U.S. doubles arrests in 2006 of people who hire illegals
Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006
WASHINGTON — The number of employers arrested on charges of hiring illegal immigrants has more than doubled this year. And some employers themselves are in the United States illegally, immigration officials say.
With cases this week in Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio, U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested 445 people so far this year on criminal charges and has picked up 2, 700 others suspected of immigration violations.
In 2005, there were 176 arrests on criminal charges and 1, 116 on immigration violations, the agency said.
The stepped-up enforcement is intended to demonstrate the risk to companies that ignore the law in pursuit of cheap labor.
“ICE is taking an increasingly tough stance against egregious corporate violators that knowingly employ illegal aliens,” Julie L. Myers, the agency’s assistant secretary, said Friday.
“This is a wholesale departure from the past system of sanctioning corporate violators with minor fines, which were rarely paid in a timely manner or at all,” she said.
Two companies in Kentucky pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to harbor illegal aliens who worked at the companies ’ hotels in the London, Ky., area.
Asha Ventures LLC and Narayan LLC agreed to pay $ 1. 5 million and could face $ 500, 000 more in fines when they are sentenced in October, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
In Fairfield, Ohio, the owner of a Chinese restaurant was charged Thursday with encouraging or inducing illegal workers to reside in the United States.
Jing Fei Jiang, who owns the Bee’s Buffet restaurant, employed at least two workers who were ordered deported from the United States in the 1990 s, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.
Jiang also was in the United States illegally, the affidavit said.
In Springdale earlier this week, a raid by immigration agents resulted in the arrest of 27 suspected illegal workers and managers of a construction business.
Alejandro Arevalo, manager of Arevalo Framing, was charged with harboring illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
Arevalo and his crew leader, Rodrigo Arevalo, also were charged with re-entering the country after having been deported, the agency said.
The largest raid to date occurred in April when federal agents arrested seven current and former managers of IFCO Systems, a manufacturer of crates and pallets, on criminal charges, and more than 1, 100 people were arrested on administrative immigration charges at more than 40 IFCO sites in the United States.
In another prominent case, four supervisors for Fischer Homes, a northern Kentucky home builder, have pleaded innocent to conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants.
Six people already have pleaded guilty in the investigation of the company and its subcontractors.
Federal authorities rounded up nearly 100 suspected illegal immigrants in May.
Some continue to be detained in this country as material witnesses in the ongoing case.
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