June 12, 2013 - Jobs attract illegals (FAIR FED. FOR IMMIG. REFORM) partial article

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Employer Sanctions

Employer Sanctions

The greatest incentive for illegal aliens to come to the United States is to find work. If there are no employers willing to hire them, then the flood of illegal aliens will subside. The Immigration and Reform Act of 1986 outlawed hiring illegal alien workers, although common practice has proven that measure ineffective for two reasons:

1. The law requires proof that the employer knowingly hired the illegal worker.
2. The prevalence of fake documents make it difficult to prove the employer knew that the employee’s work documents were not legitimate.

The information below is taken from news sources. Each party in the report either confessed or was convicted of knowingly hiring illegal aliens. These cases are listed to illustrate the widespread abuse and increased prosecution of companies employing illegal aliens towards the end of the Bush Administration. Prosecutions that have continued in the Obama Administration are largely the culmination of investigations begun before the change in administration. For a discussion of current policy see Interior Immigration Enforcement — Musical Chairs.
Historically, immigration law enforcement has been the exclusive province of federal law enforcement, but states are increasingly joining with the federal government in that effort and enacting legislation to punish employers for hiring violations. On January 1, 2008, an employer sanctions law took affect in Arizona. Business owners face the nation's first state law that requires employers to verify the work documents of their new employees. The law says any business that knowingly hires a worker who is in the country illegally will have its business license suspended. For a second offense, the business' license could be revoked. That is different from the federal penalties of fines and possible criminal prosecution that have been infrequently imposed for similar offenses.
The information below is taken from news sources. Each party in the report either confessed or was convicted of hiring illegal immigrants. These cases are listed to illustrate the widespread abuse and recently increasing prosecution of companies employing illegal aliens.

• March 2013 — Brothers Hector and Guillermo Fuentes, owners of three restaurants in Waterville, Maine were convicted of conspiracy to harbor undocumented aliens for profit as well as aiding and abetting document fraud. About 12 illegal aliens were found working in the three restaurants and the owners helped them obtain fake ‘green cards’ and Social Security cards. They face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count and forfeiture of the gross proceeds of the violations. (Morning Sentinel, March 18, 2013)

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• December 2012 — PMcCalla Corp., a firm that operates six McDonald's restaurants in Wichita, was fined $400,000 in fines and forfeitures for knowingly employing illegal aliens using fake documents. The investigation found that five of the six managers at the restaurants as well as many other employees were illegal aliens.

• May 2012 — Professional Tree Services Inc., a Houston firm, agreed to pay a $2 million settlement for employing illegal aliens between 2005 and 2011. The investigation began in 2008, and it revealed that about 30 percent of the firm’s workers were illegal aliens. As part of the agreement, the firm has enrolled in the E-Verify program. (Houston Chronicle, May 18, 2012)

• May 2012 — HerbCo International Inc. an organic farming company was fined $1 million for employing illegal alien workers. After an ICE audit found more than 90 workers had false work documents the company fired them. However, the company was found to have rehired many of the same workers off-the-book and paying them in cash. The CEO, Ted Andrews, and two other company officers pled guilty to misdemeanor charges. (Associated Press, May 1, 2012)

• April 2012 — Marino Sandoval and his wife Nicole, owners of the El Balazo chain of taquerias in the Bay Area, were sentenced for employing illegal immigrants and for tax fraud to cover up those workers' wages. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison and she was sentenced to five years probation. Between 2007 and 2008 the chain employed more than 100 illegal immigrants. (Contra Cost Times, April 26, 2012).

• April 2012 — Richard Weber, the owner of an Iowa concrete business, pled guilty to lying to an ICE officer when he said that an illegal alien employee had been terminated months previously when in fact he was still working for the company. (Des Moines Register, April 6, 2012)

• March 2012 — Ivan Hardt, owner of Sun Dry Wall & Stucco Inc. of Sierra Vista, Arizona was sentenced to one year of probation in addition to a penalty of $450,000 after he pled guilty in 2011 to knowingly hiring illegal aliens. The case against Hardt and seven other defendants was brought in 2007. Five others besides Hardt have pled guilty. (AP March 29, 2012)

• March 2012 — Samira Zuniga, an Iowa City co-owner of the Xtreme Construction company, was sentenced in Cedar Rapids to 18 months in prison for employing, harboring and transporting an illegal immigrant and one count of conspiracy to transport, harbor, encourage and induce illegal immigrants to live in the United States. Her husband, the other co-owner, an illegal alien from Mexico, fled to Mexico with the couple’s children. (AP March 13, 2012)

• March 2012 — Humberto González, the human resources manager of Howard Industries in Mississippi, pled guilty in 2009 to conspiracy in connection with the hiring of hundreds of unauthorized immigrants at the company’s electrical transformer plant. He was sentenced to six months under house arrest. The company pled guilty to conspiracy on Feb. 24 and was fined $2.5 million. (FoxNews, March 3, 2012)