Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

5/11/00 News Report -- Associated Press

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Fifty illegal immigrants from Mexico were seized and their employer arrested when they attempted to enter Jacksonville Naval Air Station to lay television cable.

The group - 49 men and a 17-year-old boy - were stopped by Navy personnel Wednesday. The personnel called the Border Patrol when the men could not speak English and only three had green cards. Those cards turned out to be fraudulently obtained, officials said.

Their boss, Jose Manuel Rodriguez, 27, was arrested on bad check warrant.

The illegal immigrants were placed on a bus and taken back to Mexico.

Enrique Romero, an aide for the Mexican consulate in Orlando, said the men had been promised $1 a yard to dig trenches and install cable and were still owed $26,000 by Rodriguez.

Some had paid about $1,000 in smuggling fees to come to the United States and some had just began working this week, he said.

"It's hard to listen to a young man who has to pay so much money to get into the U.S. to leave empty handed," Romero said.

MediaOne, the cable television company that hired Rodriguez, doesn't supervise its subcontractors but has an agreement with them that they will not hire illegal immigrants, spokeswoman Ann Murphy said.

"We are as concerned as anyone right now, and we will act accordingly when we get the facts," she said.