ICE Begins Crack Down

Demonstrators march through the streets of Los Angeles to protest against legislation that cracks down against illegal immigrants, April 15, 2006. Almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them were arrested as part of a national crackdown, authorities said on Thursday. (Photo Credit: Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Dutch company feels frostbitten as ICE (the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement department) begins crackdown. Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security states that this is only the beginning.

The effort is aimed at those who are "exploiting illegal aliens'' and "who adopt as a business model the systematic violation of immigration laws,'' Chertoff told reporters in Washington. The government will "make sure we come down as hard as possible.''

Excerpts from Reuters via Yahoo! News -

Workers, managers arrested in immigration case
By James Vicini - Thu Apr 20, 12:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost 1,200 illegal immigrants and seven current or former managers at a Netherlands-based firm that hired them were arrested as part of a national crackdown, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

Raids were carried out this week in 26 states at plants operated by IFCO Systems North America, which is based in Houston and makes wooden pallets and crates.
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IFCO said in a statement that it is cooperating fully with the investigation and that it hopes "to have this matter resolved as soon as possible." The North American operation is a unit IFCO Systems, based in Amsterdam.

About half of the firm's 5,800 U.S. employees in 2005 had invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers, federal officials said.
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So doing the math, ICE still has a little more work to do (about another 1,200 illegal aliens to go) at IFCO. Jobs open up in 26 states for high jobless segments of our society.

Help Wanted! ... from U.S. citizens!