Some 76 Indonesian nabbed in a recent massive immigration operation launched by the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) have been incarcerated in four prisons in the State of Pennsylvania, namely, Lackawanna, Pike, York and Hudson. Head of the Consular Section of the Indonesian Consulate General (KJRI) here, Bambang Antarikso said the office has so far only met with 31 of them, namely those who are sent to the Lackawanna and Pike prisons, ANTARA reported. "We only get permits from the US Immigration Office to visit the two prisons. Hopefully, the other permits would be issued immediately," Bambang said on Saturday. He said his side met 19 Indonesians in Lackawanna and 12 in Pike. "They are all healthy. Most of them want to go home soon," said Bambang who met with them on Friday. He added some of them asked him to convey messages to their families. "They said they had no time to contact their families and asked me to inform that they are all in a good shape," he added. He said the Consulate General would be ready to help them, mainly on legal affairs. Quoting several of them as saying, Bambang added they have been living illegally in the United States for two to three years. When the raid took place on Tuesday morning, they were all working in the plastics packaging company, Artube Iridium Industries Inc., located at 1 Forge Road, East Stroudsburg, Pennyslvania, some 120 kms west of here. Most of them, he added, lived in East Stroudsburg and the rest dwelled in Scranton and Philadelphia which are situated near East Stroudsburg. The jurisdiction of the Indonesian Consulate General in New York covers 15 states including Pennsylvania. The other states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia. Some 13,000 Indonesians reportedly live in those states.
