In February 2005, federal agents received a tip that illegal aliens working at an Albany, N.Y., wood pallet plant were ripping up their W-2 income tax forms to avoid detection. Quietly, the feds began to investigate. The probe culminated more than a year later, when teams of U.S. immigration agents stormed 40 plants nationwide belonging to IFCO Systems North America, Inc.
The agents rounded up more than 1,100 illegal aliens working at IFCO plants in 26 states. At least a dozen supervisors were indicted for hiring the workers, and most have since pled guilty. The agents who conducted the raid work for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, known as ICE, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. John Torres, acting assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, hailed the IFCO case as the agency’s largest enforcement action ever. And when federal prosecutors finished with the company, the case also gave ICE its largest single payday.
