By Rebekah L. Cowell
Indy Week
May 25, 2011
Six undocumented immigrants who had served six months in federal prison on immigration charges were released yesterday. They were released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcements officers after posting immigration bonds in Charlotte. The bond amounts ranged from $5,000—$6,000.
The men—Rafael Garcia-Tiscareno, Jose Guadalupe Rodriguez, Lucio Huerta-Ponce, Luis Humberto Huerta-Ponce, Luis Raul Huerta-Ponce, Juan Manuel Martinez, Rodriguez, Jorge Alberto Ruiz-Ponce—were employees of Durham-based J&A Framers and had been arrested during several workplace raids in the Triangle last November.
A seventh man, Victorino Gutierrez-Licona, is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing next month; he received a seven-month sentence. Two of the former employees were not eligible for an immigration bond.
All of the men pled guilty in March to entering the United States illegally.
In January, eight other employees pled guilty to misdemeanor immigration charges. They served 30 days in jail and were later released on immigration bonds.
“What happened to these men and their families is really sad, and yet another example of how the Obama administration is saying one thing about what their immigration policy is and doing the opposite,” said Marty Rosenbluth, executive director of the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project. “We hear over and over ICE officials saying that they are doing work place raids anymore. These guys were caught up in an investigation targeted at their employer. But instead of offering them the option of just returning voluntarily, or even just putting them into deportation proceedings, Obama’s Justice Department charged them with felony re-entry and they ended up in jail for six months. The only crime they committed was trying to feed their families”
Rosenbluth argued for the former workers' immigration bonds. He said that the next step is to get the men hearings in immigration court where they will try to show that they have the right to stay in the United States.
The men's employers, J&A Framing owners Jose Alfredo Lopez Ponce and Juan Antonio Lopez Ponce, were indicted Dec. 15 on charges including smuggling and harboring and recruiting immigrants to work.
On April 6, the men, who are brothers, pled guilty to illegal alien harboring and conspiracy; they are awaiting sentencing by Chief United States District Court Judge Louise Flanagan in New Bern. Each man could receive a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and at $500,000 in fines.
http://www.indyweek.com/triangulator/archives/2011/05/25/undocumented-immigrants-released-from-prison-after-workplace-raid
Showing posts with label Fines Against Employer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fines Against Employer. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
ICE: 38 people arrested at construction site
By David A. Johnson, Lyxan Toledanes and Sarah Mueller contributed to this report
The ODESSA AMERICAN
May 17, 2011
An upscale apartment complex still under construction in northeast Odessa was the site of an immigration raid Tuesday morning that led to the arrest of 38 people.
The Tuscany at Faudree apartments, 4001 Faudree Road, was surrounded by Odessa police and Midland County sheriff's deputies, as well as at least one K-9 unit from the Andrews County sheriff's office.
The land lies just at the edge of Ector County, but still within Odessa city limits.
A helicopter circled the air above the apartment and nearby fields for more than half an hour, apparently looking for anyone who might have escaped the perimeter of what an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman from El Paso confirmed was a search warrant executed by their agents. Attempts to get a copy of the probable cause affidavit for the search warrant were unsuccessful Tuesday.
The spokeswoman said 37 men and 1 woman were arrested in the raid on immigration violations, which she said was an administrative charge, so their names wouldn’t be released, and they wouldn’t go through federal courts before being deported.
The spokeswoman said it was an ongoing investigation, therefore nothing more could be released.
A September 2008 ICE raid resulted in 15 men being taken into custody at the Dorado Ranch apartments located at 3601 Faudree Road, less than a mile south of Tuscany. Some workers taken into custody, while others were deported to their home countries. Part of Dorado Ranch had opened a month earlier, while part remained under construction at the time of the raid.
Marc McDougal, president of the McDougal Land Team based in Lubbock, said he has never had problems with illegal immigrants on past constructions sites.
Around 200 to 300 people work at the construction site every day and McDougal said most of those workers are employed by around 30 subcontractors. As of Tuesday afternoon, McDougal said none of the subcontractors have been fined.
“That’s one of the things we’ll be looking into as far as who was picked up and for what,” McDougal said. “We’ll address that with our subs (subcontractors) and we’ll replace those subs (who are fined).”
McDougal said there are no delays on construction on the 325-unit complex, which had an original building permit in July 2010 for $26.4 million in construction. Apartmentfinder.com gave the prices as ranging from $1,155 per month for 762-square-foot one bedroom/one bathrooms units to $1,925 for 1,330 square-foot three bedroom/two bathroom units.
Mike Tennison, who works for an electric contractor out of Lubbock, said work on the site starts at 7 a.m. each day. The 25-year-old said the first thing he saw recognizing it was a raid was the helicopter. Then he saw the officers on foot.
"They just came to us and told us to put our hands behind our head," Tennison said, although he said officers weren't threatening about it. Then Tennison said they patted him down and moved him to holding where everyone was having their immigration and warrant status checked. A little after 9 a.m., he was able to drive out in his work van.
At about 9:20 a.m., 60-year-old Baltazar Garcia was cleared to walk out, along with several other people, directed to wait at the Tractor Supply Store, 7800 E. Highway 191. The 60-year-old plaster worker said about six of the 30 people in his crew were taken, although he had guessed about 10 of the cleaning women had also been taken.
Garcia said he'd been at other immigration raids in the past, but they were different.
"They just took two of three guys at a time," Garcia said.
Garcia said that it used to be, everybody just went inside during raids.
"Now, they check every room," Garcia said.
Later, Garcia wondered if, when everyone was paid at the end of the week, Tuesday’s wages would be included.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/complex-65461-apartment-authorities.html
The ODESSA AMERICAN
May 17, 2011
An upscale apartment complex still under construction in northeast Odessa was the site of an immigration raid Tuesday morning that led to the arrest of 38 people.
The Tuscany at Faudree apartments, 4001 Faudree Road, was surrounded by Odessa police and Midland County sheriff's deputies, as well as at least one K-9 unit from the Andrews County sheriff's office.
The land lies just at the edge of Ector County, but still within Odessa city limits.
A helicopter circled the air above the apartment and nearby fields for more than half an hour, apparently looking for anyone who might have escaped the perimeter of what an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman from El Paso confirmed was a search warrant executed by their agents. Attempts to get a copy of the probable cause affidavit for the search warrant were unsuccessful Tuesday.
The spokeswoman said 37 men and 1 woman were arrested in the raid on immigration violations, which she said was an administrative charge, so their names wouldn’t be released, and they wouldn’t go through federal courts before being deported.
The spokeswoman said it was an ongoing investigation, therefore nothing more could be released.
A September 2008 ICE raid resulted in 15 men being taken into custody at the Dorado Ranch apartments located at 3601 Faudree Road, less than a mile south of Tuscany. Some workers taken into custody, while others were deported to their home countries. Part of Dorado Ranch had opened a month earlier, while part remained under construction at the time of the raid.
Marc McDougal, president of the McDougal Land Team based in Lubbock, said he has never had problems with illegal immigrants on past constructions sites.
Around 200 to 300 people work at the construction site every day and McDougal said most of those workers are employed by around 30 subcontractors. As of Tuesday afternoon, McDougal said none of the subcontractors have been fined.
“That’s one of the things we’ll be looking into as far as who was picked up and for what,” McDougal said. “We’ll address that with our subs (subcontractors) and we’ll replace those subs (who are fined).”
McDougal said there are no delays on construction on the 325-unit complex, which had an original building permit in July 2010 for $26.4 million in construction. Apartmentfinder.com gave the prices as ranging from $1,155 per month for 762-square-foot one bedroom/one bathrooms units to $1,925 for 1,330 square-foot three bedroom/two bathroom units.
Mike Tennison, who works for an electric contractor out of Lubbock, said work on the site starts at 7 a.m. each day. The 25-year-old said the first thing he saw recognizing it was a raid was the helicopter. Then he saw the officers on foot.
"They just came to us and told us to put our hands behind our head," Tennison said, although he said officers weren't threatening about it. Then Tennison said they patted him down and moved him to holding where everyone was having their immigration and warrant status checked. A little after 9 a.m., he was able to drive out in his work van.
At about 9:20 a.m., 60-year-old Baltazar Garcia was cleared to walk out, along with several other people, directed to wait at the Tractor Supply Store, 7800 E. Highway 191. The 60-year-old plaster worker said about six of the 30 people in his crew were taken, although he had guessed about 10 of the cleaning women had also been taken.
Garcia said he'd been at other immigration raids in the past, but they were different.
"They just took two of three guys at a time," Garcia said.
Garcia said that it used to be, everybody just went inside during raids.
"Now, they check every room," Garcia said.
Later, Garcia wondered if, when everyone was paid at the end of the week, Tuesday’s wages would be included.
http://www.oaoa.com/news/complex-65461-apartment-authorities.html
Friday, March 4, 2011
Executive for Mississippi's Howard Industries Sentenced for Hiring Undocumented Immigrants
By Elizabeth Llorente
Fox News Latino
March 03, 2011
A former executive of a Mississippi company that was the target of nation’s largest federal immigrantion raid was handed a six-month sentence Thursday.
The former human resources manager of Howard Industries pleaded guilty in 2009 to conspiracy in connection with the hiring of hundreds of unauthorized immigrants at the company’s electrical transformer plant.
The sentence for José Humberto González, the only Howard Industries official charged in the 2008 raid, called for six months under house arrest. The company pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Feb. 24 and was fined $2.5 million.
Immigration agents detained more than 600 undocumented immigrants during the raid on Aug. 25, 2008. Most of them were deported, though a few were convicted on identity theft charges for using fraudulent documents and providing fake papers to other workers.
Until then, the largest workplace raid at a single site had taken place in Postville, Iowa at the Agriprocessors plant, in which 389 unauthorized immigrants were arrested and many held at a cattle exhibit hall.
The Bush Administration said at the time that it illustrated a new concerted effort to go after illegal employment.
The approach drew praise from those who support strict immigration enforcement – they maintain that jobs are a key magnet for illegal immigration, and the problem cannot be solved without taking away the incentive of getting employment.
But immigration advocacy groups assailed the raids, complaining that they resulted in the arrest and deportation of undocumented workers, but left employers essentially untouched, even those who were repeat offenders.
In 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it was shifting its workplace enforcement to employers. In the last year, ICE roughly doubled its audits of employers – to more than 2,700 – over past years.
Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, audited the Chipotle chain’s Minnesota restaurants last year. ICE told the chain that the audit turned up questionable information in the documents Chipotle had provided, apparently indicating many employees were not authorized to work in the United States.
Chipotle fired hundreds of Minnesota employees when, the chain says, the workers could not explain discrepancies that the ICE audit had found.
The government’s focus on Chipotle has grabbed headlines given that it is one of the most high-profile businesses to be targeted in the Obama Administration’s crackdown on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Chipotle has more than 1,000 operations nationwide.
Howard Industries has repeatedly denied knowing that unauthorized immigrants worked at the sprawling plant, and blamed the situation on González.
In a lengthy statement after pleading guilty last week, Howard Industries said the undocumented immigrants used fake papers to circumvent numerous identification checks the company uses. But prosecutors said the company knowingly hired unauthorized immigrants.
But recently, people who had been turned down for jobs by Howard Industries filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that, not only did it know it was hiring undocumented immigrants, but instructed some on how to get false identities and concealed the fact that hundreds of employees were unauthorized immigrants.
In the days after the raid, hundreds of people lined up outside the plant to apply for jobs. Jobs at Howard Industries were among the most coveted in the area, which is in Mississippi's Pine Belt region and is home to a commercial timber industry and chicken processing plants.
Howard Industries makes dozens of products from electrical transformers to medical supplies. It had been considered one of Mississippi's most successful private companies.
Some of the workers were given jobs even after the Social Security Administration told the company that their Social Security numbers were not valid, prosecutors said. The same allegation is made in the civil lawsuit.
González admitted to similar allegations when he pleaded guilty.
Follow immigration and politics reporter Elizabeth Llorente on Twitter: @LlorenteLatino
Elizabeth.Llorente@FoxNewsLatino.com
This story contains material from The Associated Press.
Fox News Latino
March 03, 2011
A former executive of a Mississippi company that was the target of nation’s largest federal immigrantion raid was handed a six-month sentence Thursday.
The former human resources manager of Howard Industries pleaded guilty in 2009 to conspiracy in connection with the hiring of hundreds of unauthorized immigrants at the company’s electrical transformer plant.
The sentence for José Humberto González, the only Howard Industries official charged in the 2008 raid, called for six months under house arrest. The company pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Feb. 24 and was fined $2.5 million.
Immigration agents detained more than 600 undocumented immigrants during the raid on Aug. 25, 2008. Most of them were deported, though a few were convicted on identity theft charges for using fraudulent documents and providing fake papers to other workers.
Until then, the largest workplace raid at a single site had taken place in Postville, Iowa at the Agriprocessors plant, in which 389 unauthorized immigrants were arrested and many held at a cattle exhibit hall.
The Bush Administration said at the time that it illustrated a new concerted effort to go after illegal employment.
The approach drew praise from those who support strict immigration enforcement – they maintain that jobs are a key magnet for illegal immigration, and the problem cannot be solved without taking away the incentive of getting employment.
But immigration advocacy groups assailed the raids, complaining that they resulted in the arrest and deportation of undocumented workers, but left employers essentially untouched, even those who were repeat offenders.
In 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it was shifting its workplace enforcement to employers. In the last year, ICE roughly doubled its audits of employers – to more than 2,700 – over past years.
Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, audited the Chipotle chain’s Minnesota restaurants last year. ICE told the chain that the audit turned up questionable information in the documents Chipotle had provided, apparently indicating many employees were not authorized to work in the United States.
Chipotle fired hundreds of Minnesota employees when, the chain says, the workers could not explain discrepancies that the ICE audit had found.
The government’s focus on Chipotle has grabbed headlines given that it is one of the most high-profile businesses to be targeted in the Obama Administration’s crackdown on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Chipotle has more than 1,000 operations nationwide.
Howard Industries has repeatedly denied knowing that unauthorized immigrants worked at the sprawling plant, and blamed the situation on González.
In a lengthy statement after pleading guilty last week, Howard Industries said the undocumented immigrants used fake papers to circumvent numerous identification checks the company uses. But prosecutors said the company knowingly hired unauthorized immigrants.
But recently, people who had been turned down for jobs by Howard Industries filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that, not only did it know it was hiring undocumented immigrants, but instructed some on how to get false identities and concealed the fact that hundreds of employees were unauthorized immigrants.
In the days after the raid, hundreds of people lined up outside the plant to apply for jobs. Jobs at Howard Industries were among the most coveted in the area, which is in Mississippi's Pine Belt region and is home to a commercial timber industry and chicken processing plants.
Howard Industries makes dozens of products from electrical transformers to medical supplies. It had been considered one of Mississippi's most successful private companies.
Some of the workers were given jobs even after the Social Security Administration told the company that their Social Security numbers were not valid, prosecutors said. The same allegation is made in the civil lawsuit.
González admitted to similar allegations when he pleaded guilty.
Follow immigration and politics reporter Elizabeth Llorente on Twitter: @LlorenteLatino
Elizabeth.Llorente@FoxNewsLatino.com
This story contains material from The Associated Press.
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