Last July immigration cops arrested 48 undocumented workers at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina after posing as representatives of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and insisting the workers had to attend what turned out to be a phony training session.

“They said they [BICE] would not commit to not doing this anymore,” Marielena Hincapié, director of programs at the National Immigration Law Center, told the media after attending the January 30 meeting with immigration agents.

“If immigration officials are going to use OSHA as a ruse, all they will do is reduce the trust of workers to go to OSHA with concerns about safety problems,” said Ana Avendano, a lawyer representing the AFL-CIO who also attended the meeting, according to an article in the February 11 New York Times.

BICE spokesman Dean Boyd said such sting operations are standard operating procedure. “We’re not going to rule out valid investigative techniques,” he told the Times.

On February 9, immigration agents arrested nine undocumented immigrants working for a subcontractor at the Dugway Proving Ground, a military testing site southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, the Times article reported. In January, immigration officials arrested 11 undocumented workers at Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida, the Times said.  
 
 
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