11/23/07 Dealing With Illegals

Dealing with Illegals. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. It's a hot bed. The illegal immigrant. Agriculture needs the workers but not the issues surrounding a worker who is in this country illegally. Aaron Wilson is the Special Agent in Charge with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE for Eastern Washington and Idaho. At the recent Farm Bureau convention in Spokane, Wilson was asked about how much time they put towards illegal workers and case management. WILSON: That really varies. It depends on the lead pool. It depends on the leads of investigations, we certainly have a responsibility to dabble and be effective in worksite enforcement and what we usually do is evaluate the leads  and we're doing this daily, weekly, monthly. As we open cases we close cases; we open up a preliminary lead before we open up a full blown investigation to get to the bottom of it. He said that leads or tips come from a variety of sources including disgruntled employees, the general public and even competitors. WILSON: We explore their motivation for the lead; we go out and try to corroborate the lead through our own investigative techniques. Leads don't always turn into full blown investigations and full blown investigations don't always turn into a fine or a criminal prosecution. It just runs the gamut, so we prioritize these leads versus all of the other leads and all the other areas of responsibility. Wilson says there are individuals and groups that exploit illegals for many reasons including many criminal activities like drug smuggling. WILSON: That might take place over a worksite case involving the farm industry. But if you've got aliens working at the Hanford Nuclear facility and they might not be there just because they're looking for employment, a better way of life but to sabotage the facility or terrorists are using them to exploit their illegal status to try to get them inside the facility, that's going to take some precedence over the narcotics. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.