Illegals held with valid driver's licenses

Nice to know that Illegal Immigrants are licensed to drive Haz-Mats

From The Washington Times, headline is linked. Comments follow.

Illegals held with valid driver's licenses

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 25, 2005

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested more than two dozen illegal aliens in Maryland, Illinois and Missouri who possessed valid state driver's licenses to transport hazardous materials, state commercial licenses to drive trucks or state driver's licenses.
ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said yesterday the arrests over the past week follow previous agency enforcement actions in Maryland, Florida and Michigan, during which more than 100 persons were detained in connection with fraud schemes that enabled illegal aliens to obtain valid hazardous materials licenses, commercial driver's licenses or driver's licenses through state department of motor vehicles offices.
In one Maryland case this week, a federal grand jury in Baltimore returned a criminal indictment against Mansoor Hassan, an illegal alien from Pakistan and a driver of gasoline tanker trucks for Exxon, Mr. Boyd said. He was charged with six counts of making false statements about his citizenship to gain employment with different gas companies.
An immigration judge ordered Mr. Hassan deported in 1996, but allowed him to leave the country voluntarily. Mr. Boyd said Mr. Hassan never left the country and soon obtained a commercial driver's license in Maryland to drive gasoline tanker trucks. Mr. Boyd said ICE agents recently learned that Mr. Hassan was working as a tanker truck driver for Exxon in Baltimore.
The arrests are part of an ongoing operation by ICE, the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General, the Transportation Department and law-enforcement officers in several states.
"This cooperative law-enforcement effort has closed a security vulnerability that might have resulted in dire consequences," said ICE Agent Elissa Brown, who heads the Chicago field office.
In Illinois, Mr. Boyd said, ICE agents arrested six illegal aliens over the past week who had valid Illinois commercial driver's licenses and hazardous materials endorsements. All six are being held pending deportation.
He said a seventh man also was arrested and is being charged by Illinois authorities for falsely applying for and obtaining a driver's license. The man also faces deportation at the completion of the state case.

... more at linked article

emphasis added

Nice to know that our Homeland Security department may finally be making progress in this area. I'm left to ask what took so d-a-m-n-e-d long?!

Seriously, if you are in this country illegally, how and why do you possess a valid drivers license? Can we not fix that problem and make it much more difficult to obtain a drivers license without showing proof of legal citizenship or guest status (a Visa or similar materials)?

And when the hell will our legal system figure out that releasing illegal immigrants back onto the streets because we are going to "trust them" to return home is not working? If the people came to this country illegally to begin with, then damn it, they aren't likely to leave it that easily now are they? Once caught here illegally, go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Get loaded onto a bus, train or boat by a team of customs enforcement personnel, and be escorted out of the country by the same. Problem solved. Why mess around with trusting illegals to leave? If we really have to go down that road, then use RFID tags, electronic bracelets or some other similar means to track them until they are on the way out of the country. You know, follow the old Ronald Reagan philosophy, "trust but verify."

In anycase, congrats to the ICE guys for pulling off this crack down, but sadly this is just a small part of the crackdown they could and should be pulling off.

And finally, a note to anyone that thinks I may be bashing immigrants and migrant workers -- far from it. News reports the other day from Baltimore TV stations mentioned a huge problem that I actually have to give a bit of a nod to the liberal little (literally) spark plug of a Senator, Bab's Mikulski helped to solve. Eastern Shore crab houses have had a heck of a time getting people to pick crab meat from the watermen's harvests. The situation has gotten to the point that the watermen and the businesses that supply the crab meat were looking for help from immigrants that come in and do the job that very few people want to do any more (the pay isn't great, the work is tedious and can lead to RSI problems -- repetitive stress injuries -- and generally is not desirable to the U.S. citizens that might otherwise do it). Unfortunately, because of limits on the numbers of Visa's given out for potential workers allowed to come into the country, the temporary workers and their prospective employers were being shut out of the few slots they need for the 6 month period that covers the crab season. With help from Bab's, the businesses were able to obtain temporary Visa's and workers are able to come into the country to do the jobs legally. When the season is up, the workers will return home so they can hopefully come back legally next year.

Where possible, I fully support such programs, as they match jobs with workers, and people can come to the country legally to do those jobs. What I do not support is people that enter the country illegally and then never leave. If you want the American dream, then come and get it the right way, rather than the sneaky and underhanded way.

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It's becoming harder in many states to get a commercial drivers license, and rightly so. It's becoming even harder to get hazmat endorsements and rightly so.
But, unless the state has the resources to conduct background investigations on every applicant some are still going to get them using forged documents as some of these people obviously did. Florida now requires a certified copy of a birth certificate in order to receive a CDL. When I moved from Virginia back home to Florida I had to wait until I received a new official copy of my birth certificate before I could transfer my CDL to Florida even though they had records indicating that I had held Fla license in the past. So they are doing something, but like anything there will be people getting around it.

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Mark one down for the good guys!! Glad to hear we're making headway in the homefront on the war on terror!!!

Unfortunately, I fear that King Doyle (Gov. of Wisconsin) would insist the "guest workers" be released and the USICE apologize for discriminating against them.

Cheers for those who DO THEIR JOB!!!

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