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We were on TV. And it wasn't so much an issue of identity theft. It was mainly hundreds and hundreds of illegals without papers. It was acctually a sad day. They came in without warning and started to send people away on buses. The children of these people were in school and had how idea what was going on until they went home and found notes that said " If your parents aren't home call this number" children stayed nights at churches and kids had no idea where theyre parents were or if they were even coming home. The next day at school was so sad. Everyone was crying. I was a 7th grader at the time. Its really too bad that it happend, I have a few friends that I haven't seen since before the raid. for the next couple months everything in town was slow and the hispanics seemed to be in hiding. Streets weren't busy, wal-mart was empty. It was crazy.
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I used to cover this area as a law enforcement offcer the last time I was stationed in MN, circa 1997-2000. I worked very closely with what used to be the Immigration and Naturalization Service and participated in several of these worksite enforcement operations around the state, including several in Worthington.
This was never an issue of people simply being "without papers." It was an issue involving the fact that 99.9% of the illegal immigrant workers there were employed using a fake social security card, and fully half of those "fake" cards actually had
valid numbers that belonged to someone else - you, me, or any other U.S. citizen. This happens every day and is not an innocent or victimless crime.
I also used to work with several of the Worthington PD detectives on ID theft crimes and testified in court out there regarding many of these illegal immigrant cases; not only were they using other people's SSN's to work, but they were using them to run up credit, collecting welfare and public assistance while working (welfare fraud) and engaging in any other type of crime relating to a fake identity than can be imagined.
And this was back then, in a GOOD economy and BEFORE the illegal gangs like MS-13 were powerful enough to have their hand in just about every type of illegal immigrant activity involving hispanics. I can only imagine what it's like now.
Many small communities in the Midwest that have any kind of agricultural or meat-processing facility will often involve illegal immigration on some level. You just have to do the research and figure out whether it's 1) simply a small facet of a "diverse" community that, despite being against the law, really doesn't really hurt anyone (which was often the case) or 2) if it's out of control.
Back when I last visited Worthington, I wouldn't have called it "out of control" because like I said, the gangs weren't there in force yet. But it was definitely a growing problem that the local PD was struggling with. One detetctive I worked with quite a bit grew up there and described Worthington as a small town whose population had almost doubled overnight with people who didn't speak English. That will present problems for anyone living there.
Again, do the research first. If possible, visit the area first and see what's going on. Don't just get statistics from a website. Talk to people, look and observe, maybe even talk to some officers who work there and see what
they think. Most communities newspapers have a listing or blog of crimes/police activities for the previous day/evening; get a few months' worth of those and see what's common. These are all things I would do before I buy a home somewhere, anyway.
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Worthington, MN
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