Mr. Salerno is a poster child that illustrates some of the most glaring faults of Michael Chertoff’s customs and immigration service. Here’s why:

Dulles receives more foreign visitors – government, business, tourist – than all but a handful of other airports, Kennedy, SFO, O’Hare, Miami, LAX, among them, Mr. Salerno. He is handsome, good looking, university educated, a practicing lawyer, which means he’s been vetted by the Italian state for his character and associations and has no criminal record.

He has adequate wealth, unlike the thousands who pound the sands and cactus on the Mexican-USA border, to travel here often and legally from a friendly European state. He has the means to maintain himself here, he’s no threat to the public purse or to the peace, and return home. He has upper middle class friends who live and work in Metro DC, within thirty miles of his arriving airport.

Despite all that, Mr. Salerno had the audacity to come here more often than some local customs officer – working at possibly the single most important international airport in America – thought good for him. He challenged his right to enter. Mr. Salerno appears to have been unwilling to cower at the customs officer’s power and had the audacity to talk back and to ask to speak to officials from his embassy (who could reach Dulles within an hour). This customs official cooked up an asylum story, which put Mr. Salerno in a category that allowed for his indefinite, unreviewable detention, and tossed him in the slammer.

No doubt, a more unbiased official looked at the proceedings and decided to hush it up rather than admit what a shit he has working for him. He thereby abused his discretion. The interference by qualified lawyers and Virginia’s senior Senator just made Homeland InSecurity more Bushlike in adamantly maintaining that all its people did exactly the right thing. But as a courtesy, after having taught they Eyetie that he shouldn’t ever come back here, they let him go. Mr. Salerno is a poster child for Homeland InSecurity’s incompetence and abusive tactics because there are undoubtedly thousands like him we haven’t heard about, who remain in the Gulag of our “immigration” prisons.

Diverting a river won’t clean up half the mess, half the corruption and incompetence that Bush has littered across America. So we better gird our loins for one helluva clean-up campaign. One that anticipates that Karl’s Klackers will flood the media with claims that George left everything in perfect working order, so the trouble, the cost, the mess, must be because the Democrats screwed it all up again.

Please read the affidavit for the warrant served. It’s on the left side in a box labled ‘related content’. The affidavit is in 3 parts.

On the surface this is about ‘illegal’ immigrants and that’s what the media is focusing on. But, in what I’ve read of the affidavit, management heads had better roll on this one. According to the affidavit, informant #1 was a former empolyee of the Postville plant, in HR. Accroding to #1, management actively encouraged ‘illegals’ to do ‘wrong’ things (SS, etc), management ’supported’ a meth lab on the grounds, have/had an auto racket going that crosses many county lines.

I’ve not heard anything about ‘management’ in this deal and plan on asking. The governor is also on record of saying that he’ll not let employers off the hook and I’ll do what I can to make sure he holds to that. I’ve read on other boards that some think this raid was to prevent a call for unionization at this plant. Don’t know if that’s true or not.

From post #71
“Maybe in some places, illegal immigration is having a downward influence on wages, but I do not think that is the case everywhere and for all industries. My guess is that a lot of American employers hire illegals just so that they have warm bodies to fill positions.”

The meat packers used to pay upwards to $20 an hour. Now it’s around 10. That smacks of downward pressure on wages to me. Now that ‘Big Ag’ is the owner of the meat packing plants, all that matters is the bottom line.

Maybe in some places, illegal immigration is having a downward influence on wages, but I do not think that is the case everywhere and for all industries. My guess is that a lot of American employers hire illegals just so that they have warm bodies to fill positions.

Amnesty is the solution to the corporate demand for cheaper and cheaper labor. The left supports rightwing ideals, too.