Announcing the success of its massive “Operation Wagon Train” yesterday, DHS officials insisted the raids that netted nearly 1,300 arrests were about busting up an identity theft ring. The stats tell a different story.
According to DHS’ own tally, only 65 of the 1,282 arrests were for criminal violations, including identity-theft related crimes. That means that over 1,200 of the people arrested had no connection to any identity theft rings, and were guilty only of run-of-the-mill immigration violations. That didn’t temper the agency’s rhetoric.
“’Enforcement actions like this one protect the privacy rights of innocent Americans while striking a blow against illegal immigration,’” an official press release quotes DHS chief Michael Chertoff.
“[H]undreds of these illegal aliens may have illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens,” the press release goes on the explain, “and improperly used their Social Security numbers and other identity documents in order to gain employment at Swift facilities.”
Hundreds? A couple dozen, maybe. At a press conference yesterday, Chertoff explained the difference between the rhetorical numbers and the actual ones by saying he expected the number of identity-theft related arrests to rise as arrestees are processed.
But that sounds like optimistic spin: according to an ICE official I interviewed yesterday, the federal agents raiding the plants had technology on-site to check the validity of workers’ immigration documents.
“We had access to databases to ensure the green cards they were showing us were real ID cards and belonged to the person who held it,” spokesman Michael Keegan told me.
So the question remains: what was the purpose of the raids? The Denver Post says they were a way for the Bush administration to pressure Congress to act on immigration — the Congress which is in recess for several weeks, but has already said immigration is a top issue for next session. The Chicago Tribune quotes one Beltway cynic who thinks the raids are just a harsh cover for the White House to push amnesty for illegals next year. And of course we’ve talked to one lobbyist who says she has no earthly idea why DHS took action when it did.