agriprocessors in that they have a history of OSHA failures. This year they were cited for 54 violations of federal safety rules at the company’s two manufacturing locations in Laurel.

In Monday´s raid, nearly 600 workers were identified by ICE as being "illegal immigrants". The first question comes to mind, "How can a company hire this rate of illegal immigrants without knowing they were undocumented?" So far, Howard is claiming innocence. Witnesses are saying Howard recruited them and provided them the documentation. ICE says they are still investigating this aspect.

One recipient of PAC Monies from Howard Industries has stated for the record: State Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, co-authored the Mississippi Employment Protection Act said enforcement is done through state agencies - the Attorney General's office, Secretary of State's office, Department of Human Services, State Tax Commission and the Department for Employment Security. But McDaniel said the state may not have a case against the company because of when the law was passed. "Unless Howard Industries had violated the provisions of Senate Bill 2988 after its enactment date of July 1*, the state legislation would not be implicated," he said. "The possible penalties facing Howard appear to be federal in nature." McDaniel received a $2,000 donation during his 2007 Senate campaign from Howard Industries and Howard Trucking.

The Raid:

ICE´s approach humiliated all Latino workers in the plant with their Racial Profiling. Witnesses said ICE provided all White and Black workers Blue Armbands. All the Latino workers were put in line and forced to prove their legal status. ICE, in their uniforms and wearing side arms, caused ALL Latino workers to shiver in fear as they went through this ritual. The exits were sealed. Some Latino workers were sprayed with Mace.

500 workers were provided "swift-justice" and herded off to the Jena Detention Center. This is one of many centers owned and operated by the GEO Group, George Zoley is their CEO.

More about Crony CEO of Jena Detention Center:

GEO Group operates private prisons across the country, this includes many Detention Centers. In the year 2007 alone, GEO Group won contracts for a prison in Eagle Pass, Texas; an immigration detention facility in Jena, La. and a detention facility for U.S. Marshals service in Laredo, Tex. After the Jena, La., immigration detention facility reaches full occupancy with 1,160 inmates in 2008, GEO expects $23.5 million annually in revenues**. GEO, whose major shareholder is Zoley, donated $100,000 to George Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004. Texas has some of the Most Notorious Migrant Prisons GEO Group, with headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., received a 10-year contract in January, for the detention of 2,407 “criminal aliens” at the Reeves County Detention Complex in Texas. GEO took over the county’s contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. GEO said it believes that the facility in Reeves County, with the county seat in Pecos, is the largest privately-operated prison in the world.

Meanwhile back in Laurel:

The families, the churches, and the local Latino community are in an uproar. With the Racial Profiling that occurred at the plant, legal Latino citizens live in fear they will be whisked away into the night to the Jena Detention Center. Howard Industries was back in business the day after the ICE raid, scurrying to backfill the swept away employees. Time will only tell the impact in the days, weeks and months ahead. As one member of the community said, "“There’s a ripple affect to all of this..This is just the beginning."

In the meantime, GOP Contributor GEO Group is raking in millions as their privately owned Detention Center is filled to capacity, right on schedule, as predicted in 2007!

References:

Fear Grips Immigrants after Miss. Plant Raid

Nearly 600 Detained

Feds Hold 595

GEO Group - Privately Owned Prisons

About Howard Industries

Ripple Affect Continues

Employers Seal Off Escape Routes

Howard Contracts at Stake

So in answer to my own question, WHY NOW?

1. Employer will NOT be Penalized due to Timing! *

2. Detention Centers need to be filled prior to Bush leaving Office!**

Readers, I will be following this story and the Agriprocessor story and keep you informed of what happens next!

EPITOME OF EVIL: Agriprocessors Continues to Pursue Latino Workers (Legal or illegal) Rather than Improve Working Conditions and Pay Livable Wages

Agriprocessors the most egregious corporation in US History is continuing to seek Latino Workers, legal or illegal, rather than improve their deplorable, unsafe working conditions or pay livable wages to Local Workers. The Rubashkins have a history rife with crime. From abusing workers, violating Child Labor Laws, illegally working children 11 hours a day with no overtime pay to providing illegal workers False Green Cards, this Company and all like them must be stopped and the owners responsible imprisoned. They have destroyed a nice town, exploited countless workers and stood as a model of unpunished corruption for others to follow. When will the Government and Law Enforcement finally put these heinous employers behind bars? Or do those GOP donations really afford them the opportunity to avoid prosecution for their crimes?

The Iowa Indepedent Reports:

Ryan Regenold, a spokesman for Des Moines-based Jacobson Companies, said his staffing company was relying on two Texas agencies, one in Amarillo and another in McAllen, for recruiting in that state. “I represent Jacobson Staffing, and we were brought here on June 2 to basically bring in an entire new community — at least that’s how it seems,” Regenold said. “There are two outside-sourced agencies that Agri is using that were bringing the people from Texas. As I’m sure most have already heard, they are coming in from Amarillo and McAllen (TX-MX border town). To shore up that, we are screening those people a little bit better, we will be starting to have them drug-screened and background-checked prior to their coming to Postville. The wave of people that you might have seen in the past, those causing the police chief to do a little bit of extra paperwork on his weekends, hopefully will begin to stop.”...One of the firms being utilized by Jacobson is Bravo Labor Agency in McAllen, Texas. Although the company’s Web site has been taken off-line, a May 30 cached version of the page indicates that the firm began in 1987. One of the specialties highlighted by the firm is its ability to “lower overhead, with inexpensive labor from South Texas and Mexico.” ...

The “bad apples” aren’t the first to come to Postville for work at Agriprocessors only to seek exit shortly after their arrival. Labor Ready, a multinational staffing firm with a branch in Waterloo, Iowa cited health and safety concerns as the reason it pulled roughly 150 workers out of the Agriprocessors plant 10 days after they started employment there. Another group of workers from the company’s Nebraska plant opted to return west, claiming the working conditions in Postville to be far inferior to their original location.

---------------------------

Agriprocessors and the Rubashkins make me angry! Why is it that rather than improve their working conditions and pay livable wages, they seek Latino workers in Texas, legal or illegal? The answers are clear. 1. GREED, 2. they have no regard for the workers they deem inferior and 3. they know their GOP Cronies will allow their crimes to go unpunished. These employers are the epitome of EVIL!

Congressman Gutierrez: Postville, a Political Ploy by the Bush Administration!

Now that the PRO Blogosphere has made Postville front page news, Congressman Luis Gutierrez says the Bush Administration used Postville and Agriprocessors as a political ploy.

The DesMoines Register reports:

Postville raid a political ploy
By TONY LEYS • tleys@dmreg.com • July 26, 2008
Postville, Ia. – The Bush administration tried to score political points by ordering unusually harsh penalties for hundreds of undocumented workers swept up in an immigration raid here, Illinois congressman said Saturday.“I think they’re kowtowing to the most xenophobic, anti-immigrant heart and base of the Republican Party because there’s an election coming up,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez said.The Chicago Democrat made the allegation in an interview after an emotional meeting with about 100 people at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. He said top White House officials actually favor reforming immigration laws to make it easier for workers to come here, but they ordered the May raid so it would look like they were cracking down.

Postville Update: Agriprocessors Free to Stir Up More Trouble in Postville!

Postville was left "absolutely shattered" after last month´s heavily armed worker raids. The workers received swift, cattle barn justice. The employers, however, were left free to continue their abuses, despite hiring a GOP crony-pal "compliance" officer.

The Star Tribune Reports:

"There´s Something Bad In This Town"

Why the raid occurred - from warrant (pg 3):

The federal raid this spring came about based on information from an informant inside the plant who reported witnessing plant managers hire and help workers with fake identity papers. Up to 76 percent of workers did not have correct Social Security numbers, according to the search warrant. The informant also reported seeing managers abuse workers, including hitting one with a meat hook. One manager also ran a scam in which illegal workers were coerced into buying cars from him, the warrant said. Some female employees also have alleged they were sexually coerced by managers, according to St. Bridget's Sister Mary McCauley.

Abuses Continue (page 2, 5):

. New replacement worker Josephina Ortiz, near tears, telling strangers that she came from California based on promises by Agriprocessors of free rent, food and a good job. Instead, she claims, she found a filthy, expensive apartment and mandatory 14-hour days. "Please God, somebody help us," said Ortiz, who is in the United States legally. "There's something bad in this town. I don't know how this can happen in the United States of America."

. Agriprocessors' new hires, whites and African-Americans, who arrived on the bus. They said they'd been promised a $100 advance, but few of them got it. So their first stop was the food shelf (free food bank).

. Diane Morris, who was living in a Texas homeless shelter, said the company promised a free furnished apartment for a month. Instead, she was put in a four-bedroom house with 10 men, she said. "Everywhere I've been I've been sexually approached," she said. She claims she was fired after two days when she went to the company clinic for medications for a mental illness.

. Some new hires have already caused enough trouble at bars that city officials and police have met with the company to demand better screening.

Why protesters are angry (page 3, 4):

"Workers openly say they were advised by the plant on how to get false documents," he said. "Now if the government does not take action on that and charge the owners, then this was strictly a raid to threaten and terrorize people. The situation at Agriprocessors reveals "a lack of respect of human dignity of people other than you," Ouderkirk said. "Politicians who should have been leading the way did nothing."

After the Raids, Only Positive (page 5):

"I'd say the relationship between Hispanics and people who grew up around here has gotten stronger because of this," he said. "The people who have grown up around here suddenly realized [the workers] were real people, too." The town even put up red ribbons on lampposts in support of plant workers. While he abhors the tactics of immigration officials, Ouderkirk says some good may come of their raid. "They brought out the cracks in the dam and the folly of our immigration policy," he said.

Blackwater Commandos Sneak in Plans to Patrol our Borders!

As I reported here and here, last year, Blackwater International bought a defunct chicken ranch in the mountains about 40 miles east of San Diego with plans for converting it into a training camp for local and federal (military) law enforcement, including Border Patrol. Local advocates protested Blackwaters´presence. The company dropped those plans this March.

signon SanDiego reports: The same month, Blackwater, sneakingly using the name "Raven Development Co", applied and city inspectors approved permit applications for a 61,000 square-foot indoor facility in Otay Mesa, an industrial warehouse park along the U.S.-Mexico border, just several miles away. They applied for routine inspection permits under the name Raven Development Group, a name its lawyers said the company had used for other projects, and never explicitly sought permission to convert a warehouse into a school in part because the area is already zoned for vocational facilities.
Opponents against Blackwater say, “This whole process flunks the smell test. They don't ever give us the whole picture of what they're here for. Blackwater can't start using its new facility in the industrial Otay Mesa area until the project is approved by the city planning commission."
Blackwater lawyers told Huff they had been honest in their dealings with city inspection agencies. They argued it was too late for the city to demand they go to the planning commission because inspectors had already approved the required permits.
Attorney Michael Neil said the company risked losing part of a $400 million Navy contract if it could not begin training sailors in counterterrorist defense tactics by next week. The program is part of a firearms training initiative launched after the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port by terrorists in a small boat.
“Blackwater will suffer, the Department of the Navy will suffer and to some extent the security of our country will suffer if sailors aren't fully trained,” Neil said. Blackwater has argued in court filings that elected officials moved to block the project for political reasons ahead of next week's primary election.

About Blackwater Worldwide: founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark, is a private military company and one of the GOP´s largest PAC Contributors. The company recieves multi millions in government contracts. It has been referred to as a security contractor or a mercenary organization by numerous reports in the international media. The company trains more than 40,000 people a year, from U.S. or foreign military and police services, as well as other U.S. government agencies. The training consists of military offensive and defensive operations, as well as smaller scale personnel security. Technologies used and techniques trained are not limited by U.S. domestic law, although it is unclear what legal status Blackwater operates under in the U.S. and other countries, or what protection the U.S. extends to Blackwater operations globally.

Blackwater, the largest private security firm in Iraq, has been under scrutiny as a federal grand jury in Washington investigates the company's involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. The firm is also under investigation for possible weapons smuggling allegations – violations the firm strongly denies.

Calm Before the Storm - Outing the Secret Immigration Bills!

Of late, all has been quiet on the Immigration Reform front. Discussion Boards, both PRO and ANTI, have been quiet. Blogs have been quiet. There has been a significant amount of Political discussion, including here on my blog, but very little Immigration Talk.

For a while, I thought the quiet was due to the fact that all three candidates, HRC, BHO and JSM (John Sidney McCain), support Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR).

Then, I started thinking it could be due to the RNC controlled media focus being taken off of Immigration since the McCain nomination. We know that Fox and the AMJocks are funded by the Right. I still think there is something to this possibility or maybe, just maybe, this is the calm before the storm.

I am hearing some rumblings that new Immigration Bills are being documented in very hush, hush privacy. Some of these bills are PRO - CIR. Some of them are ANTI.

Here are two articles re some of these Hush Hush activities:

Immigration Becomes a Political Football (Again)
The question of border security and the threat to U.S. security is back on the table even as the Presidential campaign progresses to the next phases. Senate Republicans plan to introduce a package of as many as 11 bills (could actually grow to 14) that establishes a hard line on illegal immigration. Even though experts consider it unlikely that these bills will reach the floor for debate, they reflect a move toward harsher immigration rhetoric and legislative proposals from both parties since Congress failed to pass a comprehensive overhaul in 2007. While some of the language in these possible pieces of legislation echo House bills, they go further. These bills include provisions to dock states 10% of their highway funds if they issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Another bill would extend the presence of National Guard on the border and still another would curtail language assistance at federal agencies and the voting booth for people with limited English ability. Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala, one of the leaders of the Republican efforts is offering a bill that would impose a maximum two-year sentence for the second offense of crossing the border illegally. Other bills:
● Block federal funding from cities that bar their police from asking about immigration status.
● Give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to use information from the Social Security Administration to target illegal immigrants.
● Require construction of 700 miles of fencing along the Southern border, not including vehicle barriers.
● Impose sanctions on countries that refuse to repatriate their citizens.
● Deport any immigrant, legal or illegal, for one drunken-driving conviction.
● Enable local and state police to enforce federal immigration laws
Its clear that immigration remains a political football in this Presidential election year. This includes the possibility of giving Senator McCain an opportunity to endorse one of the tougher bills to help distance him from some of his previous positions. Posturing or not, maybe some real immigration reform and border security measures will emerge from this, even though its an election year.

Immigration: New bills, old borders
By: David Rogers and Patrick O'Connor Mar 5, 2008 05:40 AM EST
For seasonal employers, whether crabbers in Maryland or grand hotels in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the real calendar — not politics — makes the pressure very real and immediate. Immigration reform is raising its head again in Congress, stirring old hopes and fears among Democrats and forcing Republicans to re-evaluate their tactics given the re-emergence of John McCain. Nothing is anticipated on the scale of the comprehensive immigration bill that collapsed in the Senate last year. But seasonal employers, such as the restaurant and tourism industries, are pressing hard for more H-2B visas for lower-skilled workers this summer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised Hispanic lawmakers an opportunity to add provisions addressing concerns in their community. A third potential piece is a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) — with the support of fellow “Blue Dog” Democratic moderates — that takes a more conservative approach: beefing up border security and requiring employers to use a government database to verify that their workers are in the U.S. legally. By Jay Fraser on March 5, 2008 at 10:53 PM

I have two questions for my readers:

1. Do you think either of these secret proposals will have any chance of passing before the election?

2. How will this impact the Political Debate, given the 3 candidates support CIR?

No Prison Time for Employers, Meanwhile Illegal Immigrants Build the Fences and Paid $60K

"Neither the judge nor the young prosecutor could name even a single U.S. employer who went to jail for hiring illegal immigrants even though the practice is widespread."

Forbes Reports - Associated Press
Immigration Crackdown Hits Fence Builder
By ELLIOT SPAGAT 01.12.08, 2:56 PM ET SAN DIEGO -
That the government wanted to put Mel Kay behind a prison fence is an irony, though one that neither he nor his accusers would find amusing. Mel Kay builds fences. His was the largest fence-building company in Southern California; he rode the nation's housing boom to $150 million in annual sales. His fences are just about everywhere - at gated subdivisions, on military bases, at prisons. He even built fences at two immigration jails, a Border Patrol station and the U.S.-Mexico border. Which is the second irony, because he admits now that many of his company's fences were built by illegal immigrants. Federal authorities knew it, and they went after him tenaciously, determined to send him to prison as an example to other employers who hire undocumented workers. They had plenty of evidence. Prosecutors determined that about a third of his 750 workers were illegal immigrants. They told Kay's lawyers of videotaped interviews with about a dozen employees who had been caught in raids at Golden State Fence Co. in 1999 or 2004 - exposed as illegal immigrants - and then were rehired by the company, regardless. Kay thought he was toast. But this lean, sun-beaten 65-year-old had two things going for him: He was tough, and he was tender.
The story of Kay's rise and fall - based on court documents, ...Kay returned to California to start Golden State Fence in 1984 with five employees and was on a roll by the early 1990s. Almost from the start, he relied on illegal immigrants. Nearly all his workers took advantage of the 1986 amnesty but he soon struggled to fill jobs. He shunned applicants who came in off the street, instead relying on Mexican employees to recruit family and friends. "They were more trustworthy and more apt to stay long term," Kay told The Associated Press at his office in Riverside, a sparsely furnished room with a white linoleum floor and an empty desktop. Kay admits depending on illegal workers as the housing market grew in the 1990s and exploded in the first half of this decade. "I'd never experienced any boom like that," he says. "It was almost out of control." Installing fences is punishing labor, especially in Southern California's desert heat and rocky soil. Kay requires job applicants to raise 60 pounds over their heads and move wheelbarrows of dirt. About 75 percent of his workers are Hispanic. But Kay compensated his employees well. New hires start at $35,000 a year and jump to about $60,000 after three years. Full-time workers get health and life insurance, sick leave and at least two weeks vacation.

The business prospered. An array of small companies bought fences from Kay's factory. Other customers include major homebuilders and the government, which accounts for about 30 percent of revenue.
In letters to the judge in Kay's case, they lauded the variety of Golden State's designs and materials and its track record on big projects. "Golden State Fence is able to take on the larger government fencing projects that most other fence companies just simply could not perform on," read one from the Army Corps of Engineers, which hired Golden State for work on several military bases and, in 1997, on a mile-long stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego.
Joe Flores was Mel Kay's nemesis. The El Paso, Texas, native and son of Mexican immigrants began policing federal immigration laws in 1987 after 10 years as a Texas state trooper. A year earlier, the government made it a crime to hire an illegal immigrant; the offense became a felony in 1996. Now, at age 53, he is a group supervisor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. From his office on the second floor of downtown San Diego's federal building, he directed the raid on Golden State Fence. Flores strongly believes that American jobs should go to citizens and legal residents. He is skeptical of Kay's claims that Golden State couldn't find enough of them to dig ditches for $60,000 a year, with benefits. "If you're paying good wages, why risk your company? Why put yourself in that situation?" Flores says.
The government's enthusiasm for punishing employers waned after Flores' first few years on the job and, by the mid-1990s, his focus turned to illegal immigrants who got into gangs and violent crime.
The Bush administration has renewed enforcement at factories and offices but scored few legal victories. There are many reasons: some 7 million illegal immigrants are part of America's work force, making a crackdown on more than a handful impossible for prosecutors with limited resources; employers easily shield themselves by saying they didn't know illegal workers had phony documents; prosecutors refuse cases because it is extremely difficult to prove businesses are complicit. In one prominent case, a federal jury acquitted Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest poultry producer, and three former managers in 2003 of conspiring to hire illegal immigrants. Some recent raids, from meatpacker Swift & Co. last year to McDonald's restaurants in Reno, Nev., in September, produced big arrest tallies but all were rank-and-file workers.

Golden State Fence was different. Investigators stumbled on the company when they were auditing military contractors in a nationwide post-Sept. 11 crackdown and determined 48 of 182 workers at Golden State's Oceanside branch were illegal. In the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 21, 2004, agents arrested 12 as they left home.
As they pored over files, investigators discovered a government audit in 1999 that found 15 employees were illegal immigrants, including three they had just arrested. They needed to find them and have them admit they were rehired with the company's knowledge. It is a crime only if 10 workers are knowingly hired.
Investigators picked up two outside their homes. They staked out a warehouse across the street from the Oceanside branch and videotaped workers as they came and went for a week, resulting in six arrests.
There would be other evidence against Kay - 368 workers had Social Security numbers that did not match their names - but rehiring workers flagged in the audits would be the crux of the government's case.
Kay says he ignored the warnings not to rehire the men: "They had been working for me a long time."
"I didn't figure it was that big a deal," he says. "I didn't give it enough thought. Poor decision on my part. Very poor decision." Shortly after Kay arrived at work at 5 a.m. on Nov. 30, 2005, federal agents stormed his 14-acre headquarters in an industrial part of Riverside, 60 miles east of Los Angeles. In 14 hours, they would fill a 16-foot truck with boxes of documents and computer hard drives. Simultaneously, a helicopter with a loudspeaker circled over nearly 200 agents who raided the largest of Kay's 10 branches, in Oceanside, north of San Diego. In all, agents arrested 17 employees at their homes or as they came to load their trucks at 6 a.m.
Finally, Kay recognized he had a very serious problem. But it was too late. He signed up for a voluntary federal program to electronically verify a job applicant's immigration status, which the White House wanted to make mandatory under a proposed immigration overhaul that failed last year. Only 37,000 of an estimated 7.5 million eligible employers have enrolled. Kay's new, high-profile immigration attorney insisted he stop relying on employee referrals to fill jobs. The company put help-wanted ads in newspapers and on its fleet of 225 trucks. It sought workers at job fairs, halfway houses, probation departments, unemployment offices and community colleges. Kay offered to plead guilty to a felony and pay a fine but Carol Lam, then the top federal prosecutor in San Diego, took a hard line. Lam was one of eight U.S. attorneys who were fired last year by the Bush administration after criticism that she was lax on immigration. Kay says Lam wanted him to serve 18 months in prison. Prosecutors were ready to file criminal charges against 10 to 12 managers.
The government relented, agreeing to recommend six months prison time and charge only Kay and Michael McLaughlin, manager of the Oceanside branch. .."They give you some ground, you give them some ground," Kay says. "That's the best I could get." When Kay arrived at his sentencing in March, U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz said his initial instinct was to send him to prison. Moskowitz joined the federal bench in 1986, the year that President Reagan gave amnesty to 2.7 million illegal immigrants and promised to crack down on employers who broke the law. The crackdown never came, and the judge felt it was long overdue. Neither the judge nor the young prosecutor could name even a single U.S. employer who went to jail for hiring illegal immigrants even though the practice is widespread.
Moskowitz knew Kay's prison term could set a national precedent to determine how much time other employers would spend behind bars. But Moskowitz noted Kay's strong work ethic and support from employees who overflowed the courtroom into the hallway. The judge said he couldn't ignore that Kay and McLaughlin treated employees like family. After a federal raid forced them to fire about 200 illegal immigrants, they paid each two weeks' severance, though they were not legally obligated. "Are these the poster children for being the first ones to get jail time?" Moskowitz asked. "I think the answer is no."
Kay and McLaughlin were confined to their homes for six months with permission to leave only to go to the office. Golden State and the two executives forfeited $5 million in a deal with prosecutors.
Still, the government didn't get the six months prison time that it badly wanted. Flores struggles to hide his disappointment. "Jail time would have really sent a strong message," he says. Kay, whose electronic monitor was removed from his ankle in September, doubts the government can mount an effective crackdown on employers. "On a smaller scale there are thousands of companies like me in Southern California," he says. "Just go down, take out a company and bust 'em. They won't do it. They don't have the manpower." Kay has postponed retirement for three years, when he finishes probation, and is trying to repair a business that was stricken by bad publicity. The Navy, his largest government contractor, wrote in February that he was "lacking in the honesty and integrity necessary to do business responsibly with the Federal Government." It banned him from seeking federal contracts but allowed him to finish existing projects, including a job awarded in 2006 for a chain-link barrier at a Border Patrol station east of San Diego.
Golden State appealed, noting that it revamped hiring and that none of its illegal workers were ever found on a federal job. The Navy lifted the ban in June.
Golden State, now renamed Fenceworks Inc., has seen sales slow severely amid the housing slump and its payroll has shrunk to 450. Kay says most of the workers hired at halfway houses and job fairs didn't pan out. Kay, a longtime Republican, hopes the government overhauls laws soon to permit some illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. If not, he says, he may struggle to fill jobs when the housing market rebounds. Meanwhile, Kay is relying more on government work. One contract he bid on, but did not get: a seven-mile extension of the U.S.-Mexico border fence in California.