From this morning’s Houston Chronicle:

The operation was the latest in a series of high-profile raids launched by immigration officers, then publicized in Washington, in an effort to convince employers and the public that hiring illegal workers carries a substantial risk.

Most recently, nearly 1,300 illegal workers were arrested in December at Swift meat processing plants in six states, including Texas. In April, managers at IFCO Systems, a German company with U.S. headquarters in Houston, was charged with harboring illegal aliens, and nearly 1,200 immigrants were detained. Overall, the agency said, its agents have made 716 criminal workplace arrests in 2006, up from just 25 in 2002.

In Houston, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested seven Guatemalans at Dave & Buster’s restaurant.

When I was in college in Houston, I bartended at a Bennigan’s near downtown. Almost our entire kitchen staff was from Guatemala. I played goalie on our team’s soccer team in a Guatemalan soccer league in southwest Houston. Many of the guys I played and worked with were here illegally. It was not a big secret.

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Of course pro-illegal immigratnt advocacy groups are up in arms about the latest raids:

“This far-reaching raid and others like it have disrupted lives and entire communities,” said a statement from the Fair Immigration Reform Movement

Actually, disrupting their lives is the entire point of the raids. And if their communites are comprised mostly of other illegal immigrants, than their lives need to be disrupted all the way back across the border.