June 21, 2000

Feds’ Fun With Foreigners Quiz

The federal government likes to come up with clever — and not-so-PC — code names for its anti-illegal immigration campaigns. Can you tell which code names are real?

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1. Which of the following “unsanitary” INS operations was real?

A) Operation Dirty Laundry: An INS crackdown on Mexican illegal immigrants who were being smuggled into Southern California ports on board vessels carrying seized counterfeit clothing.

B) Operation Clean Sheets: A 1997 raid by the INS of nearly 100 hotels to ferret out undocumented workers, most of whom were Mexicans.

C) Operation No Borscht for You: A 1990 federal investigation into a rash of food poisoning in the Russian District of Los Angeles, where an estimated 250 illegal immigrants were working in the local food markets.

D) None of the above.

2. The 1988 operation to round up a wave of Jamaican immigrants who allegedly were running a criminal empire of guns and drugs was called:

A) Operation Deadly Dreadlocks

B) Operation Going, Going, Ganja

C) Operation Rum Punch

D) Operation Rasta-Mañana

E) Operation Redeye Reduction

3. Which of the following “dragon-related” missions involving Chinese people was not real?

A) Operation Sea Dragon: An operation to stop boatloads of illegal Chinese immigrants from being smuggled into US shores.

B) Operation Dragon Fire: A crackdown on Chinese weapons smuggling at the Port of Oakland, California.

C) Operation Dragon Eye: A mission to capture middle-class Chinese people who tried to circumvent immigration laws by fraudulently applying for amnesty under the seasonal agricultural-worker program.

D) Operation Draggin’ Ass: A purge of Chinese citizens who were brought over on H-1B visas to work in the high-tech industry but who, because of health-related issues, were not pulling their weight in the workplace.

4. “Operation Rising Sun” — a federal campaign to stop a nationwide Asian-American crime network — got its name because it involved the arrest of illegal immigrants from where?

A) Japan

B) Vietnam

C) China

D) All of the above

5. “Operation Hot Sauce” — a 1993 INS raid of two businesses in New Mexico that employed illegal immigrants — was one of several federal missions that targeted Latino immigrants. What was another?

A) Operation Chihuahua

B) Operation Tequila

C) Operation Piñata

D) Operation We Don’t Need No Steenking Green Cards

6. The INS’s 1998 operation to deport immigrants in New Mexico who had 3 or more D.U.I. violations was decried by some civil-rights activists as invasive and discriminatory. This operation was called:

A) Operation Designated Drive-out

B) Operation None for the Road

C) Operation Last Call

D) Operation Thirsty Sanchez

Are those your final answers? Click the button and find our if you’re INS material.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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