A two-year investigation of a 2,000-acre property in Humboldt County's Lost River area, Operation Southern Sweep went above ground this week as an invading force of 450 federal and state agents descended in convoys of as many as 200 vehicles on California's famed Emerald Triangle pot-growing region. No arrests have been reported yet, but 10,000 marijuana plants were allegedly confiscated during 29 different raids in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.

On June 11 and 12, ICE agents from the Rhode Island Fugitive Operations Team arrested 42 immigrants from Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico in the areas of Newport and Middletown, Rhode Island. Half of those arrested—21 people—were identified by ICE as immigration "fugitives" (people who had failed to comply with prior deportation orders). Another 12 were described as people who had reentered the US after being previously removed, while nine merely lacked authorization to be in the US.

On June 10, sheriff's deputies in Maricopa County, Ariz., raided two water parks in the Phoenix area and arrested nine workers on charges of suspicion of identity theft and using forged documents to obtain employment. The raid followed a four-month investigation of hiring practices at the sites. The operation is being seen as a test case for a law that went into effect in Arizona in January 2008 which allows the state to suspend or revoke business licenses of employers who "knowingly" hire unauthorized workers.

On June 9, Sun Valley Floral Farms in northern California's Humboldt County fired 283 employees after a letter from ICE informed the company that the workers are not eligible to work in the US because their Social Security numbers do not match government records. More than half of the company's workforce was laid off, according to Sun Valley Group CEO Lane DeVries. "It's like a neutron bomb hitting our company," DeVries said. "Some of these people worked with us for 17 years. Some were team leaders for 10 or 12 years. This is very devastating to the people involved."

On June 4, ICE agents executed a federal search warrant at the business office of Boss 4 Packing in Heber, California, a locally-owned company that provides contract workers to farms in southern California's Imperial Valley. The search warrant remains under seal. Agents arrested two of the company's foremen on federal criminal charges for misusing Social Security numbers to employ unauthorized workers. One was arrested at his home near Brawley, California, while the other was arrested working in a nearby field. ICE also arrested 32 Boss 4 Packing employees—seven women and 25 men—on administrative immigration violations. Most of the workers were arrested in the Brawley area.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 77 Nigerians and six Albanians on a flight that left Niagara Falls International Airport in upstate New York on June 4 headed for Albania and Nigeria. The immigrants removed on the flight had been held at various detention facilities around the US; they were brought to the Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York, shortly before the flight. ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Flight Operations Unit arranged the contract flight. ICE reported that "the majority of those removed had criminal histories and convictions" in the US.

On June 11, Indian workers who say they were forced into involuntary servitude under the H-2B visa program rallied in front of the Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters in Washington to demand that they be allowed to remain in the US to participate in a DOJ investigation into labor trafficking. A group of the workers had been carrying out a hunger strike in Washington since May 14, demanding congressional hearings into abuses of guest workers, talks between the US and Indian governments to protect future guest workers, and "continued presence" status under the Trafficking and Victims Protection Act so they can remain in the US and pursue their case.

In a brief Associated Press account of the sentencing of supposed ELF operative Briana Waters, the New York Times June 20 uncritically uses the loaded term "ecoterrorist" in the headline. If you actually read the blurb, it turns out she is accused of serving as a look-out in an arson attack on a research center at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens. Nobody was killed, nobody was injured. Was this an act of "terrorism"?