The San Diego Union Tribune reports that approximately half a dozen Border Patrol sector chiefs have announced their retirement for 2007.  The future retirees include four chief Border Patrol agents for the San Diego and Tucson sectors.  The departures stem from personal decisions, said Todd Fraser, a Border Patrol spokesman.   

“Mandatory retirement age in the Border Patrol is 57, Fraser said, but those over 50 with 20 years’ service, or under 50 with 25 years’ service, are also eligible to retire.  Two of the twelve retirees will reach the mandatory age this year, but the other ten are retiring earlier than is required.  

The departures have elicited concern from former agents and union officials as to why so many sector chiefs are leaving.  “It’s very stressful being a supervisor out in the field now,” said Edward Duda, a former sector chief, who retired last year.  “The guys and ladies out there are not in a position where they could make the calls like they did before.  There are so many layers now.  You’re not worried about quick reaction to a situation, you’re worried about paperwork now.”  

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Maximino Garcia, president of two temporary labor contracting companies, was sentenced this week in federal court in Cincinnati to 15 months in prison for providing hundreds of undocumented immigrants as employees to an air cargo company.  According to the New York Times, Mr. Garcia, who pled guilty to the charges, was additionally fined $25,000 and ordered to relinquish nearly $12 million.  This forfeiture is the largest ever ordered in an undocumented laborer case, immigration officials said.  

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The Dallas Morning News reports the apprehension of an 18-year-old Mexican worker by U.S. immigration authorities has prompted the Mexican Consulate in Dallas to launch a nationwide campaign at day labor sites to inform immigrant laborers of their legal rights while in the U.S.   The campaign began after the 18-year-old Guanajuato native was picked up by a man pretending to be an employer, only to be subsequently turned over to immigration authorities.  “These people are so vulnerable,” says Eduardo Rea, spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Dallas .   

Officials from the Mexican Consulate say that the biggest problem facing day laborers is wage theft.  “Wage theft is so prevalent,” said Mr. Ray.  “They actually tell people, ‘You are illegal and I am not going to pay you.’”  The organization cited a study of 2,700 workers by professors at University of California at Los Angeles that found that nearly half of day laborers were deprived of wages in the last two months.

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