Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Russian parents with their two children.
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  • A Russian woman admires her newborn with her daughter.
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  • A Koryak man dries fish in his summer camp that will feed his family through the winter. Koryaks are an indigenous people of Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, who inhabit the coastlands of the Bering Sea to the south of the Anadyr basin and the country to the immediate north of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The koryak are typically split into two groups. The coastal people Nemelan (or Nymylan) meaning ‘village dwellers’ due to their sedentary fishing habits and the inland Koryaks, reindeer herders called Chauchen (or Chauchven) meaning ‘rich in reindeer’ who are more nomadic.
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  • A bride and groom prepare to take their wedding vows at the Khailino town hall.  The groom wiped sweat off his face just before the “I do” moment.  The group in the background is getting ready to record their footprints as a married couple for posterity in a Russian tradition.
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  • After the official ceremony at the Khailino town hall, the newly married couple is followed by the wedding party to visit everyone in town who could not leave their houses to attend the three-day party.  <br />
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Following Russian traditions, they drink a shot of vodka with each shut-in and share a little food, then go to the next home to visit other Kamchatka neighbors who are too elderly or infirm to participate in the event.
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  • The main fish market street in Petropavlovsk sells Pacific Steelhead, which has been on the Russian Red Book of endangered species since 1983. Even though military, police, and government officials charge through this street all day long, and it is illegal, this endangered salmon is sold with impunity.
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  • The remote town of Oktyabrsky.<br />
is small town built on the fish industry on the west coast of Kamchatka or the mouth of the Bolshaya River in the Ust Bolsheretsk district. The Russian community was founded solely because of fishing, and the population of a little over 2,000 doubles in the summer.
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  • A fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River.<br />
Russian boats are so loaded with fish that they barely clear the surface of the water. These fishermen are fighting against time while the tide is out. When the ocean tide is high and coming in to the Bolshaya, it pushes their nets closed.
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  • The grooms antics amuse the bride during a wedding reception in Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia. It is important to note that some of the theater of this wedding happened because it is Russian tradition. The community has endured great hardship and a people who have adjusted to being really kind to each other to all survive together.
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  • Young girls are dressed in their finest for a wedding celebration in a remote village. Their families are some of the industrious people who came to Kamchatka for “northern money” had to scramble when default happened, and they survived with no state money.  Highly valued Russian caviar was their only resource between 1995 and 2005.
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  • Leopard-skin high-heeled shoes are worn by a bridesmaid  at the port in Petropavlovsk, second largest port in the world. Fish go out and inexpensive Chinese shoes come in. <br />
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The Russian port has a deep, flat bottom and a well-protected entrance, and is the location of a major submarine base. The port at Petropavlovsk is where 30 percent of all the fish in Russia are shipped out – all production goes down the east side of the Pacific Rim – to Japan, China and South Korea. Even though the port is thriving, Petropavlovsk lost 30 percent of its population in the 90s after default and is still in slow decline.
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  • Russian Dancers in Mingzhu Park during the October holiday.
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  • Residents of a remote village  in Kamchatka rush to meet the supply helicopter. Original inhabitants Khailino are indigenous. Dogs run wild in the street and locals on board a motorcycle race to try to get a woman on board to be taken where she can get medical attention. <br />
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In Northern Kamchatka, indigenous Koryak people and Russians came for “Northern money” when the Soviet Union wanted to tame the area. Income paid was eight times more than a similar job in Moscow, so some people figured out how to get all the necessary permits to work. When default happened, no one in the remote outposts received salaries.  People made a living from salmon caviar and created fishing brigades with distribution systems. Living in a very small community of 700 residents, and the temperatures drop to –40° in the winter, everyone works hard to merely survive and are kind to each other.
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  • A bride's father supplies caviar from his fishing camp. He got enough caviar to feed 200 people at his daughter’s wedding. <br />
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The bride is one quarter indigenous—there is, however, an easy mix between indigenous and white Russians. This family decided to have a wedding although the bride is seven months pregnant. Common-law marriages are the norm among the indigenous people, so the entire town prepared for almost a year for this event.  Most of the decorations were brought in by MI-8 helicopter.  <br />
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Russia wanted to “tame” the salmon zones in Kamchatka, so some moved to the northern communities that were technically war zones with the United States.  To do so, they had to have connections and get permits, then move to where they make eight times what they can in Moscow in government wages. When default happened and their state-subsidized salaries disappeared, all they were left with was the resource—salmon.
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  • Koryak residents of Khailino, Kamchatka, Russia, rush to get their mother to the poacher's helicopter so she can get medical treatment in Petropavlovsk. The poaching situation in these areas allows some individuals to pay for helicopter time and on return trips the helicopter is often empty. If you know poachers it's possible, in this case, to get medical care.
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  • The Federal Immigration Service conducts an early morning raid.
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  • The Federal Immigration Service conducts an early morning raid.
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  • A photographer on assignment in the Moscow Planning Center and Reproduction Maternity Home.
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  • A local indigenous girl inspects the nets while attending a salmon festival.
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  • Local indigenous folk dancers in colorful costumes at a festival.
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  • A statue of Lenin in the main square of the remote town of Oktyabrski.
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  • Sections of an oil and natural gas pipeline is stockpiled near Sobolevo.<br />
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The pipeline cuts through the marine environment, and across the shelf and through many of the salmon rivers in the country. Once completed, this will destroy river environments and open up access roads for more poaching. The new government in Kamchatka is willing to risk the salmon fisheries, which generate 30 percent of all the fish caught in Russia and 40 percent of the income, for a fraction of the natural gas and oil that exists in plentiful amounts elsewhere in Russia. Kamchatka used to be divided into two provinces with two local governments. These were combined recently with the stated objective of resource development. By resources they mean oil and gas drilling on the Kamchatka shelf with a pipeline to the port in PK. The Kamchatka league of independent experts deemed that 70 percent of all rivers crossed by the pipeline are permanently degraded for long-term fish production.
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  • A fishing brigade on the Bolshaya River south of the town of Oktyabrski where men make a fish camp out of a beached, ocean-going vessel.  They are not fishing on this day because it allows time for the fish to spawn, and indigenous communities up river in Kamchatka can fish in the area along the Bolshaya River. <br />
<br />
Fishing brigades use tractors to tow one end of a net and then bring it around full circle in the river to capture the fish. A net is  dumped into small boats that have small nets laid in them. A crane picks up the small nets and dumps them into trucks that take the fish to the processing plants in Ust Bolsheretsk. If fishing was allowed every day in the mouths of these rivers just off the Kamchatka shelf, no salmon would get up river to spawn. There are two “passing days” each week when fishing is banned, so these fishermen hang out in their camp and do their laundry. Some fishermen come from as far as Ulan-Ude, which is on the border with Siberia. One of the fishermen in this photo is from PK, two are from Urilutsk, Siberia, and two are from Oktybrski.
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  • Fish inspectors in surplus tanks get stuck in pursuit of poachers.<br />
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 An anti-poaching enforcement trip starts in Sobolevo, the salmon poaching epicenter. Men ride on tanks and in boats attempting to spot poachers who put out nets to fish–they can see where sediment on the rocks was washed away and a net was dragged. Their suspicions are confirmed when they find spilled caviar. They follow many paths into the woods finding the poacher camp. <br />
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The patrols are just outside Soboleva in the heart of the most poached area of Kamchatka. Soboleva is on the Sea of Okhotsk, just off the Kamchatka shelf and is only accessible by MI-8 helicopter.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • Mother with baby born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • A nurse holds up a newborn for excited family members waiting outside.
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  • A baby is born at the Moscow Planning Center and Maternity Home.
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  • Fish inspectors wade in shallow water are in pursuit of salmon poachers.
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  • Fish inspectors in surplus tanks loaded with a boat and supplies as they pursue salmon poachers who are the greatest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • Fish inspectors drive surplus tanks to pursue salmon poachers who are the biggest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • The commercial Fishing Brigade outside of Sobolevo, Russia, fish the Vorovskaya River, ironically, the same river from which they offload supplies for the pipeline that will eventually destroy their salmon runs.  But at the end of the first big push, their nets are so full of salmon that they can’t immediately load them onto the trucks.  So while fish are in the holding pen, the truck driver has time to play with his dog. <br />
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Commercial fishing is allowed 40 to 60 percent of the fish run every year in Kamchatka.  Poaching can take nearly as much, so on a good year only 20 percent of they fish escape to breed again.
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  • Anti-poaching wardens destroy poacher's caviar processing area.<br />
This is a rare raid of a poaching camp in Kamchatka. There are only four legal fish inspectors in this area for eight major river systems. These rivers emanate from the middle range and flow through the wetlands of western Kamchatka and finally out to the Sea of Okhotsk. Fish inspectors rarely make the 70 bust quota they are required to make per season.
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  • Anti-poaching wardens burn a poachers camp and caviar processing area.<br />
Poachers are the greatest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • Partygoers cheer as the groom searches for his bride's garter.<br />
He lifted the bride and carried her into the warm glowing heart. They danced  and the lights came up and the festivities continued with hands-free-garter-diving in a heart-shaped flaming border of love. It is a tradition in Kamchatka, Russia.
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  • A bride irons a bridesmaid's dress. Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia has not had an event in the last three years. The community mustered up a wedding and invited the entire community. Although the bride was seven months pregnant, she worked doing laundry and ironing for all her brothers and sisters on her wedding day.
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  • A bride and groom deliver food and drink to the villagers that are homebound after their wedding.
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  • Fish inspectors take a break during their pursuit of salmon poachers.<br />
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A warden shares tea with the poachers in their kitchen tent. There are a lot of unwritten rules. Fish wardens know that it costs $10,000 to get into a poaching camp in Kamchatka, and $10,000 to get back out by helicopter with your catch. The wardens understand that if they destroy fishing gear and caviar production facilities, they have harmed their neighbors enough. And they also can’t afford $10,000 to get criminals back by helicopter for prosecution.<br />
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The poachers know this, and know not to bring any kind of identity papers with them because it is possible for them to be prosecuted with their passports.  The kitchen survives the burn so men can feed themselves. The poachers go free, but have to sit and wait for their helicopter, empty handed which is why the wardens don’t burn their kitchen or sleeping areas.
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  • Koryaksky Volcano looms above Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.<br />
Petropavlovsk surrounds the Avacha Bay Port and the nine volcanoes surround Petropavlovsk make a dramatic backdrop for a parking lot in Kamchatka, Russia.
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  • Woman is wrapped in plastic after getting electric stimulation "medical" treatment to lose weight "passively."
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  • Street scene of a military tank under Soviet era communications towers, a child on a bike and resident walking on the unpaved streets of Khailino in Kamchatka.
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  • Young girls in their finest dresses dance as the wedding party in the Khailino town hall that celebrated the first event in several years.
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  • A bride checks her makeup in a mirror as she readies herself for the wedding ceremony.
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  • A horse cart on a road passing an abandoned granary and church.
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  • A scientist studies salmon fry or young fish in the Kol River Biostation.
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  • Scientists study salmon fish in the Kol River Biostation.
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  • Scientists don equipment and carry nets to study salmon fish in the Kol River Biostation.
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  • Anti-poaching wardens burn a poachers camp and caviar processing area.<br />
Poaching is the biggest threat to salmon in Russia.
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  • Rear view mirror inside a car driving down a street in the remote town of Oktyabrsky.
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  • Fish plant worker in a fish processing plant in Oktyabrski, Kamchatka, the town where Soviets built two of the largest fish plants in Russia.
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  • Salmon peek out from containers where caviar is produced in a fishing plant.
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  • A worker catches salmon at a fish camp.
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  • A fisherman hauls in salmon at a fishing camp.
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  • Searching for salmon in a fishing camp where waters reveal a bear carcass.
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  • A bride and groom drive away in a vehicle decorated with balloons as party goers light sparklers to celebrate.
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  • A bride gets ready on her wedding day.
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  • Woman wrapped in plastic after getting electric stimulation treatment for weight loss.
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  • Women dance in a Petropavlovsk nightclub, Nebo Night Club. This club is possible in Yelizovo because the owner owns a fish processing plant and enjoys having his own club where young people like to congregate.
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  • Women dancing in a Petropavlovsk nightclub.
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  • Fish market in Petropavlovsk where locals purchase supplies from workers.
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  • A worker steps over sections of a pipeline being stockpiled near Sobolevo.
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  • Anti-poaching wardens discover and destroy a poachers camp and caviar processing area by setting it on fire to burn.
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  • A worker climbs a ladder beside sections of a pipeline being stockpiled near Sobolevo.
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  • Caviar production area in a fish processing plant.
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  • Residents of Khailino, a remote village, ride a motorcycle with sidecar down the unpaved street under Soviet era communication towers.
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  • A bridge and groom stand before a heart-shaped candles of live that the community of Khailino made to celebrate their wedding. A rare event in Kamchatka, Russia. It was actually as beautiful and touching a scene as I’ve ever experienced though in the setting of a basketball court in a small town on the same latitude as Siberia.
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  • Wedding guests create a heart-shape on the floor with candles to celebrate the big event in Khailino.
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  • Dressed in her finest party dress, a young girl is mesmerized by wedding celebration at a rare event in Kailino in Kamchatka, Russia.
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  • Guests at a wedding reception where the community decorated for the big event.
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  • A bride and groom deliver food and drink and greet shut in villagers in their homes.
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  • As the wedding approaches, a woman pretends she is a bride surrounded by her family.
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  • A boat driver's daughter helps fishermen at a salmon fishing camp.
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  • A dog relaxes in a motorcycle's sidecar.<br />
Kamchatka has remote village life where during the summer, locals race around in ancient former Soviet motorbikes with sidecars. It is normal to see the family dog tagging along.
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  • A woman hangs laundry to dry on a clothesline outside a home.
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  • In Kamchatka, much of the anti-poaching warden’s equipment is provided by WWF and other NGOs to keep the Kurilskoe Lake World Heritage Site poacher free.  But they do not get money for free weights, so wardens strap together  MI-8 and tank parts to use as weight-training equipment. The “weight bench” is a couple of discarded 50-gallon drums for aviation fuel. <br />
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These wardens were brought in from the Sochi area of Russia (Caucus Mountains) so that they would have no local contacts or ties to poaching brigades so they would clean up the area.  Two or three of the wardens are always out on enforcement for over a month at a time. The official salary for a warden is $200 a month, but the WWF supplemented salaries and bought them equipment they need to do the job.
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  • A Kurilskoye Lake Preserve game warden lifting weights he salvaged from scrap MI-8 helicopter parts.
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  • Woman in fish processing plant is:<br />
Nadezhda.
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  • Negotiating bicycles and buggies on a dirt road are part of life in Kjailino, a remote village in Kamchatka.
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  • A bride and groom talk with neighbors as they go through various rituals after their wedding.
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  • A workers hangs onto a rope at a fish plant in Oktyabrsky.
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  • Federal Immigration Service conducts a raid at a construction site.
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  • Federal Immigration Service conducts a raid at a construction site.
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