Illegal immigration's real victims

There was an ICE (formerly INS) raid at a Swift meatpacking plant, whereby scores of illegal aliens who worked at the plant were taken into custody. Naturally, the sympathetic MSM was on hand to share the plight of these poor "innocent" "workers". But as Michelle Malkin asks, where is the sympathy for the true victims here?

Affidavits on 25 arrest warrants were filed about 4:30 p.m. Monday. Each one sought a Swift employee on suspicion of forgery and criminal impersonation. According to the affidavits, special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver office investigated Swift since summer.

On July 31, ICE special agent Richard Goldsberry received copies of employment documents for all employees working for Swift as of July 18. Agents used information from those documents to track down workers who had used someone else's information to get jobs. Agents were often able to compare driver's license photographs of U.S. citizens with those working at Swift under the same name.

Federal Trade Commission records provided another clue for investigators. Records often listed residences in states such as Texas, Utah and California for employees working in Greeley. In many cases, the people who actually live in those distant locations had filed complaints after they learned from a credit agency or the Internal Revenue Service of back taxes or jobs with companies where they'd never worked.

Swift accepted Luis J. Pena's application on Oct. 30, 2003, and made copies of his Social Security card and Colorado driver's license. The problem was, ICE agents found, the real Pena lives in Arizona. He works in Nogales as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Pena told agents he requested a copy of his credit report in 1998 or 1999 and learned someone had used his information to get jobs with companies he'd never heard of.

A woman claiming to be Theresa Sanchez provided Swift with a Social Security card and Colorado I.D. on April 8, 2005. The FTC shows Sanchez actually lives in Texas and filed a complaint after she got a letter from the IRS. The letter said the agency was holding her $5,400 refund because she had failed to report $120,000 in wages since 1996. Sanchez told ICE she had never lived in Colorado. The FTC said someone used her information for jobs, college and to receive unemployment benefits.

Sanchez told an agent she stands about 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds. The woman suspected of impersonating her is 5 inches shorter and 10 pounds lighter. Sanchez said the suspect may have gotten her personal information from an ex-husband.

The cases go on and on.

Forgery, criminal impersonation, stealing identities, ruining credit, causing trouble with the IRS: the jobs that Americans won't do. Right, W?

By the way, in a galling display of chutzpah, Swift & Co. filed a request for a restraining order to keep the raid from happening. How did that go down? "Your honor, the feds are going to raid our plant and take our illegal employees away! Make them stop! We have a constitutional right to break labor and immigration laws, right?" Where's Justice Breyer, Ginsburg, Stephens, or Souter when you need them?