Big Bust Bags Bogus Beaners

From The Washington Post:

Federal agents targeting illegal immigrants raided meatpacking plants in six states yesterday, arresting hundreds of workers on the uncommon charge of identity theft and shutting down the world's second-largest meat processing company for much of the day.

About 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with search warrants entered plants owned by Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., charging that "large numbers" of workers illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens or legal residents by using their Social Security numbers to get work, ICE officials said.

Company and union officials said agents, some dressed in riot gear, locked down six beef- and pork-processing plants early in the morning, segregating workers into groups of citizens and non-citizens after questioning. Some illegal workers were bused to detention facilities hours away, labor officials said.

ICE officials would not say how many people were arrested, pending a news conference today in Washington. About 90 percent of Swift's 15,000 U.S. employees work in three shifts at the plants, company officials said.

The crackdown was another step in the federal government's campaign against illegal immigration, and like some recent raids it targeted job sites, the magnet drawing many of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants. . .

I'm glad to see the government doing something and I'm glad to see them adding tools to their toolbox of ways to target the alien criminals. I hope that they lean on the criminals and find out who is selling the fraudulent IDs and land on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.

I also hope that if they can prove that Swift & Co. knew that they were illegal that corporate officers wind up doing jail time. Businesses simply pass fines along to the customer and the cost of doing business (another reason that there shouldn't be any corporate income taxes, the customers wind up paying them), but you can't pass along a jail sentence.

Sorry about the post's title, but I couldn't resist.