Police in Louisiana admitted that they had asked immigration agents to check the papers of several groups of Latinos who have helped to clean up the coastline after the oil spill.

The police of St. Bernard Parish, the county where this occurred, confirmed on Tuesday that they had been in contact with ICE to make sure it checked documents in May.

The Sheriff of St. Bernard Parish, Jack A. Stephens, requested that ICE visit the area "to investigate reports that illegal immigrants were among those who were helping to clean up the oil, as part of a general effort to prevent the entrance of criminals into the country under the guise of legitimate labor," according to a press release.

 The police distributed the press release after receiving various phone calls from reporters for Colorlines and other media outlets, which had learned of ICE's visit when El Diario /La Prensa first published news of the event.

"Ever since the oil spill we have been worried about the possibility of criminals trying to enter the country with the intention of establishing criminal networks," said Stephens. "That happened after Hurricane Katrina and we don't want it to happen again."

ICE visited two of the largest cleanup sites in May: Hopedale and Venice Beach, where efforts are underway to protect the coastline from the petroleum that has been leaking from British Petroleum's burst pipeline since April 20th. ICE did not make any arrests because all of the workers had their papers in order.

 A spokesperson for ICE in Washington D.C. corroborated the facts. "In response to requests from local police and the private sector, ICE carried out training sessions on the requirements of working legally. They also asked ICE to carry out background checks to make sure that everyone had the proper documents, and everyone did," said Richard Rocha in a press release.

Previously, in an interview with this newspaper, the spokesperson for ICE operations in Louisiana, Temple Black, said that the reason for ICE's visits was "to assure that legal workers could compete for these jobs."

"They are trying to protect jobs for the locals," asserted Casey Keiff, a fisherman in Hopedale. "I agree that they should check the immigration status of the people that are working. I don't know what to say about the suggestion that they are criminals," he added.

The majority of the Latinos who are working at the cleanup sites are employees of Tamara's Group, a subcontracting company with headquarters in New Orleans. The owner, a Colombian woman named Martha Mosquera, confirmed that all of her employees are legally working for the contractor Oil Mop.

"We are all legal. We are residents. We are American citizens. It's not fair that they might have thought otherwise," said Mirna Alvayero, a Salvadoran who supervised a team of laborers in Hopedale whose papers were checked.

She continued, "Here, we are the only women, and all of the companies admire us because the work is taxing." With regards to Sherriff Jackson, she said, "Hopefully that man will realize that we work very hard."

The Sherriff said his office has set up checkpoints throughout the areas affected by the oil spill.