here's the deal. when the boom first started really rolling they moved three full time border patrol agents into williston. You would see them quite often. One day I wasn't in a hurry where I was headed and one was sitting in an approach about four miles north of Williston on Highway 2/85. So I decided what the hell I'll pull in and BS with him a bit. I know his boss so figured that would break the ice a little if it was uncomfortable or anything. Well it was far from that. He was very talkative and seemed like a great guy.
I knew there were a lot of illegals working on construction projects in town and a bunch on pipeline crews and roustabouts. Still are. I asked him how many they were rounding up and he said a pile of them. but they either can't hold em or they send them down the road to a holding facility only to be let go there. I said "it must be really easy to drive up to a construction sight and nab a dozen at a shot". He said nope, they have a lookout and whenever your within six blocks they are told and gone when I get there. That kind of surprised me. But he did tell me they we're convinced someone was flying them in to a remote airstrip somewhere. Rotating workers in and out via air. They didn't know where it was yet. But figured it was just a matter of time. But the most interesting thing he said, and it totally backed up my belief, was that they all have documents. And they are so good it often takes the border patrol 48 hours to determine they are fakes. I suspected this was the case because back in 2004-2005 I was working on the Minot Air Force base and there were illegals on the base working construction. So they had to have some damn good ID/Documents to get base clearances. Or pass the background check to get on the base. Which means you have to have a good social security card or our system is completely flawed in that department. You choose. So you can see it's really hard to place the blame on employers for hiring illegals. The I9 form is a complete joke to determine one's legal status. And that's what the government uses. Therefore the employers don't know for the most part. Sure there are some that hire them all knowingly and don't care. For example. There are large roustabout crews that are 100% of mexican decent. there's no way in hell an employer that doesn't know that is not going to have at least one white guy. With 12 million illegals here for the last forever, a pile of them are now legal because they were born here. Anchor babies so they say. So when you have a crew of twenty guys with fifteen legals it's easy to meld in five illegals. It's such a debacle now it's impossible to change it I think. We almost have to build a nasty ass wall and just ship the ones out we find that we know for sure are illegal. I think it would tax our resources to beyond the limit trying to decipher whether 12 million have bogus paperwork or not.
One other thing that I found very interesting while talking to this agent. One of the reasons I pulled in to talk to him was somebody I knew claimed there were eight mexicans living in one apartment. There were always eight there. But it wasn't always the same eight. So there was a pretty good chance they were illegals or some of them anyway. I wanted to let this agent know the address of this place. Well he informed me they can't go to homes or enter them to investigate so it was basically off limits. So it appears their hands are tied in a bunch of different ways. It wasn't long after this that I started to rarely see these agents. I think there is only one left in town now.
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When I worked in the slaughterhouse in Iowa INS raided it and deported over 160 Mexicans. within 3 weeks over half of them were back working there with different names. the slaughterhouse helped set up the raid so they never did get any fines or anything from all the illegals that they employed.
It's rather puzzling how fast they return. Back in 1988, I had race horses in Chicago with my assistant trainer. I was home in MN at our Mink ranch because it was close to pelting time, etc. This particular track in Chicago didn't have automatic walking machines for the horses. So we had to hire people to walk them after they galloped. In Chicago the mexicans had ran the blacks our of the barn area for the most part. Still that way today. So about the only person he could hire was this young mexican kid. He was a great kid who was there everyday on time and hardly said a word and just did his job. Well it turns out I was short handed come skinning time at the ranch. So I called my assistant trainer and told him I was coming down to steal the mexican and take him home for a couple weeks. So I did that. He was a skinning SOB. I wanted to keep this kid around and what not so I called up an immigration attorney in Minneapolis to ask him how I could get him a green card or whatever. He told me it was impossible. Remember this was 1988. So after skinning was done I ask Mez (the mexican) what he wanted to do. If he wanted to stay here or go back to Chicago. He said he wanted to go home for a couple weeks. Not sure what that meant I asked him if that meant Chicago. He smiled and said no Mexico. Dumbfounded I asked him how the hell he was gonna get there. He simply said take me to the airport. Well now I was at a loss. So I took him to the twin cities airport and dropped him off at the gate doors. He said he'd be back in Chicago in two weeks. I said ok and took off for home knowing full well that was a load of bunk. Well two weeks to the day I get a call from the assistant trainer telling me Mez showed up for work this morning lol. that was 1988. you would have though that was impossible at that time. Now not so much.
