More Illegal Aliens Captured In Raids

Federal immigration authorities are continuing their crackdown on illegal immigrants in southern Idaho, rounding up 55 more in a series of raids this week.

And Randolph Robinson, assistant district director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said more arrests were expected.

Dozens of the illegal workers were housed in the Canyon County Jail on Wednesday awaiting transport to Denver for deportation hearings.

Three were picked up Wednesday at AMI Forest Industries in Boise for working without proper documentation on the final leg of a two-day sweep that began in Council, where 52 people working on reforestation projects in that area were arrested.

The latest raids bring to more than 160 the number of illegal immigrants arrested in southern Idaho in the last six weeks. On April 8, agents arrested 63 illegal workers at Kit Manufacturing Co. in Caldwell. A day later they arrested 18 more at the SSI Food Service Plant in Wilder.

And on May 7, agents arrested 17 people at a Kingston Produce warehouse in Shelley and 11 more at the nearby GPOD packing plant.

In all those cases, the employers were not implicated because the workers had used forged documents in seeking their jobs.

Robinson said this week’s raids were launched after agents had compiled a list of suspected illegal workers large enough to justify a wide sweep.

In the past six months, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has arrested more than twice as many illegal aliens in southern Idaho and Montana than it did during the entire year before.