UNION TOWNSHIP - Officials think a packaging-plant bust Wednesday of 129 suspected illegal aliens proves that Midwestern cities like Cincinnati have become a new mecca for migrants.
''For 1997, we have already doubled the number of apprehensions in our office in all of 1996 and if you throw in what happened on Wednesday, we have quadrupled 1996 apprehensions,'' said William J. Ring, officer in charge of the Cincinnati office of Immigration and Naturalization Service.
''You don't need to know rocket science to figure out what that means. We'd like to see it stopped, and we're hopeful we can stop it.''
More than 100 local police and federal immigration agents swept into the large Chesapeake Display and Packaging Co. warehouse on Independence Boulevard in Butler County's Union Township and charged 129 workers from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras with being illegal aliens.
Federal officials said Thursday that 53 were juveniles. The juveniles and 29 adults related to them were released on Wednesday after promising to return for expulsion hearings.
Robert Brown, INS agent for all of Ohio, said more illegal aliens are arriving here and in other Midwestern states because of decent wages and good working conditions.
''They send the word back and if a family, friend or relative knows there's a job opportunity, they come,'' Mr. Brown said.
Officials seek voluntary expulsions because the cost of deportations through court order is high, he said.
''In 1994, the average cost to remove somebody from the interior of the U.S. was $2,500,'' he said. ''It is very expensive.''
Roy Schremp, supervisory special agent with the INS based in Louisville, said Kentucky apprehensions are also on the rise. Figures were not available, he said.
Don Harrison, assistant district director of the U.S. Labor Department based in Cincinnati, sees the high percentage of juveniles apprehended in West Chester as a trend.
''This was unusual,'' he said. ''Why so many young ones? Is it because juveniles will be released into the custody of their parents and the adult must then be released? It makes you wonder if the smugglers are focusing on younger ones.''
Officials at AccuStaff, the Jacksonville, Fla., firm accused of hiring the illegal aliens to work in West Chester, said Friday they may have been duped by phony Social Security cards.
''This last week has been full of surprises. I don't know that there were 12- or 13- year-olds hired,'' said Marc Mayo, senior vice president of AccuStaff.
COMPANY DEFENDS PRACTICES
HISPANICS HERE A LONG TIME, BUT FEW NOTICED Krista Ramsey column
Previous stories
FIRM FACES U.S. PROBE; TAX DEAL UNDER FIRE August 8, 1997
53 JUVENILES, 29 OTHERS IN RAID FREED August 8, 1997
LOWER PRICE HILL DRAWS IMMIGRANTS August 7, 1997
FEDS ARREST 117 WORKERS AS ILLEGALS August 7, 1997
