Hmmm...this is bad. Is this the car wash blues? Is this what we could face down the road if they shove that car wash into the Exxon station at Woodside and Montgomery? Can you believe the Bryn Mawr car wash involved in something like this? WOW. Are we all to assume that this is the car wash in Bryn Mawr that has changed hands several times, that started out as "White Glove"? This is not good.

This is the second case that has had Fed attention in the recent past. Remember Ardmore in April? When a case of a battered woman in Ardmore led to the discovery of some sort of illegal alien ring only a few blocks from downtown Ardmore?

Illegal aliens, and the case for them pro and con is nothing new in this country, but it is new to hear things happening right where we live.

What does that say about us as a society? These illegal aliens often live in squalid conditions and make sub-standard wages. Yet, they are willing to put up with it in order to get their chance at a better life, and a slice of the pie that is the "American Dream".

Yet does the "American Dream" even exist anymore? Around here sometimes you have to wonder when all we see is the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. Interesting.

Car-wash franchise charged in undocumented-worker case
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN
Philadelphia Daily News
215-854-2656

A federal grand jury yesterday charged a Horsham-based car-wash franchise and five of its managers with conspiracy to defraud the government, to harbor undocumented workers and to commit identity theft.

Authorities said that Car Care Inc., which operated full-service car washes in Norristown, Flourtown, Bryn Mawr and Cherry Hill, engaged in a scheme from 2000 to March 2006 to hire undocumented workers by giving them false names and a way to cash their checks at local banks without showing identification.

The indictment said that Car Care managers gave banks a list of employees authorized to cash paychecks and they weren't required to show any identification other than wearing T-shirts or sweatshirts bearing the Car Care logo.....The indictment also charged that, through January 2006, Car Care, a subsidiary of Mount Laurel-based Mace Security International Inc., used names and social-security numbers of former employees and regularly submitted earnings reports for those undocumented workers to the IRS and state agencies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan said that on any given day, up to 90 percent of the workers at the four car washes were undocumented workers and most were paid minimum wage or better.

Car Care took extraordinary steps to evade scrutiny by authorities, the indictment charged.....A lawyer for Car Care couldn't be reached for comment.

Authorities said that as many as 57 undocumented workers were being processed by ICE and 14 have already been deported.

Courier Post: 2 South Jersey men charged in probe of car-wash firm
Courier-Post staff • May 9, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — A car-wash firm and five of its managers, including two South Jersey men, are accused of conspiring to hire illegal immigrants and other offenses.

"We're not talking here about a few illegal workers who slipped through the cracks," U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan said Thursday of the allegations against Car Care Inc., a subsidiary of Mount Laurel-based Mace Security International.

"To the contrary, dozens of illegal workers made up the majority of Car Care's work force at these locations," Meehan said

The previous issue with illegal aliens in Ardmore from April:

KYW News Radio: 2 Charged With Human Trafficking in Ardmore Area
by KYW's Tony Hanson

Federal authorities in Philadelphia have indicted two men, both illegal aliens, on charges that they smuggled six other people including children into the Montgomery County area for cash, and then enslaved some of those who could not pay.

The alleged scheme came to light when one of the smuggled women was beaten and went to police despite threats against her and her family.

US attorney Patrick Meehan says the defendants -- one from Mexico, the other Honduras -- demanded a fee of $2,500 to $7,000 each to smuggle the six across the Mexican border and into the Ardmore area.

Meehan says some of the illegal immigrants paid in full, but three others were forced into servitude....Meehan says a 33-year-old woman, a Honduran national trying to raise money for four children at home, was ordered into prostitution. She refused, and after a beating she went to police in Lower Merion

Feds say Ardmore duo smuggled & held aliens, extorted $
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN
Philadelphia Daily News
215-854-2656

Two illegal immigrants living in Ardmore were charged yesterday with smuggling six illegal aliens into the country last October and then extorting money from them to pay smuggling debts.

Federal authorities charge that Elvis Nuricumbo-Pena, a Mexican national, and an unidentified driver transported the illegals - five males and one woman - by van from a safe house in Phoenix, Ariz., to a one-bedroom apartment in Ardmore that Nuricumbo-Pena shared with Marubeny Martinez-Oliveth, a Honduran national. Four of the illegals lived with the defendants from last October to January.

Each of the illegals, except for Martinez-Oliveth's 13-year-old son, was required to pay a smuggling fee ranging from $2,500 to $7,000 to the defendants.

Two illegals had paid $7,500 each up front and were released upon their arrival here. They lived in a different Ardmore apartment. The other four paid partial fees or none at all and slept on mats in the living room of the defendants' apartment.

The indictment said that the illegals had been given fake green cards and other phony credentials so they could get jobs, pay debts and pay for food and lodging. Authorities cracked the case, U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan said, after the defendants twice assaulted one of the illegals