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JT

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Men Plead Guilty To Smuggling 50 Immigrants Into L.A. Harbor

Friday, October 29, 2004

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two men pleaded guilty to smuggling 50 Mexican nationals into the United States by crowding them into the small cabin of a rented luxury yacht, the Department of Homeland Security said.

On Oct.18, Gregory Ray LaBono, 48, of Lomita and 21-year-old tropical-fish dealer Vernon Eugene Siegel of Big Pine, Fla., each admitted to one felony count of conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien to enter the United States, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

Their 44-foot yacht was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard near an entrance to Los Angeles Harbor on Aug. 30.

The men face up to 10 years in prison. Their sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 10.

Customs officials said the case shows the increasing desperation of smugglers because of increased border security in Arizona and Southern California.

The immigrants, who were packed into an area designed to sleep eight people, were near the end of a daylong journey from the Mexican port city of Ensenada, officials said. They included a 3-year-old boy and a woman in the last month of pregnancy.

The immigrants told investigators they had paid $3,000 each for the trip, Kice said.
 

CoralDemon

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What is with these fish people and illegal's??My brother works for INS.I know for fact(and so does my brother, hehe) a few of the wholesaler's on 104th and elsewhere hire a lot of illegal's. Cheap labor I guess, but that can nip them in the but one day.
 

Kalkbreath

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Its more then just cheap pay ............Americans dont bust their but anymore. The amount of fast paced manual labor involved in reoxing and landing fish is tremendous.
Mexicans are the back bone of the current American labor force.
Landscaping
Construction
Agriculture
Pet fish
Without them U.S.business would have to relay on Bevis and but head to pull the load.
Even at 19.50 and hour I doubt "real" Americans could do the work as quickly or as thoroughly............as our migrant friends
 

clarionreef

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Huh?
The best fish packers in the US are Latinos in LA.
This is not even debatable.
[ The worst are in the Florida Keys...]
Dozens of times, my own guys were embarrassed to tell the Cacasoid retailer that he just picked a one eyed angel or a raised scale butterfly. I'd tell Jose to just switch it for a good one when he wasn't looking.[ to protect the ego] Often, we'd offer to find him a better one and make it a gentle suggestion.
Picking and packing more fish in a day then most retailers do in a month or two gives one a great deal more experience....whatever country you come from.
Packing from noon til midnite w/ little stress and few breaks is something that my own cultural brethren are not very good at in my experience.
A packer can either "dog-em' or take care of em"... depending on the character, the track record and the sensitivity of the customer....not to mention the 'signal' from the non Latino boss.
A local joke was that w/out the local retailers...we'd never get rid of the poorer quality fish because we'd never ship out some of the junk they would pick freely...weekly.
We'd never order or sell coral feeders or coral nudibranchs for example...but if they came in, the local retailers would take em because they were pretty and may sell quick.
We'd never pick skinny fish to go out but the local retailers would.... pretty color.....and the cheapest price possible were their dominant concern.
Attitude of the fish, the quick-twitch flight display, the smoothness around the belly wall, the slight, imperceptable hint of a raised scale....all this was lost on the mass of 'light skinned' customers in their frenzy to grab the most easily sold livestock.
In my experience...if you want bad fish...hire Honkeys to do all the packing. They'll whine more, want more and do less. If high end retail owners think they could do the job better and for $10. hr they're being silly.


Steve
[Honkey...by birth. Niether proud nor ashamed of it]

PS. Wether the fish were net caught or not was and still is the least
concern any retailer ever had.
 

JeremyR

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Sometimes I think you post purely for the benefit of reading it later (like talking just to hear yourself speak).
 

clarionreef

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Hey Dude,
I didn't have you in mind when posting.
There are plenty more in LA who fit the profile .
Snobbish, arrogant Anglos who have no clue as to how marinelife comes to their showroom floor are incompetent to work at all levels in this industry and should cool it when dissing others.
Especially others in the different levels and cultures.
Steve
 

JeremyR

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I guess my point is that hiring illegals who have no experience and don't know what they are bagging cannot be justified no matter how much harder they work or how cheap they are. A person of mexican descent who is in the country legally and is properly trained and knows fish better than the stores buying them is fne.. but just because everyone else does it and they work harder for peanuts doesn't make it ethical, and I whould shed no tears for any business that gets busted for doing so. There are many industries that need to be broken of this behavior, and if the end result of that is higher prices.. so be it.
 

clarionreef

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Being Latino does not equal illegal and undocumented.
Wholesalers all have to verify employee status in order to hire them.
If there are any shennanigans, its 100% the responsibility and RISK of the front office.
If fish are processed poorly, its likewise 100% the responsibility and the fault of the company...and very few are run by Latinos.
Remember ; legal good...illegal bad....Far and away, most are LEGAL.
Confusing the two may reveal that one is listening to too much reactionary talk-radio.
Steve
 

JT

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There are plenty of Latinos on 104th who know what they are doing and who I have alot of respect for. But, there's also the same number that don't have a clue. Illegal, Legal? No clue.

Same thing applies to Americans and Asians.

Hands down, when it comes to bagging product quickly and properly, the Latino work force in the LA area can't be beat.
 

dizzy

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Hey JT don't forget to give the Latinas some credit too. Sometimes my orders are just right and sometimes there is way too much water in the bags. Proper shipping procedures really need to be studied and standarized. Excessive water in the bags adds needless cost and does little or nothing to reduce DOA. Anyone that has been in the industry for any length of time realizes this. Hasta la vista.
Mitch
 

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