TailOverTeaKettle.com

Fresh on the heels of the discovery in late November of illegal immigrant contractors working in secure areas of the Atlanta airport, we now have yesterday’s Associated Press report that 40 illegal immigrants were arrested by ICE this week as they worked for contractors at three military bases in Georgia, Virginia and Nevada.

In Georgia, 24 were arrested at Fort Benning.

The group arrested in Georgia includes 20 Mexican nationals, three Guatemalans and an Italian. Nine of the 21 are charged with either possessing or using fraudulent identity documents, and another was accused of re-entering the country after deportation. The remaining eleven defendants are accused of entering the country illegally.

Sigh.

[ICE Spokesman Marc] Raimondi said one of those arrested, a Nicaraguan man employed by a company doing construction at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, was a member of MS-13, which the government considers one of the most dangerous gangs in the U.S. Raimondi said none of the others arrested posed a direct security threat. He added that it’s critical that authorities have real identifications for those entering military bases.

If the federal government wants to continue to keep the joke of employment verification we have in place today, employers of illegal immigrants can continue to hide behind their supposed ignorance of the immigration status of their employees. Obviously, at least some are so brazen, they would bring illegal workers into the most secure environments, and clearly didn’t feel that the government would even check there. (And they are probably right! How many illegal immigrants have done work on military installations and other critial resources in the past?) According to this article, the ICE is at least also holding deportation hearings. But in so many cases, it seems that they lack the will to even take this step. More proof that if you do not enforce the laws, they become a joke.