Illegal Workers Arrested at WMD Testing Site

The Counterterrorism Blog has THIS story this morning:

On February 10, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that agents from its Salt Lake City, Utah field office had arrested nine suspected illegal aliens from Mexico working for a contractor on the Dugway Proving Ground located some 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Better late than never, I suppose.  More about ICE after the flip.

Dugway Proving Ground serves as a chemical and biological weapons testing facility for the Department of Defense. The arrests were part of ICE's Project Shield America, which seeks to identify illegal aliens working at locations and for employers involved in national security matters, to include those wherein unlawful acquisition or export of sensitive technology and weaponry may be a factor.

So let's review:

Over five years after "9/11 changed everything" it has finally occurred to our vaunted homeland security apparatus to check if maybe there are undocumented workers at our most sensitive military sites - sites involved in chemical weapons research.

I feel so much safer now.

ICE is the unbrella organization for border security under the Homeland Security Department.

About ICE

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one component that completes Border and Transportation Security (BTS), which is underneath the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The mission of the entire BTS is to secure the nation's air, land, and sea borders. As an organization that is part of BTS, ICE also strives to achieve a more specific mission.

ICE's Mission

To prevent acts of terrorism by targeting the people, money, and materials that support terrorist and criminal activities.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the nation's border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.

In the pursuit of that mission, they've been performing important border security missions like arresting people for possessing child pornography.  Now I'm no defender of child pornography, but maybe that's just a little afield of their stated purpose?

So it's good to see a little focus developing, perhaps.  God knows with this bunch, we have to take what little we can get.

•  Tips/Slings/Arrows whatever ...

  by jrooth on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 07:28:31 AM PDT

•  Blown out of proportion

  The headline-writers blew this one out of proportion.  The illegal workers were employed in construction of a guest house many miles away from sensitive areas of Dugway Proving Ground where weapons research is conducted.  The secret areas of the post are behind a separate security perimeter.  This is a paperwork violation where subcontactors failed to notify the Army they had foregin nationals on the payroll.  

  by rmwarnick on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 08:23:36 AM PDT

  •  Yes and No

    The ICE press release does mention that they were working several miles from where the testing goes on, but it also says they were inside the security perimiter:

    The nine unauthorized workers from Mexico were taken into custody by ICE agents yesterday evening inside the perimeter of the highly sensitive site, which serves as a major chemical and biological testing center for the Department of Defense. The foreign nationals were employed by Spacecon West, a subcontractor hired to do maintenance and construction work at the facility. ICE agents say two of those arrested had Utah Identification Cards, but none of the employees had valid work authorization documents. Military authorities emphasize that the individuals taken into custody were working in an area several miles from where the actual chemical and biological testing is done.

    (emphasis mine)

    And they were illegal aliens, not merely foreign nationals whom the subcontractor had failed to declare, so I think you're underplaying this a bit.

    by jrooth on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 08:39:47 AM PDT

•  Foreign nationals?

  They weren't just "foreign nationals", they were in the country illegally (we are pretty sure) and they bought their social security numbers at State Street & 7th South.

  But that being said, illegal aliens are the only ones poor & desperate enough to work in Dugway.

  Even if you don't believe in God, you will start so that you can call Dugway "Godforsaken."

  by Utahrd on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 08:42:22 AM PDT