Ind. restaurant owner admits illegal hiring
The Associated Press
04/21/2010
SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A northern Indiana restaurant owner who employed four Mexican immigrants killed in a 2006 house fire has pleaded guilty to federal charges of concealing illegal immigrants.
Zhi Jian Jiang, 40, of Sacramento, Calif., faces up to three years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors. His sentencing was scheduled for July 12.
Jiang pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court in South Bend to charges that he hired illegal immigrants from Mexico. None of the charges is related to the Aug. 13, 2006, fire or the deaths.
The blaze broke out around 3:30 a.m. inside a Michigan City house that was near the Fortune House Chinese restaurant where the men worked.
Investigators found mattresses inside closets of the two-story home, and there appeared to be makeshift rooms with spots for about 12 to 15 people to sleep. Authorities aren't sure how many people were in the house when the fire broke out. Witnesses reported seeing some people leave the house.
Officials treated the fire as suspicious after a dog trained to sniff accelerants detected what could have been combustible liquids, but there was no record of any charges being filed. Investigators determined the fire began on the back porch.
No smoke detectors were found in the house.
The victims were identified as Felipe Bustamante Salgoto, 31; Roberto Jiamez Melquiadez, 26; Metodio Reyes Aparicio, 23; and Azael Jiminez Martinez, 23.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14939462
Showing posts with label Expulsion in IN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsion in IN. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Fate of illegal cleaning service workers in limbo
Fate of illegal cleaning service workers in limbo
March 15, 2009
By Andy Grimm
Post-Tribune staff writer
WHITING (IN)-- It has been more than three months since federal authorities arrested 15 illegal immigrants in a raid at the BP plant in Whiting.
Sorting out what becomes of those 15 people, however, may take years.
What, for example, will become of Mario Lanuza, the husband of a legal U.S. resident, who has lived in the U.S. since 1975 and claims immigration officials still are processing the request for residency he filed in 1997?
Lanuza, who at age 18 entered the U.S. from Guatemala, spent three months in federal custody before he was released after pleading guilty to one count of illegally entering the U.S. He returned to his wife and five U.S.-born children last week, and his next immigration hearing is in February.
His wife was laid off from her job Dec. 20, and he is not allowed to work while his case is pending in immigration court. So far, the family has been getting by on his wife's unemployment and donations from the congregation at St. Mary's Catholic Church in East Chicago.
"My children, they have never been (to Guatemala)," he said Friday, as he considered the thought of deportation after more than 30 years in the U.S.
"There, it was like the economy now in America: no jobs, no work," he said. "We come here to work, we don't make very nice money."
The workplace raid that led to Lanuza's arrest Dec. 10 was rare for Chicago, where most immigration arrests come in ones and twos -- the product of traffic stops or immigration warrants targeting individuals, said Guadalupe Ramirez, a staff member at Centro Communitario de Juan Diego, a Latino community center based in Chicago.
"People were scared, because this happened at work, and they were targeting people who came to work," Ramirez said. "People were talking about it; they still are. This doesn't happen here, and you had people on the south side afraid to go to work."
Immigration officials said in December the raid came after a two-year investigation of the cleaning company that employed the workers, United Building Maintenance. No charges had been filed against the Carol Stream, Ill.-based firm or its owners or managers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said Friday. The investigation is ongoing, she said.
The criminal charges against the workers are part of a mandate issued by former President George W. Bush in 2006, during which time the number of workers charged criminally -- rather than placed into deportation hearings in immigration court -- rose from 25 in 2002 to more than 1,000 in 2008.
Roman Torrano-Ramirez had worked for UBM a few months when he was arrested in the raid. A handyman who works construction jobs outdoors during the summer, he and his wife took the jobs, which paid $7.50 an hour, so they would have income during the winter.
Torrano-Ramirez, 49, came to the U.S. from Mexico City 22 years ago, and few of his neighbors in East Chicago knew he was here illegally. UBM hired him even though he had no Social Security number, Torrano-Ramierez said. He said the 15 people arrested with him -- also illegal workers -- represented 90 percent of the employees on his crew.
For his part, Torrano-Ramirez has paid taxes on his wages using a government-issued tax identification number, and had never been in trouble with the law until the December raid. He has two U.S.-born children, and a daughter who came to the U.S. when she was 3 years old and graduated last year from East Chicago Central High School.
"In East Chicago, I was always a person who helped people. Now, I thank everyone who helped my family," he said, rattling off a list of attorneys and community groups.
While he still faces deportation, he believes his record prior to December will mean good news at his February date in immigration court. The lengthy time between hearings, during which he said he cannot work or drive, will be difficult.
"We have been in the shadows all this time, and it is not easy," he said. "I am going to fight for my case and I hope they will hear my case."
Contact Andy Grimm at 648-3073 or agrimm@post-trib.com. Comment on this story at www.post-trib.com
http://www.post-trib.com/news/1477625,immigration-raid-0315.article
March 15, 2009
By Andy Grimm
Post-Tribune staff writer
WHITING (IN)-- It has been more than three months since federal authorities arrested 15 illegal immigrants in a raid at the BP plant in Whiting.
Sorting out what becomes of those 15 people, however, may take years.
What, for example, will become of Mario Lanuza, the husband of a legal U.S. resident, who has lived in the U.S. since 1975 and claims immigration officials still are processing the request for residency he filed in 1997?
Lanuza, who at age 18 entered the U.S. from Guatemala, spent three months in federal custody before he was released after pleading guilty to one count of illegally entering the U.S. He returned to his wife and five U.S.-born children last week, and his next immigration hearing is in February.
His wife was laid off from her job Dec. 20, and he is not allowed to work while his case is pending in immigration court. So far, the family has been getting by on his wife's unemployment and donations from the congregation at St. Mary's Catholic Church in East Chicago.
"My children, they have never been (to Guatemala)," he said Friday, as he considered the thought of deportation after more than 30 years in the U.S.
"There, it was like the economy now in America: no jobs, no work," he said. "We come here to work, we don't make very nice money."
The workplace raid that led to Lanuza's arrest Dec. 10 was rare for Chicago, where most immigration arrests come in ones and twos -- the product of traffic stops or immigration warrants targeting individuals, said Guadalupe Ramirez, a staff member at Centro Communitario de Juan Diego, a Latino community center based in Chicago.
"People were scared, because this happened at work, and they were targeting people who came to work," Ramirez said. "People were talking about it; they still are. This doesn't happen here, and you had people on the south side afraid to go to work."
Immigration officials said in December the raid came after a two-year investigation of the cleaning company that employed the workers, United Building Maintenance. No charges had been filed against the Carol Stream, Ill.-based firm or its owners or managers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said Friday. The investigation is ongoing, she said.
The criminal charges against the workers are part of a mandate issued by former President George W. Bush in 2006, during which time the number of workers charged criminally -- rather than placed into deportation hearings in immigration court -- rose from 25 in 2002 to more than 1,000 in 2008.
Roman Torrano-Ramirez had worked for UBM a few months when he was arrested in the raid. A handyman who works construction jobs outdoors during the summer, he and his wife took the jobs, which paid $7.50 an hour, so they would have income during the winter.
Torrano-Ramirez, 49, came to the U.S. from Mexico City 22 years ago, and few of his neighbors in East Chicago knew he was here illegally. UBM hired him even though he had no Social Security number, Torrano-Ramierez said. He said the 15 people arrested with him -- also illegal workers -- represented 90 percent of the employees on his crew.
For his part, Torrano-Ramirez has paid taxes on his wages using a government-issued tax identification number, and had never been in trouble with the law until the December raid. He has two U.S.-born children, and a daughter who came to the U.S. when she was 3 years old and graduated last year from East Chicago Central High School.
"In East Chicago, I was always a person who helped people. Now, I thank everyone who helped my family," he said, rattling off a list of attorneys and community groups.
While he still faces deportation, he believes his record prior to December will mean good news at his February date in immigration court. The lengthy time between hearings, during which he said he cannot work or drive, will be difficult.
"We have been in the shadows all this time, and it is not easy," he said. "I am going to fight for my case and I hope they will hear my case."
Contact Andy Grimm at 648-3073 or agrimm@post-trib.com. Comment on this story at www.post-trib.com
http://www.post-trib.com/news/1477625,immigration-raid-0315.article
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Migration workers making plans to respond to government raids
By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic Explorer
7/30/2008
While it's probably not imminent, Helen Vasquez and the staff at the Guadalupe Center in Huntingburg, Ind., are getting ready for an immigration raid. With 10,000 Hispanic immigrants in the counties of Dubois, Spencer and Daviess in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind., Vasquez expects that the factories and farms where many of them work are in the cross hairs of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Luz Ostrognai of Fort Wayne, Ind., attends the July 28 opening Mass at the 2008 National Migration Conference in Washington. More than 600 people were expected at the conference addressing a number of current topics related to immigration, pastoral care, refugee resettlement and human trafficking. Ostrognai said she works in immigration services for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
With 10,000 Hispanic immigrants in the counties of Dubois, Spencer and Daviess in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind., Vasquez expects that the factories and farms where many of them work are in the cross hairs of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Vasquez is well aware of the turmoil that families and communities from Massachusetts to California have experienced in the aftermath of recent ICE raids. She's thankful that southwest Indiana has not been targeted yet. But she expects it's only a matter of time before ICE makes its move.
"The potential for a raid is very big," she told Catholic News Service July 29 during the 2008 National Migration Conference in Washington. "So it's very important to us to be prepared."
Vasquez, a retired federal employee who now works as a consultant in family-based immigration, has been among a small contingent of faith-based workers in the area three hours south of Indianapolis who have spent the last year developing a raid-response plan.
Much of their effort has focused on educating members of the largely Salvadoran immigrant population about their constitutional rights, identifying attorneys to handle cases and lining up the necessary paperwork to protect the families and property of undocumented immigrants.
Even though there has been no large-scale raid, anxiety is pervasive among the immigrants Vasquez knows. She said immigrants also have come to distrust local police, who often stop Hispanics to check their immigration status and make arrests for minor traffic violations. In many cases, the arrest is the first step toward deportation, she explained.
Vasquez was on hand for a July 29 workshop led by lawyers from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC, during the migration conference. She wanted to pick up a few pointers as well as share what she has learned with others from across the U.S. who are just starting to write their own raid-response plans.
"Raids are pervasive," Karen Herrling, a staff attorney with CLINIC in Washington, told workshop participants. "They're happening every day in our communities."
Herrling said more raids can be expected, especially as ICE builds its force of fugitive operations teams pursuing undocumented immigrants from 75 teams to 104 by the end of September.
Noting what Herrling called an "explosion" in workplace raids, Ryan Dwyer, policy adviser for Migration and Refugee Services, said the bishops have questioned the effectiveness of such massive actions.
"The bishops' position at this point on raids is that while enforcement of employment eligibility needs to be done we don't believe raids are the most effective or humane way of going about it," he said.
Dwyer outlined a plan seeking broader collaboration with law enforcement officials to minimize the negative impact on families, particularly children, when enforcing immigration laws. He called for alternatives to detention for immigrants who are no threat to society or are not a flight risk, a slowing of court proceedings to allow immigrants to secure appropriate legal representation, and more adequate clergy access to those immigrants being detained.
The same concerns were spelled out in a March 24 letter to Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, from Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration. The letter followed a meeting between Myers and committee members.
Bishop Wester also urged Myers to end the commingling of children from immigrant families whose parents are incarcerated on immigration charges with juveniles being held on criminal charges.
The workshop focused on practical aspects of developing a plan, from basic education to media relations. Herrling outlined CLINIC's model which she offered as the basis for any statewide or regional raid-response plan. The plan includes five response teams: community education and outreach to immigrants, community liaison to key leaders, legal services, social services and media relations.
Susan Schreiber, senior attorney for CLINIC in Chicago and part of a team drafting a raid-response plan in Illinois, reminded the gathering of the importance of involving
people from the grass roots so that the needs of immigrants are fully addressed.
"This is a process that involves partners and a buy-in of the participants," Schreiber said.
Schreiber described an ongoing effort in Illinois that encompasses the identification of volunteers to help the families of someone taken into custody during a raid to lining up safe gathering places for immigrants who may be concerned they will be targeted next for detention.
She also suggested developing a relationship with ICE officials ahead of any potential raid so that if questions arise regarding questionable actions by agents they can be addressed quickly.
"Every community may or may not experience an enforcement action, but every community wants to think about how do I do outreach to my community, how to do safe planning in my community, how to identify places for people to gather in the event of an enforcement action," Schreiber said.
"Keep in mind this is a lot of work," she added. "I think everybody is motivated, ... but it's definitely a big challenge to realize how much work is involved."
http://www.uscatholicmission.org/cnsworkersplan.pdf
Catholic Explorer
7/30/2008
While it's probably not imminent, Helen Vasquez and the staff at the Guadalupe Center in Huntingburg, Ind., are getting ready for an immigration raid. With 10,000 Hispanic immigrants in the counties of Dubois, Spencer and Daviess in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind., Vasquez expects that the factories and farms where many of them work are in the cross hairs of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Luz Ostrognai of Fort Wayne, Ind., attends the July 28 opening Mass at the 2008 National Migration Conference in Washington. More than 600 people were expected at the conference addressing a number of current topics related to immigration, pastoral care, refugee resettlement and human trafficking. Ostrognai said she works in immigration services for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
With 10,000 Hispanic immigrants in the counties of Dubois, Spencer and Daviess in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind., Vasquez expects that the factories and farms where many of them work are in the cross hairs of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Vasquez is well aware of the turmoil that families and communities from Massachusetts to California have experienced in the aftermath of recent ICE raids. She's thankful that southwest Indiana has not been targeted yet. But she expects it's only a matter of time before ICE makes its move.
"The potential for a raid is very big," she told Catholic News Service July 29 during the 2008 National Migration Conference in Washington. "So it's very important to us to be prepared."
Vasquez, a retired federal employee who now works as a consultant in family-based immigration, has been among a small contingent of faith-based workers in the area three hours south of Indianapolis who have spent the last year developing a raid-response plan.
Much of their effort has focused on educating members of the largely Salvadoran immigrant population about their constitutional rights, identifying attorneys to handle cases and lining up the necessary paperwork to protect the families and property of undocumented immigrants.
Even though there has been no large-scale raid, anxiety is pervasive among the immigrants Vasquez knows. She said immigrants also have come to distrust local police, who often stop Hispanics to check their immigration status and make arrests for minor traffic violations. In many cases, the arrest is the first step toward deportation, she explained.
Vasquez was on hand for a July 29 workshop led by lawyers from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC, during the migration conference. She wanted to pick up a few pointers as well as share what she has learned with others from across the U.S. who are just starting to write their own raid-response plans.
"Raids are pervasive," Karen Herrling, a staff attorney with CLINIC in Washington, told workshop participants. "They're happening every day in our communities."
Herrling said more raids can be expected, especially as ICE builds its force of fugitive operations teams pursuing undocumented immigrants from 75 teams to 104 by the end of September.
Noting what Herrling called an "explosion" in workplace raids, Ryan Dwyer, policy adviser for Migration and Refugee Services, said the bishops have questioned the effectiveness of such massive actions.
"The bishops' position at this point on raids is that while enforcement of employment eligibility needs to be done we don't believe raids are the most effective or humane way of going about it," he said.
Dwyer outlined a plan seeking broader collaboration with law enforcement officials to minimize the negative impact on families, particularly children, when enforcing immigration laws. He called for alternatives to detention for immigrants who are no threat to society or are not a flight risk, a slowing of court proceedings to allow immigrants to secure appropriate legal representation, and more adequate clergy access to those immigrants being detained.
The same concerns were spelled out in a March 24 letter to Julie Myers, assistant secretary for ICE in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, from Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Migration. The letter followed a meeting between Myers and committee members.
Bishop Wester also urged Myers to end the commingling of children from immigrant families whose parents are incarcerated on immigration charges with juveniles being held on criminal charges.
The workshop focused on practical aspects of developing a plan, from basic education to media relations. Herrling outlined CLINIC's model which she offered as the basis for any statewide or regional raid-response plan. The plan includes five response teams: community education and outreach to immigrants, community liaison to key leaders, legal services, social services and media relations.
Susan Schreiber, senior attorney for CLINIC in Chicago and part of a team drafting a raid-response plan in Illinois, reminded the gathering of the importance of involving
people from the grass roots so that the needs of immigrants are fully addressed.
"This is a process that involves partners and a buy-in of the participants," Schreiber said.
Schreiber described an ongoing effort in Illinois that encompasses the identification of volunteers to help the families of someone taken into custody during a raid to lining up safe gathering places for immigrants who may be concerned they will be targeted next for detention.
She also suggested developing a relationship with ICE officials ahead of any potential raid so that if questions arise regarding questionable actions by agents they can be addressed quickly.
"Every community may or may not experience an enforcement action, but every community wants to think about how do I do outreach to my community, how to do safe planning in my community, how to identify places for people to gather in the event of an enforcement action," Schreiber said.
"Keep in mind this is a lot of work," she added. "I think everybody is motivated, ... but it's definitely a big challenge to realize how much work is involved."
http://www.uscatholicmission.org/cnsworkersplan.pdf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)