I have to eat my words, there WERE workers that had access to secured areas of the airport. I would agree that when there are locations that require security clearances, we should absolutely know the backgrounds of those people. Once again, this just amplifies that we need to fix our broken immigration system. We need to have a credible way of knowing who is here in our country.  I recognize, that many families, caught up in this raid, will be in heartache tonight.

I will be posting a story, very soon, about another detainee death, where the  man suffered horribly. 

DULLES, Va. — An immigration raid at Dulles International Airport resulted in 55 arrests on Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says.
The people were doing contract work at a construction site, inside a secure area, where they would potentially have access to runways and airplanes.

ICE agents made their move as the workers were being bused to the site, checking work and immigration papers.

The agency says one of the workers had an airport security badge, that grants unescorted access to the airport tarmac.

ICE says allowing unauthorized workers into sensitive sites puts the nation’s infranstructure at risk.

Most of the people arrested will be flown an ICE detention facility in El Paso, Texas to begin removal proceedings.

Officials say this operation and others like it aim to guard infrastructure. The agency says it’s important to make sure people who work at airports are in the United States legally.

Investigation into the workers’ immigration status has been going on for a while, leading up to the raid.

The arrests did not affect flights or travel to and from the airport

74 Thoughts to “Immigration raid at Dulles”

  1. Red, what is the worst thing “they” could do with your information that “they” could not do already?

  2. Leila

    Elvis, I never said anything about personal data not already being collected. I follow that issue very closely as I have made clear in the past. I was writing about proposals about having a national ID card in the United States with or without biometric data. That has not happened yet, it has a lot of public opposition, and if it does happen it will not be without controversy. There is a Wired article from 9/25/2001, a ripe time if any for discussion of such measures, that still indicated widespread opposition.

    You *chose* to get the Flyclear card and to have your biometric data on file. Good for you. I have had several successive passports since I was a kid, so obviously I have chosen as well to be in another kind of database. For me, it matters that something is a choice. For you, it apparently doesn’t. In any case, you touted the Flyclear card as a timesaver. Now you are touting it as a demonstration of your patriotism. It’s hard to keep up.

    I find your statement “They may have whatever they want to ensure my safety,” something far too open-ended to agree with, especially given the government’s track record. Safety is one value and one I care about, privacy and liberty are others. Everything gets weighed. But I would never use the terms “whatever they want” in a sentence about a very fallible government that is often more interested in “security theater” than security.

    I believe in warrants, checks and balances, and other means of oversight while bearing in mind that the government has to be more and more vigilant against terrorism.

    About 395, well that must have been dramatic. Are you saying you saw/heard the plane hit? That’s interesting. Still I doubt it would be difficult to go to New York, for example, and find civil libertarians who lost people in the attacks but who still value our Constitution. Imagine that.

  3. g.stone

    Illegal migrants further breaking the law by falsly obtaining work ducuments to work in secured areas deserve one way tickets to their point of origin. This is not that complicated.
    Anyone making the slighest excuses for these people simply don’t get it, and probably never will.

  4. Leila

    Emma, You can opt for a pat-down instead of the body scan technology. I guess one can argue that is less embarrassing and it will definitely be a female who does it.

  5. Leila

    If you’ve ever been curious about whether a person can fly without a photo ID, check out this blogger’s experiment and analysis on how one can.

    http://philosecurity.org/2008/08/10/flying-without-a-wallet

    I saw the link on Bruce Schneier’s security blog.

  6. Leila

    kgotthardt, how would you secure the border(s)? Or, just how would you secure the just-under 2,000-mile one to our south?

  7. Well, I think the fence thing, at least the way they have built it, is expensive and not useful. Not knowing the latest technology, I would guess more surveillance via cameras and border patrol would be best. But someone has to keep an eye on border patrol as well. I’ve heard some negative things about some of those guards. We don’t want our own brand of terrorists taking the borders.

  8. The way to end illegal immigration across the border is to make it easy for immigrants to immigrate. No one will risk their lives crossing the desert when they can just get a visa and buy a 100$ bus ride to the border.

    Then we can fire all the border patrol people so they can go out and get jobs that actually contribute to the economy instead of sucking up our tax dollars. They can get jobs like farming, construction, and service industry jobs.

  9. Red Dawn

    Mackie,

    Are you saying we can still have the American dream of having LETTUCE with our special sauce and CHEESE?? Smile for the camera, we have been trained to love and say cheese 🙂

    Don’t hate we must immigrate. legal or none and we will all get along 🙂 Cheese:)

    I am cheese lover ( anyone who knows me,knows this) I didn’t care for Swiss, but golly, I will choose that one and jump through the holes 🙂

  10. Red Dawn

    Before you answer, I gave up when and knew it was over when Budweiser ( and other things) were for sale AND sold ;(

  11. Leila

    I think we can all rally around cheese.

  12. Red Dawn

    KG,

    As I know I have to go to work tomorrow and TRYING to sleep, I had to come back and answer your question.

    ” kgotthardt, 14. August 2008, 19:16

    Red, what is the worst thing “they” could do with your information that “they” could not do already?”
    I don’t know, I have nothing to hide BUT I think of all the other rebuttal’s.
    EVERY argument seems to end with NO answers BUT what do we do for our children. What kind of world are we leaving for them, etc, etc.,?

    I guess the third(?) rebuttal to that would be, if they don’t know any different, then they would not suffer as they will not know the difference?

    The torment /spirit may always be within the parent trying to preserve/fight for the future ….. I don’t know, never said I did:) I wish I could be a less caring person BUT I find it impossible 🙁

  13. Red Dawn,

    I’m saying that I see most of the immigrants as legitimate immigrants. I’m not so hung up on what immigration law says because immigration law isn’t realistic. The free market is regulating how much immigration we have. I like the libertarian party’s position on immigration.

    http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration

    The time for liberty has come:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxPrULE6dUU&eurl=http://www.lp.org/

    Now some people would argue that immigrants bring down wages and displace American workers. There’s some truth to that in certain industries. I’ve heard the wages in the meatpacking industry have gone down over the years but other factors could also be affecting those wages. I don’t know if it’s a big problem or a small problem but I think most people aren’t competing with immigrants for their jobs. If there is a problem, it is mostly because the immigrants have been denied any legal status.

    If immigrants had legal status, they could fight for higher wages and better benefits which would help raise the wages and benefits for everyone in those industries. Our country opens the door for anyone with a PhD. But if you are working class, we still let you come in but then exploit you by refusing to give you any legal status. It is easy to exploit desperate working class immigrants.

    Working class American Citizens see the immigrants as the enemy. But i think they have much in common with the immigrants. They are both being exploited by the ruling class in this country. Instead of seeing the ruling class as the common enemy to their interests, many working class americans see immigrants as the enemy. The ruling class labels the immigrants as ‘illegal’ and that is how they divide and conquer. They keep working class americans and working class immigrants divided against one another in this way.

    Now some people say ‘But these new immigrants don’t want to become Americans’. I think that’s an important topic and I’ll make another post about it during my lunch break.

  14. “The torment /spirit may always be within the parent trying to preserve/fight for the future”

    Amen, Sister Dawn!

  15. KG,

    Red, what is the worst thing “they” could do with your information that “they” could not do already?”

    Here is why you should rethink your position.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

  16. No offense, Mackie, but that guy remids me of those people who star in info-mercials. I’m sure he is partially correct, and in the case of immigration, that’s probably good advice. The key here is to fix our justice system, I think. Right now, it’s still “How much justice can you afford?”

  17. tickle_me_ELVIS

    an leila, I wasnt close enough to see the plane, I thought i saw it but i was honestly too busy. i did stand outside for quite a few hours before we were allowed to turn around.

    I think most people want the government to protect us, I think they are doing a decent job so far. no major accidents yet, but then again we didnt really have any major ones before 9-11.

    they can still have what they want.

    why dont you just come out and say that you want to give illegal aliens a free pass and just admit it? you side-step around it like you really want a workable solution however the only workable one for YOU is amnesty. I hope you enjoy being part of the minority. the majority in this country want illegal aliens gone.

    I love calling immigration, I’ll call and call and call until someone listens to me. every boarding house will be reported as will every day laborer site. regardless if it does any good, I’m gonna do it from now on.

    an civil libertarian? your full of it, the people that were affected by 9-11 wanted the government to do MORE for them, not less. i’m pretty positive that after 9-11 revenge was on peoples mind vice civil liberties. you should crawl out of your hole. you cry about civil liberties, wait until some illegal alien runs you over and has no insurance or one knifes you in the back and we’ll talk then. otherwise you are a person who advocates criminal aliens in our midst and you deserve to be locked up with them. I’m sure you are a pretty despicable person, worth no more than the gum on the bottom of my shoe.

  18. Leila

    Wow Elvis, back to your old tone, the violent insults, threats, etc. So much for your moderation. The alternatives are not amnesty or mass deportation. Just because you apparently can only see things in extremist terms doesn’t mean the rest of us have to. I can only assume you don’t pay any attention to Supreme Court cases, the news, or anything outside your block if you think there hasn’t been a mobilization of civil libertarians in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act, including people directly affected.

    I am not exactly sure why you mentioned calling about boarding houses or day-labor sites. I guess you free associate.

    Exactly how have I supported illegal aliens (or anyone else) who drive without licenses or commit violent crimes?

  19. tickle_me_ELVIS

    oh my lucky stars, we have a ultra-liberal in leila among us! leila you should take a look at your posts here (and on BVBL) before you open up that bottom-less cavern you call a mouth. you want extremist? here’s ya’ go…elvis’s EXTREME saturday.

    I think that ALL illegal aliens regardless of age, race, gender or nationality should be immediately captured and deported.

    what makes me ill is that people like you support these criminals, took a drive down to highway one near murumsco. I saw a gaggle of pregnant latina’s doing their makeup in the grass while the cholo’s waited for someone to pick them up for work. I saw a young pregnant latina with about 5 young children hanging out on the street corner (doing what I dont know). that’s the game here, they sneak across the border to give birth to children on U.S. Soil. We need to get rid of that anchor baby clause and send them all back to where they belong.

    I dont think they belong here, that’s obvious. they hate our country and everything we stand for. if the roles were reversed I’m positive we would face far worse horrors than they face now. check out what they do with gringo’s in mexican jails before people start whining about mexicans dying here. I think the state of texas executing illegal aliens that kill people is probably one of the best thing there could be…..

  20. Leila

    Just as I thought. You have no examples of what you claimed. What do you have? Insults, wild-eyed generalizations, a frequent inability to make plurals correctly, and a strange tendency to see all Latinos as Mexicans despite the fact that most in your midst in this area are not.

  21. Elena

    Elvis,
    So, here we go again, every lantino woman is illegal and Mexican? You logic is completely faulty….AGAIN!

  22. Elena

    Elvis,
    You could have made your comments without this statement:

    “I’m sure you are a pretty despicable person, worth no more than the gum on the bottom of my shoe.”

    I wonder how many rough days you have Elvis? I think it may be alot, because you clearly feel the need to take out your anger on posters here. That is called transference Elvis, you may want to deal with this problem in a more productive way. Maybe, its that you really feel disgusted with yourself and NOT Leila, me, or anyone else here.

  23. Moon-howler

    Elvis, I guess you feel comfortable here. Most people are embarrassed to say the things you say in public. They might think it, but they don’t say it in polite company. It seems the later it gets in the evening, the freer you feel to say prejudicial, insulting things about people and to people.

    Leila has always defined herself as a fairly liberal person. That’s ok. I doubt that you have insulted her by calling her the L word. People can be what they want. How would you describe yourself? Do you feel yourself to be a conservative? moderate? Do you lurk on bvbl or do you post? You keep coming back so I think you want us to know you better.

  24. Leila

    Political labels aren’t that useful. I see serious differences between liberal, leftist, and libertarian, for example, that are pretty much ignored by folks who want to find an easy label for someone. Or similarly, if a person strongly opposes both abortion and the death penalty, is that person liberal or conservative? I have positions that are social libertarian that definitely are opposition to liberal positions. But all that is lost on Elvis, who rarely backs up anything he claims. His penchant for base insults is just icing on an insubstantive cake.

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