Hit the companies that employ illegal aliens and the executives who run them where they hurt.

The Shipley Do-Nut Co. president pleaded guilty today — and three current and former managers are expected to enter pleas next week — to charges stemming from an April immigration raid, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced.

Company President Lawrence Shipley III pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith to a misdemeanor charge of employing undocumented workers. He was sentenced to six months' probation and a $6,000 fine.

Shipley, 41, has served as president of the Shipley Do-Nut Flour and Supply Co. since March 2005.

The criminal inquiry into the company began on April 16, with a predawn raid at the headquarters and warehouse complex on Houston's north side. Investigators reported that more than 40 percent of the company's employees were in this country illegally.

U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said this afternoon that company officials have agreed to pay $1.3 million in lieu of the federal government's confiscating various company-owned residences where undocumented workers were housed.

Others charged with hiring illegal immigrants were Christopher Halsey, 36, the company's warehouse supervisor; former warehouse manager Jimmy Rivera, 54; and current warehouse manager Julian Garcia, 38.

The three are expected to appear before a federal magistrate on Sept. 5.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of six months

Did you get that? This is going to cost the company $1.3 million in cash. That's a lot of donuts, folks. My only complaint is that it isn't more, and that the jail time and fines aren't more substantial.

Now if only we would see this done in every case where we see round-ups of the border-jumping immigration criminals who steal American jobs. After all, the employers are every bit as guilty as the aliens in most instances.

Posted by: Greg at 01:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Could you imagine a mainstream press source writing sympathetic articles about massive law-enforcement crackdowns on drug dealers, chop-shops, drunk drivers, or other illegal activity? Then why the sympathetic coverage about these law-breakers?

The largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history has caused panic among Hispanic families in this small southern Mississippi town, where federal agents rounded up nearly 600 plant workers suspected of being in the country illegally.

One worker caught in Monday's sweep at the Howard Industries transformer plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody. Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.

Not until one gets to the fourth paragraph does one find the actual numbers -- that close to 600 immigration criminals were caught, that 475 were held and another 100 given humanitarian release with ankle-bracelets so that they could care for family members. That is a whole lot better than "victims" of other law enforcement crackdowns on crime get.

My only regret in all this -- that no executives or managers of this company were arrested. We need more of that to discourage their illegal activity, too.

And the most absurd quote in the press coverage of the raid? Try this on for size, from the son of the pastor of many of the detainees.

“It was like a horror story. They got handled like they were criminals.”

Heaven forbid that we treat lawbreakers like lawbreakers!

When will the press take the side of the US and its immigration laws, rather than the foreigners (and American employers) who break those laws?

Posted by: Greg at 10:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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International kidnapping of Americans in border states -- including right here in Texas.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico...

Mexican intelligence officials say Veronica is one of around 30 Americans abducted in southern California and taken to Tijuana since last November. Many of the victims are of Hispanic origin and hold double nationality.

"We have seen an increase in the number of kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Tijuana, including cross-border abductions," said FBI special agent Darrell Foxworth in San Diego.

Several Americans have also been kidnapped in Texas this year and held for ransom in Mexico, the FBI said...

It is fairly well-known that criminal gangs in Mexico make money tons of cash every year through massive kidnapping enterprises. Now it appears that they are becoming trans-national operations, grabbing Americans (and Mexican citizens in the US) for even higher stakes. Just call it one more aspect of our the failed policy that has effectively given us open borders and 15-20 million illegal aliens and their anchor babies.

But then again, maybe we should be celebrating this development as one more case of multiculturalism enriching our society.

H/T Jawa

Posted by: Greg at 11:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, none that they want to talk about, anyway -- like this situation in the San Antonio area.

The investigation began after Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen purged hundreds of names from the county's roll of more than 860,000 registered voters.

In a review of the past six years, Callanen said 330 undocumented people had registered to vote, and that 41 of them had voted — even though they later acknowledged they were not U.S. citizens.

The 330 people had received jury duty summons cards because their names were culled from the county's voter registration rolls.

Callanen said 41 people admitted voting, some in multiple elections, between 2001 and 2007. Each one said they were unaware they could not register or vote.

It could not be determined when or how they registered, but Callanen said there was “nothing to indicate a systematic effort to register noncitizens. But clearly, those folks should not have voted.”

I'm curious -- did they actually look for something systematic, or di they just skim the obvious fraudulent votes/registrations off the top? After all, it seems that the list of non-citizen jury summons responses was the source of their evidence? How many other illegals didn't show were ignored (failure to report for jury duty is rampant in San Antonio) or showed and sat on the jury so as not to get caught? What would a systematic check of registration in Bexar County show?

Well, we won't ever find out.

Adrianna Biggs, head of the district attorney's white-collar crime unit who led the investigation, said authorities were unable to determine who registered the undocumented people to vote, many of whom had limited English proficiency and who appeared to be politically unsophisticated.

In at least two cases, the district attorney's office decided not to prosecute because of extenuating circumstances that would not “serve the interest of justice,” Herberg said.

He noted that Reed made a series of recommendations to Callanen that would tighten voter registration procedures and also make it easier to prosecute future instances of voter fraud.

But County Judge Nelson Wolff rejected those recommendations because “turning Jacqui Callanen into a law enforcement agent is not the goal. Enfranchising people and getting more people to participate in the electoral process is her goal.”

In other words, the head of county government in Bexar County does not see protecting the integrity of elections in Bexar County to be a worthy goal -- he would rather get more folks registered and voting, even if they are illegal registrants/voters. Anyone want to take a wild guess about County Judge Nelson Wolff's party affiliation?

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There is no legitimate reason to give illegals bail.

When federal immigration agents raided a Houston rag factory and took 166 suspected illegal immigrants into custody, a Boston philanthropist and multimillionaire was ready to chip in bond money to help the workers.

Robert J. Hildreth, 57, is the public face of the National Immigrant Bond Fund, a fledgling organization that helps immigrants swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace raids post bonds.

The controversial fund has the backing of major immigrant advocacy groups and religious leaders, but has drawn criticism from anti-illegal immigration organizations.

Since spring 2007, the fund has paid more than $180,000 to bond out immigrants snared in ICE raids in California, Massachusetts and Maryland.

Now I know that my point of view sounds harsh, but since there folks have no right to be in the US, they also have no right to walk free.

Detain, Deport. Deny re-entry.

Oh, yeah -- and bomb Mexico into submission after the latest act of war committed by the Mexican military on US soil. Unfortunately, it seems that the US is going to write it off as one more "accident" -- and do nothing.

H/T Malkin

Posted by: Greg at 03:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Posted by Hube)

The city has stuck to their guns and said "no" to a Muslim request for "private time" at a city pool:

A group of Somali women have asked Portland Parks and Recreation to accommodate their Muslim faith by allowing an after-hours, women-only swim time at a city pool to be staffed only by female lifeguards.

The cityÂ’s response?

No way. Anti-discrimination employment law wonÂ’t allow it, Deputy City Attorney Lory Kraut wrote in an 11-page memo to the parks bureau June 23.

Ah, but the executive director of the local Center for Intercultural Organizing says "Portland should be flexible" and that it will "exclude" the Muslim community if it doesn't accommodate it.

Y'know what? Too bad. The Muslim community has to be accommodating too -- to their (in this case) new adopted homeland (the women are Somali). And this means recognizing that public facilities have to be religiously neutral.

One of the Somali women suggested renting the pool after hours as an accommodation. (It isn't clear from the article if this was the initial suggestion -- renting the pool -- or not.) The city still has said "no;" however, I don't see a problem with this. Where I live, religious groups (usually Christian) routinely rent [public] school auditoriums for services and other events on weekends, which, like the Portland pool situation, is after normal operating hours (obviously).

For traditionally liberal enclaves like Portland, situations like this must really pose a conundrum. They're reflexively hostile to religion, but at the same time, they're ridiculously PC when it comes to religious (and other) minorities.

Stay tuned.

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