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.

Immigrant Rights Alliance Says Enforcement Unbalanced

by Ward Schaefer
Jackson Free Press
September 17, 2009

Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance Executive Director Bill Chandler is charging that the indictment of Jose Humberto Gonzalez in the 2008 Howard Industries immigration-enforcement raid highlights the unbalanced enforcement of federal immigration law. In 1986, the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act made employers liable for employing undocumented aliens.

"Since 1986 there's been a very small handful of employers that have been sanctioned for 'knowingly hiring illegal aliens,'" Chandler said. "On the other hand, literally hundreds of thousands of workers have been arrested and put into deportation proceedings. So walking into that picture at Howard Industries, the only Latino that is in the management of the company is the only one that is 'guilty' of hiring undocumented people. What about the Howard family and the rest of the management?"

The U.S. Attorney's office yesterday issued a new indictment (PDF) on Gonzalez, the personnel manager for Laurel-based Howard Industries, which was the subject of the largest immigration-enforcement raid in U.S. history. The previous indictment (PDF), issued May 6, alleged that Gonzalez engaged in a conspiracy to hire undocumented workers with false identification. The revised indictment adds a charge of aggravated identity theft for hiring workers whose identification he knew to be stolen.

Thus far, Gonzalez is the only Howard Industries manager to be indicted for employing undocumented workers. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents took nearly 600 workers into custody after the Aug. 25, 2008, raid of the Howard Industries manufacturing plant and corporate offices. Nine of those arrested pleaded guilty to federal identity fraud charges, and others still await hearings.

"The new indictment concentrates more of the focus on the conspiratorial conduct, which is at the heart of the case, as well as the new allegation involving Gonzalez's participation in knowingly using the results of identity theft in employing job applicants at Howard Industries, which amounts to aggravated identity theft," U.S. Attorney Stan Harris said in a statement. "The indictment also narrows the employee verification fraud counts to produce a more streamlined set of charges."

Gonzalez faces up to 5 years in prison for each count and a $250,000 fine. Citing Department of Justice policy, U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Sheila Wilbanks said that she could neither confirm nor deny whether federal authorities are still investigating Howard Industries.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/immigrant_rights_alliance_says_enforcement_unbalanced_091709/

Arrested migrant awaits verdict

Brittany Brown and Ed Kemp
Hattiesburg American
August 23, 2009

One year ago this week, Tomas Hernandez-Urueta saw one of his worst fears realized when he was snared by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a Howard Industries raid that netted 592 arrests.

"I felt horrible, as if I were a criminal," said Hernandez-Urueta, through translator Juan Carlos Cook, communications director of the Mississippi Immigration Rights Alliance.

The sweep, executed on Aug. 25, 2008, led to the arrest of about 14 percent of Howard's 4,200-member work force. It was the largest roundup of suspected illegal workers since the founding of the Department of Homeland Security.

Howard Industries officials declined to comment for this article.

For Hernandez-Urueta, who had a work visa that expired eight years ago, the day of the sweep began a year of turmoil. After the roundup, he spent one month at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., and still awaits a final verdict on his immigration case. He said his attorney believes the matter will extend into 2010.

Of the 592 arrested, some workers, like Hernandez-Urueta, were released on humanitarian grounds while others await adjudication for pending court cases.

Hernandez-Urueta is one of five defendants from the Howard Industries raid represented by immigration rights lawyer Patricia Ice whose cases have not been decided.

Temple Black, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said 66 suspected illegal workers arrested last August who were in alternative detention have been released on a recognizance order and fitted with ankle bracelets for monitoring.

Black said the initial nine juveniles who were placed with the Office of Refugee Resettlement have been deported or released into the custody of family members in the United States and await dispositions of their cases.

To date, Black said 424 of the 462 illegal workers detained have been deported.

Ice said that's a worst-case scenario she's working to avoid for her defendants.

"We are seeking immigration relief to allow (Hernandez-Urueta) to stay in the United States if legally possible," she said.

Not only does the recently-married Hernandez-Urueta still live in Laurel with his wife, Sybil, but his sister, Artemisa Hernandez, also lives in Laurel and is in the process of applying for residency.

He is adamant he did nothing wrong.

Hernandez-Urueta said he came to Mississippi in December 2000 with a Mexican passport and a work visa sponsored by Universal Forestry. His first job, planting pine trees, brought in starting wages that far exceeded those of his old job as a dump truck driver in Veracruz, Mexico, he said.

From Universal Forestry, he switched jobs to Sanderson Farms in Laurel and then to Howard Industries' transformers plant, where he worked as a welder. He said the only documentation he was required to show these employers was his Mexican driver's license and the Social Security card issued to him as a foreign worker.

It was while at Howard Industries in 2001 that his work visa expired. Hernandez-Urueta said that he did not attempt to renew it because he "didn't know that it was a possibility to renew it."

"I never bothered to get more documents because that was the job I had," he said.

And Hernandez-Urueta said he was never asked about his documents - until the morning the ICE agents arrived.

Until the raid, Hernandez said he rose to the challenge of the increased post-Hurricane Katrina demand for Howard products, working 60 to 70 hours, seven days a week.

Hernandez-Urueta was released on $5,000 bond. Since then, he has made several court appearances at the New Orleans Immigration Court, all the while living in Laurel. He is currently not authorized to work.

"I would say to them that if it's a sin to work, then I'm a sinner," he said. "I don't feel like I've caused any harm to this country. I just want to be here and work - stay and continue to be a productive member of society."

Meanwhile, Howard Industries' former human resources manager, Jose Humberto Gonzalez, could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

He is charged with 25 counts of conspiracy and employee verification fraud.

A trial date for Gonzalez, who was arrested in May, will be set for a criminal calendar beginning on Oct. 19, according to court documents.

Gonzalez's pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 8 at the Mississippi Southern District Court in Hattiesburg.

In an 11-page indictment, Gonzalez is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit multiple offense against the United States and 25 counts of falsely certifying employment eligibility of job applicants and employees.

From June 2006 to June 2007, the indictment states that Gonzalez failed to adequately examine employment eligibility verification forms submitted by undocumented immigrants.

Additional Facts
By the Numbers

As a result of 2008's federal raid of Howard Industries in Laurel:

592: Workers arrested

462: Detained

424: Deported

44: Voluntary departures

103: Released on bond

Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090823/NEWS/908230358/1001/Arrested-migrant-awaits-verdict

A bitter struggle for the last jobs anybody wants

A bitter struggle for the last jobs anybody wants
By DEBORAH HASTINGS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 24, 2009

LAUREL, Miss.

The work has always been stupefying and hard. Hour after hour standing on the line, soldering or welding or drilling in screws until tears join streaming sweat and hands cramp in pain.

Even in today's nightmare economy, most people would not want this daily grind that steals the soul in 12-hour shifts paying as little as $280 a week, before taxes.

Here in mostly rural Jones County, the area's biggest employer, Howard Industries, maintains a sprawling factory that builds electrical transformers and other big equipment behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. For a long time, Howard workers were poor blacks and whites in this town of 18,000. But in the past few years, immigrants poured across the Mexican border, eagerly applying for work on the Howard line and not complaining about long hours or menial labor.

Resentment began to take root in the hearts of some black and white residents, producing an odd alliance in a place that has seen racial hatred. Many blacks and whites claimed Hispanics were taking over their city and taking away jobs by not complaining about safety issues in a factory that faced $193,000 in federal fines last year for dangerous working conditions.

A disgruntled union member allegedly tipped the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, whose agents swept in last summer and staged the largest single workplace raid. As nearly 600 Hispanics were herded past black and white Howard employees, jeers and applause and wide grins erupted.

"Bye-bye," some trilled in falsetto, fingers wagging. "Go back where you came from."

And the assembly line rattles on. But now mostly blacks work it, with a smattering of whites, for the same wages paid to Hispanics. The plant, which has been working without a union contract since August, is mired in bitter negotiations over higher pay and safety issues.

Of the 592 people arrested, mostly for the crime of illegally entering this country -- more than 100, mostly women with children, were released pending the outcome of their cases. They wade through a long, confusing current of immigration hearings that will determine their futures. Many fear venturing out, lest they receive withering glances in the Wal-Mart aimed at the electronic monitoring devices on their ankles.

"We do the jobs no one else wants to do," says Ismael Cabrera, a 37-year-old father of two. "We just want to work."

He paid a smuggler $2,000 to walk him across the desert into Arizona. He paid $1,000 more to get a ride to Laurel, where he first worked in a poultry plant, wielding a small knife to slash the wings off dead chickens as they blurred past. His all-time high: 39 birds per minute.

"It's not that we took the jobs from other people," he says in Spanish. "It's that they don't want to work them."

He waits on deportation hearings that he does not understand. He weeps at the prospect of going back to his hometown near Mexico City.

"Sometimes I ask myself if it was worth it to come here," he says in a voice just above a whisper. "To gain insults and to be humiliated."

Blacks in Mississippi know plenty about humiliation. Laurel itself had long been Klan territory, where hooded, robed men carrying burning torches marched proudly down the main thoroughfare before the civil rights movement.

White Knights Imperial Wizard Sam H. Bowers, suspected in hundreds of attacks including the infamous "Mississippi Burning" murders of three voter registration workers, lived in Laurel.

These days, hate has a new target. "Time for Mexico and Mexicans to get the hell out!!!" blasts a recruiting message on a Klan Web site. In rallies staged in recent years in Laurel, Tupelo and other Mississippi cities, Klan members gathered to accuse Hispanic immigrants of being child molesters, job stealers and destroyers of the American way of life.

Angelica Olmedo, a 32-year-old single mother, has already decided what to do. She will volunteer for deportation to Vera Cruz, where her parents grow sugar cane. She hopes that decision will ease the way for her to someday legally return to this country.

Immigration officials have held out that hope to those willing to go quietly, she said.

Her 13-year-old son, who was 5 when she paid for him to be smuggled to Mississippi, will return with her. After she was swept up in the Howard raid, where she repaired forklifts for $10.25 an hour, she said immigration officials released her on "humanitarian" grounds because she was a single mom.

She was outfitted with an electronic ankle bracelet and told not to leave the state. It took about two months for Olmedo to realize that apparently no one was monitoring the devices. In time, the clumsy plastic device slipped off her foot. No one from ICE has said a word to her since.

"It's to shame me," she said. "That's all it was, to shame me. To make me look like a criminal. But I am not a criminal; I was only working."

Olmedo regrets she can no longer work and contribute to her sister's household. She baby-sits her two small nieces during the day as partial payment for rent and food. "I don't even like to go out," she says. "I feel like everyone is watching me and knows I was in the raid.

Yet Olmedo has met kindness from some former co-workers. "I had friends. African-American and white. They come and ask if I need money for food. I don't take it. They brought shoes."

At Howard Industries, where the day crew is just getting off, a freezing rain pelts workers walking to their cars, heads bowed to shield their faces.

They are mostly black and mostly male. Some carry the stooped shoulders of the bone-weary. Others bound toward the employee parking lot with the glee of the newly freed.

Larry Jones, 24, sits in his car with the heater blasting, sucking the life out of a Swisher Sweets cigarillo. He has been on the job as a coil winder for two months.

The African-American man had tried to get hired before the raid, he said. "I filled out an application and took the test, but they never called me back."

Now he makes $8.20 an hour. And he is thankful for the raid.

"In a way, I feel like it ain't right because these people are trying to better themselves. But on the other hand, we need jobs, too," he says softly. "A lot of folks 'round here were pretty happy about it, to tell you the truth. It was pretty much of a blessing for a lot of folks."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090124/ARTICLE/901240336?Title=A_bitter_struggle_for_the_last_jobs_anybody_wants