Why Halliburton built those prison camps. ICE keeps up the budget numbers

In 2005 Tony Blair said "September 11 for me was a wake up call".

It certainly woke up the US - legislation poured from Congress. The borders were strengthened by the Homeland Security Act, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forces were beefed up.

There was no new Pearl Harbour, the other shoe didn't drop.

The forces of law'n'order were not inactive. A signal event is described in a post from Sunday, January 14, 2007 Judge gives ICE until 22nd Jan to tell him where 220 plus illegals are from Swift , Greeley Plant.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided Swift meat packing plants on Dec 12th 1,282 people were arrested. ICE has said about 220 face identity theft or other criminal charges and the rest face immigration charges, The plants raided were in Grand Island, Neb.; Cactus, Texas; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn. and Greeley Colorado where 260 staff were arrested. (they didn't raid the Louisville, Kentucky and Santa Fe Springs plants) With more than $9 billion in annual sales, Swift & Company is the world’s second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork. It was founded in 1855 and headquartered in Greeley, Colorado.

Preparations had been going on since February 2006 after several reports of stolen identities were linked to the company. Strangely enough it was in February 2006 that The Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary.

In retrospect it is interesting that The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7 filed suit in Denver federal court, alleging the arrests of the 265 Greeley workers violated their constitutional rights to due process. (No civil or criminal charges, filed by the government against Swift & Company or any of its current or former management employees.)

Involved in the claim to illegal processes are 61 detainees who were taken to El Paso, Texas instead of remaining in Colorado for complete deportation processing. Some detainees claim they did not know what they were signing when they agreed to leave the country willingly. If they return, they could face felony charges, but they claim agents told them they would be allowed to return legally.

The forces of law'n'order were not inactive. A second signal event took place a short while later and is described in a post from - Saturday, March 10, 2007 Insourcing by Michael Bianco and the US Military - see no evil....

Michael Bianco Inc ,89 West Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, Ma. 02744 ( 47 miles south of Boston) is an American manufacturer of high quality leather goods they also make military equipment, airvests, medipacs etc.,

The factory was raided on Tuesday 6th March and 300 (out of 500 total workers) people were arrested by Homeland Security and Immigration and Custom Enforcement.

It appears that 240 were flown to Texas for deportation.90 people were flown from Devens Air Force base to a detention center in Harlingen, Texas, on and 116 others were flown to Albuquerque, N.M., on Thursday. See AP story for problems of dealing with mothers / children, providing welfare.

This was evidently a mammoth and well prepared raid ... Mr. Chadbourne, Boston-based field Director of Apprehension, Detention & Removal for ICE, said it took about a month to prepare the Devens area before the raid. His department is a section of the federal Department of Homeland Security.

About 700 agents were called from all over the country to complete what was the fourth largest such raid conducted in the country, he said. He also said about 60 percent of those arrested were from Guatemala. The second largest group was from El Salvador, followed by Brazilians. The women outnumbered men arrested 2-to-1.

It is of interest that owner (and supplier to the DOD / US forces) Francesco Insolia, 50, of 3 Country Club Circle, Pembroke, Massachusetts (also the address of Leather Bags an online leather bag store) ; payroll manager Ana Figueroa, 40, of 150 Thompson Street, New Bedford; plant manager, Dilia Costa, 55, of 43 Sherman Street, New Bedford; and office manager Gloria Melo, 41, of 135 Sprague Street, Fall River, with conspiring to encourage or induce illegal aliens to reside in the United States, and conspiring to hire illegal aliens.

There seems to have been a quietus in the activity of ICE on this front . Then came the big one.
Sunday, May 25, 2008 - Agriprocessors Kosher meat plant ICE raids result in rushed justice for illegals - top prices for Memorial Day beef for the BBQ

You can read the piece above but sufficient to say ICE (The raid …officials boasted… was “the largest single-site operation of its kind in American history.” )rounded up and 297 faced specially organised courts. Mainly Guatemalan, they required and were provided Spansh Court interpreters. A NYT story at the time gave an outline of the procedures. 'Fess up using false identities, take the rap, 5 months in pokey and go home. You wish to contest , lie around in jail and rot. Faceed with no choice they signed up for jail - perhaps who knows ,in Mr Halliburton's camps somewhere and will soon be off on their way home.

It doesn't appear that any of the plant owners, supervisors or managers have ben prosecuted - for anything.

Until that is one of the Spansh Court Interpreters,Erik Camayd-Freixas, Ph.D.
Florida International University incensed at what he experienced wrote an essay which is dated June 13, 2008. A copy is stored here and here and here at the Sanctuary and Docudhama has an excellent exegisis which it is pointless to copy - go look.

Here is a flavour ;

The essay begins:

On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., in an operation involving some 900 agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed a raid of Agriprocessors Inc, the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant located in the town of Postville, Iowa. The raid ...officials boasted... was "the largest single-site operation of its kind in American history." At that same hour, 26 federally certified interpreters from all over the country were en route to the small neighboring city of Waterloo, Iowa, having no idea what their mission was about.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas describes the place:

The NCC is a 60-acre cattle fairground that had been transformed into a sort of concentration camp or detention center.

Fenced in behind the ballroom / courtroom were 23 trailers from federal authorities, including two set up as sentencing courts; various Homeland Security buses and an "incident response" truck; scores of ICE agents and U.S. Marshals; and in the background two large buildings: a pavilion where agents and prosecutors had established a command center; and a gymnasium filled with tight rows of cots where some 300 male detainees were kept, the women being housed in county jails.

Later the NCC board complained to the local newspaper that they had been "misled" by the government when they leased the grounds purportedly for Homeland Security training.

He continues:

Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepad in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.

They appeared to be uniformly no more than 5 ft. tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names, some being relatives (various Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí...), some in tears; others with faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously.

But the most telling thing is it became apparent what was really going on ...

It is no secret that the Postville ICE raid was a pilot operation, to be replicated elsewhere, with kinks ironed out after lessons learned. Next time, "fast-tracking" will be even more relentless.
Never before has illegal immigration been criminalized in this fashion. It is no longer enough to deport them: we first have to put them in chains.

At first sight it may seem absurd to take productive workers and keep them in jail at taxpayers' expense. But the economics and politics of the matter are quite different from such rational assumptions.

A quick look at the ICE Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report (www.ice.gov) shows an agency that has grown to 16,500 employees and a $5 billion annual budget, since it was formed under Homeland Security in March 2003, "as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement authorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human trafficking and smuggling, violent transnational gangs and sexual predators who prey on children" (17).

No doubt, ICE fulfills an extremely important and noble duty. The question is why tarnish its stellar reputation by targeting harmless illegal workers.

The answer is economics and politics. After 9/11 we had to create a massive force with readiness "to prevent, prepare for and respond to a wide range of catastrophic incidents, including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and other such significant events that require large-scale government and law enforcement response" (23). The problem is that disasters, criminality, and terrorism do not provide enough daily business to maintain the readiness and muscle tone of this expensive force.

For example, "In FY07, ICE human trafficking investigations resulted in 164 arrests and 91 convictions" (17). Terrorism related arrests were not any more substantial. The real numbers are in immigration: "In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens" (4). ICE is under enormous pressure to turn out statistical figures that might justify a fair utilization of its capabilities, resources, and ballooning budget.

One fascinating item is that ..."There were 697 arrest warrants, but late-shift workers had not arrived, so "only" 390 were arrested: 314 men and 76 women; 290 Guatemalans, 93 Mexicans, four Ukrainians, and three Israelis who were not seen in court. "

The three Israelis were actually Rabbis who have to be present at the slaughter to provide the necessary kosher authority. It appears that they, like the whole of the plant management escaped prosecution.

So it goes on ...boston.com 16th July 2008 Immigration agents arrest 31 in courthouse sweep
Associated Press
About 20 cleaning workers from Central and South America remained in custody Wednesday after a sweep of six Rhode Island courthouses that targeted illegal immigrants, including some who investigators said used fake names and Social Security numbers to get hired.

"Simply put, illegal aliens using fake documents to work in the United States are a vulnerability to sensitive security sites," said Bruce Foucart, special-agent-in-charge of ICE's Office of Investigations in Boston.

Just to provide another perspective on the Postville incident here is a report on a far right blog ... White Reference ... "According to the search warrant application and affidavit dated May 9th, federal officials relied on a variety of sources, including former employees and at least one undercover source who wore a wire and became an employee of the plant at ICE's request. "

But as I disclosed in my previous post on this raid, *** see pic some pro-white activists affiliated with a local Klan organization were also reportedly involved in the takedown. They not only flooded ICE with complaints, but several volunteered to hire on at the plant and report on the activities from the inside.

This was also posted on another website of the far right , VNN Forum "Since August of 07 members of the Fraternal White Knights and the Iowa Knight riders along with members of the Aryan Werwulfe Brotherhood have been constantly calling ICE on the Postville plant here in Ia. When they demanded proof of illegals working in the jew owned plant, we sent members in to work there and gather that info. The results after many hard months of dedication paid off today and we hope they also get to the other plants we told them about."

Are they telling the truth ?