Pizzeria owner admits hiring illegal workers, but felony case dropped

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times
08/31/2009

HAYWARD — Prosecutors have dropped felony charges against a pizzeria owner they had accused of harboring illegal immigrants at his Hayward restaurant.

Glenio Silva, owner of the Pizza House, pleaded guilty Thursday to the lesser charge of hiring illegal workers.

Judge Jeffrey White compared the case to an elephant that was downgraded to a mouse, and sentenced Silva to two weeks in jail and a $2,500 fine. Silva also faces five years of probation.

"The government thought they had this huge alien smuggler in Mr. Silva," said Steve Gruel, the restaurateur's lawyer. "Basically, they got it wrong."

Federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Silva's restaurants in Hayward and San Francisco in June 2007. They arrested him and some of his employees who were Brazilians living and working in the country illegally.

Silva let some of the workers live above his restaurants, which he attributed to his generosity but authorities said showed he was exploiting an illegal workforce.

The agency accused Silva of paying the workers cash to conceal their illegal employment and to avoid paying payroll taxes.

The investigation was sparked by tips by Silvano Santos, a former manager at Monterey Pizza restaurant in San Francisco. Silva had recently fired Santos, who is also an illegal immigrant, after accusing him of stealing money.

Gruel said many of Santos' claims were wrong. Gruel said Silva had nothing to do with the bogus documents that illegal workers acquired to find work at his business.

Although Silva is a legal immigrant, the five felony charges against him could have jailed him for years and led to deportation.

Prosecutors felt the plea agreement was appropriate, said Jack Gillund, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. Gruel, a former federal prosecutor, portrayed the raids as unfair, since illegal immigrants are employed by small and large-scale businesses throughout the region and rarely are the employers saddled with federal investigations.

"I hope we see a fairer application of the law as opposed to going for the low-hanging fruit," Gruel said. "Mr. Silva was an easy target."

Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration promised crackdowns on employers who profit from keeping illegal workers, but prosecutors often find pursuing criminal cases against employers difficult.

The raid on Silva's restaurants was one of a handful of high-profile raids in recent years targeting Bay Area workplaces that employ illegal immigrants.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/crime/ci_13240818?nclick_check=1

Immigrant mothers of infants not being deported

Immigrant mothers of infants not being deported
By Liz Mineo/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Posted Dec 14, 2008

Two women who were arrested on Immigration and Customs Enforcement warrants nearly two weeks ago and then released on court supervision may be examples of new guidelines by the agency for identifying humanitarian concerns when arresting illegal immigrants.

The women, Flaviane Aldria Levindo-Morais, 23, and Estael Fernandes Gomes, 29, are mothers of infant children, according to sources close to them. Neither Levindo-Morais nor Gomes could be reached for comment. Nobody answered when a visitor knocked on their residences' doors in downtown Framingham Wednesday afternoon.

Both women were released from ICE custody on orders of supervision a few hours after their arrests, said Paula Grenier, a spokesman with ICE in Boston. In most cases, people arrested on ICE warrants are taken into ICE custody and placed in detention centers while they wait to be deported.

Citing confidentiality issues, Grenier said she couldn't comment on the reasons or the conditions of the release of both Levindo-Morais and Gomes. They are not wearing electronic monitoring devices, she said, but they have to abide by conditions set by ICE.

"It'd be inappropriate for ICE to give specific details on the conditions that allowed them to be released from ICE custody," said Grenier. "But they're required to abide by those conditions."

Both Levindo-Morais and Gomes had been ordered deported by an immigration judge and had stayed in the country in violation of those order of removals, said Grenier. Because they had already been deported, they don't face deportation proceedings, but impending removal.

"The next step is removal," she said. "The bottom line is that they were ordered removed, and ICE's job is to carry out the judge's orders."

As to whether the women were released on humanitarian concerns, Grenier declined to comment.

Everybody who is taken into custody has the opportunity to raise those concerns to ICE officers, she said, and ICE officers take those concerns seriously regardless of the gender of those arrested, she said.

According to immigrant advocates, that wasn't always the case.

"Before the New Bedford raids, ICE agents would arrest people without checking on whether they had young children," said Fausto da Rocha, who runs the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston. "After the New Bedford raids, ICE agents became more human."

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x433389159/Immigrant-mothers-of-infants-not-being-deported