Harris Trash has new owners, new name

Harris Trash and Recycling has new owners and a new name.

Terry and Lezlie Hensley are the new owners, and they've renamed the business Get-R-Done Trash Service.

The business is at the same address, 734 N. 13th, and has the same phone number, 823-3996. The mailing address is Box 734, Salina 67402-0734.

The business began its regular pickup routes Tuesday. If anyone is missed, he or she should call the business.

Fugitive immigrants arrested in Kansas

WICHITA -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 48 fugitives in western Kansas as part of a five-day sweep targeting immigrants who had ignored deportation orders or failed to appear for immigration hearings, the agency said Thursday.

The agency's fugitive operations team made 33 arrests in Garden City and 15 in Dodge City in operations ending Tuesday night. The immigrants were from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Vietnam.

ICE said 33 of those arrested had previous criminal convictions.

"Our priority is to go after criminal aliens," ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said in a telephone interview. "With so many criminal aliens, we have to prioritize."

Those arrested had prior convictions for felony abuse of a child, aggravated battery, aggravated burglary, possessing and selling cocaine, aggravated identity theft, forgery, drunken driving, domestic battery, arson, and other crimes.

None of those arrested face new criminal charges, Rusnok said.

Their deportations will take anywhere from a few days to months, depending on their individual cases and countries of origin. Five women and 43 men were arrested.

ICE declined to release their names, citing privacy concerns in immigration cases.

Agents arrested many immigrants at their homes Sunday, a day Hispanics normally set aside to be with their families, said Arturo Ponce, the AIDS prevention coordinator for United Methodist Mexican-American Ministries, which serves communities in western Kansas.

Ponce, who was in Garden City on Tuesday and Wednesday after the sweep, said he immediately knew something had happened because few people were out on the streets or at the clinic where he works.

"People are afraid," Ponce said in Spanish. "It impacts the economy. It impacts health. As for the fear, we cannot measure that factor."

Meatpacking plants in Dodge City and Garden City have drawn huge immigrant populations. But Rusnok said he did not know whether the fugitives arrested were working at the local plants. Most were arrested at their homes.

ICE has 75 so-called fugitive operations teams nationwide to track immigrants who absconded after receiving deportation orders, the agency said. An additional 29 teams were funded in the 2008 budget.

Between Oct. 1 and May 31, the ICE teams arrested 1,167 illegal immigrants in the six-state area, including Kansas, that is covered by the Chicago ICE office. That compares with 1,043 in all of 2006, according to ICE.