**Remarks of the Honorable Julie L. Myers,**

**Assistant Secretary**

**U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement**

**Department of Homeland Security**

**at the**

**Detroit Economic Club**

**Monday, April 7, 2008**

Thank you, Secretary Land, for that introduction. I am delighted to be
with you this morning.

I've always thought that spring really doesn't start until the baseball
season begins. Detroit is one of America's great baseball towns and
although the Tigers aren't off to a great start, that's one of the
beauties of baseball -- in a 162-games season, in April, there's still
plenty of time.

My excitement about the start of the baseball season is not, however,
why I brought the Tigers' cap with me today. I brought it because a cap
just like this was among a stash of 16,000 counterfeit Tigers hats that
the owner of a local company purchased and was preparing to distribute
to area businesses for sale to the public several summers ago.

This wasn't some fly-by-night operation. This company was in the
business of selling a variety of knock-offs of branded merchandise to
unsuspecting retailers and consumers. And they would have gotten away
with it except for one thing -- their phony merchandise was seized by
agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a raid in [Royal
Oak]{.underline} just before the All Star game here in Detroit in 2005.

When ICE agents, working together with county and local police, executed
a search warrant at this firm's place of business, they not only found
thousands of fake Tigers' caps, they also found more than
[17,000]{.underline} counterfeit Duracell batteries. The total value of
the phony merchandise seized that day exceeded \$175,000.

That arrest, which led to a conviction a little more than a year later,
was just one of the hundreds of arrests and convictions ICE agents have
made over the past five years in our ongoing effort to protect
intellectual property rights and combat the flow of counterfeit good and
products. And it's just a small part of what the more than 16,000 ICE
law enforcement agents and staff do every day in discharging our
agency's mission.

Because ICE is still relatively new, the work we do is not yet widely
known. So people are often surprised when I tell them ICE is the federal
government's second largest investigative agency (the FBI is the
largest).

We are also the largest agency of our kind within the Department of
Homeland Security. As you may know, DHS has several agencies charged
with investigative and law enforcement duties, including those whose
mission is to protect our border and manage legal immigration into our
country. Our mission is separate. We are charged with enforcing more
than 400 federal statutes.

ICE was created in 2003 to bring together under one structure the
investigative parts of customs and immigration enforcement agencies as
well as the service that protects all federal buildings around the
country. Each had previously been a separate organization. ICE was
designed to make the federal government's efforts to fight crime and
terrorist activity more efficient and effective than ever before. And in
the five years since our founding, that's exactly what we have been
working hard to do.

Our investigators target everything from hiring illegal aliens, document
fraud, and sexual predators, to illegal arms trafficking, financial
crimes, international drug trafficking, and intellectual property
protection.

Let me give you just a few specifics.

On a typical day, ICE makes an average of 10 currency seizures totaling
nearly three-quarters-of-a-million dollars.

We seize more than 56,000 ounces of marijuana and more than 300,000
grams of cocaine.

We protect more than 9,000 federal facilities, screening one million
federal employees and visitors entering those facilities daily and
seizing more than 2,000 items such as firearms, knives, and box cutters.

And we house 30,000 illegal aliens in detention facilities across the
nation.

Every day, we work to make sure that when a court orders an alien to
leave the United States, that that order is carried out, by arrest and
removal if necessary.

We work to make keep sensitive technologies out of the hands of
criminals and terrorists overseas.

And every day, we are working to promote increased levels of compliance
by employers with the nation's immigration and customs laws.

It is no secret that illegal immigration remains an enormous challenge
for the United States. Although efforts over the past several years are
beginning to bear fruit, the tide of illegal aliens entering the United
States remains a pressing national problem.

In recent weeks, a great deal of attention has again been paid to the
need for comprehensive immigration reform. Some have suggested that our
current limits on legal immigration are damaging our global economic
competitiveness. Without wading into this policy debate -- which is
outside the scope of ICE's legal responsibility -- I would simply make
this observation.

Ignoring these laws won't make them go away. And for ICE, ignoring the
law is simply not an option.

Nevertheless, in the absence of the comprehensive immigration reform the
President has called for, the administration is evaluating ways to
address the needs of American business for greater numbers of skilled
foreign workers and the needs of the agricultural sector for more
foreign seasonal workers.

On Friday, DHS announced certain students will be able remain in the
United States after they've finished their studies for a longer period
than has previously been allowed. This extension of time, from 12 months
under the old regulation to as long as 29 months under the new rule,
applies to foreign students with degrees in science, technology,
engineering, or math and who meet other qualifications.

Increasing that time limit means that businesses that check the
immigration status of their employees will be better able to compete for
these talented young workers and to secure a specialized worker visa.

In addition, the administration has both streamlined the H2-A
application process and has given U.S. employers more flexibility to
petition for multiple foreign agricultural workers without having to
specifically identify them by name.

Furthermore, the waiting period for re-entry for such foreign workers
will be cut in half, to three months, and the length of time such
workers can remain in the United States after their employment has ended
will be tripled, from 10 to 30 days. These changes will make it easier
for agricultural employers to hire foreign temporary or seasonal labor
to harvest crops.

Of course, the fact that so many want to come to the United States
reflects, in a very real sense, America's strengths. We are a beacon of
liberty. We are the land of opportunity. We are a magnet to countless
millions around the world who seek a better life for themselves and
their families. That should be a source of pride for every American.

Unfortunately, however, there are two types of immigrants who come to
America. There are those who come looking for the opportunities each of
us enjoys and who do what's necessary to come to the United States
legally and to become contributing members of our society. And there are
those whose very first act in the United States is to break the law by
entering illegally. At ICE, we seek to support the former and remove the
latter.

I understand the attraction that draws so many to break our laws and
even risk their lives to come to the United States. That does not mean,
however, that we can afford to be anything less than vigilant in
enforcing our laws. Our immigration and customs laws are not just about
keeping people out. They're also about protecting the safety and
security of the American people and the health and vitality of the
American economy.

Because people who are in the United States illegally want to avoid
detection, they tend to live in a shadowy underground. They rely on the
makers of fake documents to supply them with paperwork they might need
to get a job. They work for employers who exploit their status by
ignoring worker safety and wage laws. They are easy targets for
criminals who want to use them to gain access to sensitive facilities or
workplaces or to move illegal products.

As a result, responsible employers who seek to conduct their business
lawfully are put at an unfair disadvantage, as they try to compete with
unscrupulous businesses that cut corners so they can cut costs to gain a
competitive edge in the marketplace**.** Our goal is to help those
companies that want to obey the law and use our investigative and
regulatory authority to stop those companies that do not. Let me
illustrate.

In April 2006, we conducted a worksite enforcement operation at 45
different facilities of the Pallet Management Division of IFCO Systems
North America. We launched this investigation based on a contact from an
IFCO employee working in IFCO's Albany, New York plant.

This worker had witnessed a number of his co-workers ripping up their
W-2 forms as soon as they were given them. When he asked a manager what
was going on, he was told that since those employees were illegal
aliens, and didn't intend to file tax returns, the W-2s were
meaningless. Outraged, this employee called ICE -- and that was the
beginning of the end of this illegal scheme.

As a result of this operation, we arrested nearly 1,200 illegal aliens
who were on IFCO's payroll, including a majority of the facilities'
foremen and manual laborers. Court documents charge that, in fact,
"nearly all of the pallet workers and foremen ICE encountered at the new
IFCO plants were illegal aliens."

One employee, an illegal alien who is cooperating with the government,
described what he did when he was hired at IFCO. As the indictment says:
"\[T\]he cooperating witness provided IFCO managers two different sets
of identity documents, including a 'green card' bearing someone else's
photograph and three different social security numbers." This individual
was subsequently promoted to a foreman position at the plant.

Since the beginning of 2007, a total of 12 officers and managers of this
company have been charged. Seven have already pled guilty to charges
related to the employment of illegal aliens. The five remaining
officers, including two executives, are facing charges related to the
conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal alien laborers at IFCO
plants. These five defendants are currently awaiting trial.

The people charged are, of course, innocent until proven guilty. I'm
sure, however, that many will watch this trial with great interest.
Likely among them is a publisher of a trade magazine who observed
shortly after the IFCO case became public, "We were all very curious
about this. \[IFCO was\] able to do things that other companies just
couldn't do."

This case clearly illustrates why our worksite enforcement efforts are
so important. They help ensure that companies that break the law by
hiring illegal workers don't unfairly disadvantage companies that follow
the law. But it's not just a matter of law. It's also a matter of
fairness and a level playing field.

Of course, the preference of every law enforcement officer is to prevent
crime before it takes place. That is why we are trying to create a
culture of compliance by seeking to enlist responsible employers of
every size and description in partnerships designed to prevent the
hiring of illegal aliens in the first place.

I am convinced that drying up the job market for illegal workers would
be the single most effective thing we could do to stem the tide of
illegal aliens into the country. The vast majority of those who enter
the United States illegally do so in the hopes of finding work. If the
jobs aren't there, the reason for coming isn't there either. And that's
where business leaders can make an enormous difference.

The law is clear -- employers have an affirmative obligation to verify
that their employees are legally able to work in the United States.
Failure to do so leaves an employer open to enforcement action -- and my
agency is not at all reluctant to enforce the law.

In fiscal year 2007, ICE secured more than \$30 million in criminal
fines, restitutions, and civil judgments in worksite enforcement cases.
We arrested 863 people in criminal cases and made more than 4,000
administrative arrests. That is a tenfold increase over just five years
before.

Our preference, however, is to find ways to work with employers to
encourage them to meet their legal responsibility and to provide
incentives to comply with the law. That's why we have put ICE best
practices on our web site, why we encourage the use of the E-Verify
Program, and why we conduct training for employers all around the
country. It's also why we have established the IMAGE program -- the ICE
Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers.

We launched the IMAGE Program in January 2007 with nine charter members,
ranging from General Dynamics to National Association of Foreign Trade
Zones. One of the charter members, the Atlas Pallet Company in Boise,
Idaho, joined, according to the owner, Gary Crane, because they "needed
to be part of a solution rather than a problem. I don't have to look
over my shoulder and worry whether our people are documented, because we
know that they are."

IMAGE is designed to help employers strengthen their hiring practices to
build a legal workforce. ICE will provide participants in the IMAGE
program with extensive education and training on such useful skills as
proper hiring practices, detecting fraudulent documents, and properly
completing the I-9 form.

By encouraging voluntary compliance, through such programs as IMAGE and
through other outreach and enforcement efforts, we hope to begin to
reduce the power of the "jobs magnet" that attracts illegal workers to
the United States.

The pull of that magnet is powerful. The proliferation of businesses
using illegal workers as part of their business plan is leading to the
creation of a cynical variation on domestic off-shoring.

We are all familiar with the concern many raise about the outsourcing of
jobs to workers in foreign lands who work cheaper than American workers,
for a whole variety of reasons. This is one of the consequences of
today's global economy, and it has its pluses and its minuses.

Using illegal aliens as part of a domestic off-shoring scheme, on the
other hand, is without any positive benefit to American workers or
businesses. Companies that build their workforce using illegal workers
here in the United States take jobs away from legal workers, unfairly
gain market share over legitimate businesses, often disregard worker
safety and environmental laws, and shift the tax burden onto those who
follow the law.

One of the clearest examples of this practice is a criminal
investigation conducted right here in Michigan. Last month, three
Florida residents were sentenced to jail in a Grand Rapids courtroom for
operating a nationwide janitorial service known as Rosenbaum-Cunningham
International (or RCI) that was staffed almost exclusively with illegal
aliens.

This operation is a classic example of what I mean by domestic
off-shoring. RCI provided cleaning and grounds-maintenance services to
theme-restaurant chains across the country, including such well-known
customers as Dave and Buster's, Hard Rock Café, and House of Blues. This
company had essentially off-shored its entire workforce to illegal
aliens here in the United States.

As part of this elaborate scheme, the company actively procured phony
identity documents for many of its workers in an effort to deceive the
law-abiding businesses with which it had cleaning contracts.

The Grand Traverse Resort here in Michigan was one of RCI's lucrative
customers. When word of another illegal alien worker scheme surfaced
near Traverse City several years ago, the managers of the resort asked
RCI to provide documentation for its crew.

The crew supervisor, desperate to hold onto the contract, actually went
to Grand Rapids to procure phony green cards and create fraudulent
employment documentation for the members of his crew. And for his
efforts, RCI gave him a bonus.

This domestic off-shoring scheme was profitable. Over the four-year
period from 2001 and 2005, RCI's revenues exceeded \$54 million. During
that same period, RCI failed to collect and pay nearly \$16 million in
employment taxes, laundering the funds they should have been sending to
the federal government to shell accounts used to fund such personal
indulgences as the purchase of race horses and fancy homes in California
and Florida.

The three former officers who were convicted are now serving sentences
ranging from two-and-a-half years to ten years. They have been ordered
to pay nearly \$50 million in fines and restitution. And I think they
were more than a little surprised that their scheme unraveled in such a
dramatic fashion.

Early in the investigation, one of the principals told an ICE undercover
agent that if things got too hot, he would just flee to Mexico. Well,
that "Plan B" didn't work out too well, and instead of cooling himself
on a Mexican beach, he's cooling his heels in federal prison.

American businesses are facing greater challenges and tougher
competition in today's global economy than ever before. Another way we
can help maintain our nation's competitive edge is by protecting the
intellectual property of American innovation and ingenuity.

When I brought that Tigers cap in at the beginning of my talk, I'm sure
everyone here understood that counterfeiting, even when it involves
something as commonplace as a baseball cap, cannot be ignored. Yet the
average sports fan who just wants to show his support for his team, may
wonder, "What's the big deal; it's just a hat?"

To that fan, and anyone else who wonders about the importance of going
after counterfeiters, I would remind them that there is hardly a
business in America that isn't at risk from the theft of intellectual
property -- whether it be a time-honored logo, a pack of nine-volt
batteries, a piece of software, an automobile part, or even sensitive
military equipment.

American companies invest hundreds of billions of dollars each year in
improving their products or increasing the profile of their products in
the marketplace. Those who steal the result of that investment are
picking the pockets of those companies, their shareholders, and their
employees.

It is estimated that counterfeiting and piracy cost the U.S. economy as
much \$250 billion a year and as many as 750,000 American jobs. That's
the equivalent of the total number of people it takes to sell-out
Comerica Park 18 times.

To counteract the threat from substandard, tainted, or counterfeit
products, we are working in close partnership with the Food and Drug
Administration, Customs and Border Protection, the Consumer Products
Safety Commission, and the United States Postal Service in a venture we
call Operation Guardian. Using our collective resources, we are much
better able to investigate and interdict such materials before they
reach consumers.

Working closely with our DHS colleagues at Customs and Border
Protection, we made nearly 14,000 seizures in FY 2007. Together, we
seized about \$200 million of counterfeit and pirated merchandise -- an
increase of 27 percent over the previous year. That is a good start --
and it is only a beginning.

Through Operation Guardian, we expect to make significant improvement in
stopping the traffic in substandard, tainted, or counterfeit goods. And
that, in turn, will also help put an important dent in organized crime,
which has been moving more and more into this line of criminal activity.

Counterfeiters are not only robbing the legitimate business of sales and
profits, they are also threatening the safety of consumers. We have all
heard about the counterfeit toothpaste made in China that contained
anti-freeze and the tainted dog food that killed numerous American
family pets. But there's much more that most people haven't heard about
-- because we've succeeded in stopping them -- but that would have posed
real risks had we not succeeded.

Would you, for example, want your electrician installing counterfeit
circuit breakers that wouldn't trip an overloaded circuit, posing a fire
hazard to your home, office, or factory? Or would you want your diabetic
spouse using counterfeit blood sugar testing strips that fail to give an
accurate reading, leading to the improper use of life saving medicines?

Of course not, but these are examples of substandard, tainted, or fake
products we have stopped from entering the marketplace through our
efforts to protect the American people and our economy by protecting
intellectual property rights.

Among the 240 arrests we made nationwide in FY 2007 were the leaders of
an organization based here in Detroit that imported counterfeit
trademarked cigarette papers with a market value of \$16 million. The
seven people we arrested were convicted of such federal crimes as
trafficking in counterfeit goods, money laundering, and perjury. They
were also ordered to pay more than \$6 million to the holder of the
trademark. Furthermore, three of the seven will be removed from the
United States when they complete their sentences because they were here
illegally in the first place.

Our increased success in identifying and deporting criminal aliens --
like the three in the case I just mentioned -- is one of the
accomplishments of which I am most proud at ICE. People who are not only
here illegally, but who have also been convicted of other crimes while
living and working in the United States, should serve their sentences
and then be sent home.

When I started at ICE, the agency reviewed the immigration status of
prisoners at just four of the 119 sites operated by the Federal Bureau
of Prisons. This was obviously unacceptable.

Today, the situation is considerably improved. We are now able to
identify and review the immigration status of every inmate in every
federal prison. We know which prisoners in our federal prison system are
here illegally and we are able to ensure that when they are released
from prison, they are promptly sent home.

In addition, we have conducted risk assessments on more than 4,000 jails
and other penal institutions across the country to identify the risk an
institution's foreign-born population might pose to public safety.

By targeting our efforts, last year, we charged nearly 165,000 criminal
aliens in American prisons and jails, an increase of 140 percent over
the previous year. Now, when their sentences are up, they will be
removed from the United States as soon as possible.

This is considerable progress, but there is still more to do. That is
why late last month we announced the latest addition to our ongoing
effort to prevent convicted criminals aliens from being released onto
the streets.

This new initiative, Secure Communities: A Comprehensive Plan to
Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens, will allow us to do even more to
keep the American people safe from those for whom entering the country
illegally is just their first criminal offense.

This initiative will take databases that don't talk to each other and
change that. It will, when fully implemented, give us a virtual presence
in every jail in the country. And it will streamline and expedite
procedures for detaining and removing criminal aliens.

This initiative will also help promote more secure communities by
expanding incentives to encourage non-violent criminal aliens to agree
to deportation and working with foreign governments to strengthen their
capacity and their willingness to accept the return of their citizens.

Our goal is to identify and remove from the United States every
incarcerated criminal alien in every jail, prison, or penitentiary
nationwide at the conclusion of their sentences. We want to be as
certain as we possibly can that people who are here illegally, and who
have also broken other laws, are sent back home as quickly and as
certainly as possible. That will help make every American community a
more secure community.

Making our nation more secure -- safeguarding the American people and
our country's economy by vigorously and fairly enforcing America's
immigration and customs laws -- is what drives the 16,000 dedicated men
and women who work at ICE every day. And although they've only been
working together as a single agency for five years, they have made
remarkable progress in enhancing their effectiveness in carrying out
their mission. They have forged what is, by any definition, one of the
premier law enforcement agencies in the world.

But no matter how effective ICE is at carrying out its mission by
itself, there is no doubt that its effectiveness is immeasurably
improved by the partnerships we are able to build with people such as
you. By working together we can better protect America from the numerous
threats that those who violate our immigration and customs laws pose to
the security of our nation, the strength of our economy, the safety of
our communities, and the health of our people.

Thank you.