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Cop finds Mexicans, rips system
Lt. Mark Kavakich said that when he responded 4:30 p.m. to an accident involving a tractor trailer at the Pilot truck stop near Interstate 70, he discovered a van full of possible illegal immigrants.
Kavakich said he was talking to the trucker involved in the accident when two hispanic men walked out of the store and began acting suspicious.
"They gave me the old 'deer in the headlights' look," Kavakich said.
After handling the vehicle accident, Kavakich noticed another person hiding behind an orange van bearing a Pennsylvania license plate that was parked behind the truck stop.
The officer then discovered a group of hispanics hiding in the van.
"We found 13 illegal Mexicans and hispanics, 11 males and two females, ages 20 to 50," Kavakich said. "None of them spoke English."
With the help of a bilingual police officer from a neighboring police department, Kavakich questioned the van driver and passengers.
Among many conflicting stories offered by the passengers, Kavakich said the driver told him he was hired to pick up the people and drop them off in the New York area.
The lieutenant said the van passed a full police inspection and that neither the passengers nor the driver had weapons.
Kavakich said police were not able to contact the vehicle owner, so he called the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Pittsburgh.
An agent at the service surprised Kavakich when he told the police officer to release the bunch.
"All he said was, 'It sounds like you've got a bunch of wetbacks looking for jobs,'" Kavakich said. "He said, 'We're not looking for Mexicans.'"
With most police officers intensely aware of possible domestic terror threats, Kavakich was left confused by the INS response.
"Who's to say there's not an al-Qaeda link to Mexico?" Kavakich said.
Kavakich said he faced a nearly identical scenario at the truck stop in October 2001.
"There were 13 illegal immigrants in a van then," Kavakich said. "(INS) detained every one of them."
Kavakich said he was infuriated with the decision.
"This homeland security is a joke," he said. "You could have had 13 people in the van that were ready to commit suicide. This just proves that the U.S. is getting lax in its security.
"I'm just thoroughly disappointed with the federal government's stance on this kind of stuff."
Attempts to reach the INS agent who handled Kavakich's call were unsuccessful. An INS spokeswoman in Pittsburgh referred calls to the INS office in Philadelphia.
The public affairs spokesman in Philadelphia was not available for comment.
