A U.S. Border Patrol official confirmed Tuesday that agents investigating human smuggling on commercial bus lines arrested more than 100 illegal immigrants in the Twin falls area over the past week.

That figure does not include unconfirmed reports that agents detained a number of immigrants at other locations in the Magic Valley, such as a supermarket and a bank.

The operation stemmed from a tip from Greyhound bus officials who said local bus stations were being used by illegal immigrants to roam the country while circumventing local law enforcement, the agency said in a written statement.

"We did receive information of individuals possibly involved in human smuggling," said Alex Harrington, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"Most of these folks were not from Twin Falls. I don't know the main reason why they selected Twin Falls," as a hub, Harrington said. "But with the increase of agents on the southern border (of the United States) there have been concerns that some of the smuggling traffic is moving up north."

Greyhound officials had complained to local Border Patrol agents that sometimes a single person would purchase more than 10 tickets at once. That led Border Patrol agents to suspect human smugglers were using the local station as a hub to move illegal immigrants across the U.S.

In one instance, about 20 illegals were dropped at a local Greyhound station by two vans with Oregon plates. All were headed to Orlando, Fla. Other illegal immigrants had tickets to Denver, Chicago, Laredo, Tex., Portland, Ore., Seattle and Salt Lake City. An estimated 25 percent have criminal records, Harrington said.

Local Hispanic activists have branded the sweep as racial profiling, and have organized a meeting on the subject at St. Edward's The Confessor in Twin Falls at 7 p.m. today.

It remains unclear how agents approached passengers on the busses, but Harrington said, "We don't do profiling."

Harrington said the ongoing operation is not coordinated with repeated strikes over the past week by immigration agents at other locations, including malls and a bank. He said he was unaware of other operations in the area.

A WinCo Foods spokesman said Monday that on "several occasions" over the past week immigration agents have detained "a number" of illegal immigrants at the store on Blue Lakes Boulevard North, though the store management was not involved of the action. The supermarket's clientele includes many Hispanics.

But Ben Reed, a personality on the Rupert-based La Fantastica Spanish language radio station, said many Hispanics feel "frustrated" with the store's response.

"It's reflecting the frustration of a lot of people within the Hispanic community that certain businesses have granted - we feel - undue access to (immigration) agents," Reed said.

Reed said one of the raids at WinCo drove fleeing illegal immigrants into the stockroom. Agents later hauled them out. The most recent raid at WinCo, he said, happened Monday night.

Lorie Dankers, spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the northwestern area of responsibility, which oversees the interior U.S., said she did not know if ICE agents have launched an operation at WinCo.

"We do very targeted investigations and we might have an investigation there," Dankers said. "I can categorically deny that we would randomly arrest or apprehend individuals at this grocery store or any location. This runs contrary to the way we would do business."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cass Friedman can be reached at 735-3241 or cfriedman@magicvalley.com