51 undocumented immigrants nabbed in Palm Springs work-site raid

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A work-site raid at a Palm Springs bakery Wednesday resulted in the arrests of 51 illegal immigrant workers from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala and their current and former supervisors, who allegedly hired the employees in exchange for money, reports Anna Gorman.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the agency had opened an investigation into Palm Springs Baking Co. based on a tip in 2006 that the business was hiring unauthorized workers.

During the investigation, officials said, they discovered that more than 100 of 130 Social Security numbers were invalid or didn’t match the names of employees. Many of the Social Security numbers belonged to U.S. citizens or legal workers from California and several other states, as well as to people who had died, according to court papers. About 25 people were using fake numbers, court papers said.

Both the current supervisor, 52-year-old Margarita Avilez Hernandez, and the former manager, 36-year-old Alicia Ramirez, face criminal charges and could get six months in federal prison if convicted.

The arrests were the latest in a string of immigration enforcement actions at work sites nationwide during the past year. Between Sept. 30 and Aug. 30, the agency arrested about 4,700 illegal workers on suspicion of administrative immigration law violations and 1,070 others on criminal charges.

One of the biggest of those raids was on a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa, in May, in which nearly 400 people were arrested.

Read more about the ICE raid in Palm Springs here.

For more on immigration, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello