"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/21/'06
"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/21/'06
4/20/'06 - The following article(s) were found in the media. Several stories are provided ... with links to the original sources ... for your convenience:
- Immigration Debate to Reach Supreme Court (Fox News)
- Ga. town at center of immigrant labor case (AP)
- 44 arrested in immigration raid at DeKalb business (AJC)
- US gets tough on illegal hiring (Christian Science Monitor)
- Nearly 1,200 arrested in crackdown on illegal workers (Knight Ridder Newspapers)
- State law forces local law to take on INS duty (WALB)
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192616,00.html
Immigration Debate to Reach Supreme Court
CALHOUN, Ga. — A few blocks down the main road from this small downtown in the north Georgia hills, the Matul family from Guatemala has opened a grocery selling fresh exotic fruits, canned juice from Mexico and international telephone calling cards.
Owner Brenda Matul, 29, counts on the influx of Hispanic immigrants to the community to seal the success of her 5-month-old Tienda la Guadalupana — and her life's journey from Central America to become a naturalized U.S. citizen with U.S.-born, bilingual children.
"One day we can grow more if immigrants keep coming to us for imports," Matul said about her clientele. "But now they're worried and afraid, afraid of going back, of poverty."
Immigrants account for nearly one out of every six of Calhoun's 13,000 residents. Like virtually everyone else in town, at some point, most have worked for the world's largest carpet makers, headquartered here and in nearby towns.
Now, one of those companies faces a lawsuit over the immigrant workers it hires, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Wednesday. The litigation could change this community and set precedents for how the country deals with immigration.
One current and three former employees of Mohawk Industries Inc. have filed a class action lawsuit against the firm, alleging it knowingly hired hundreds of illegal immigrants to suppress legal workers' wages. The company categorically denies knowledge of any illegal workers on its payroll and says it provides all employees with competitive wages and health benefits.
The case raises the three pivotal questions in the immigration debate: Are immigrants, legal or not, coming to work in the U.S. because the economy needs them or because companies exploit cheap labor to the detriment of U.S.-born workers? Should the front-line controls on illegal immigration be the personnel offices of manufacturers? And will stricter checks on hiring documents for applicants who look or sound foreign discriminate against all Hispanics?
The Supreme Court will focus only on whether a company and its agents — recruiters, in this case — can be considered a racketeering enterprise under civil provisions of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which allows the plaintiffs to ask for triple damages.
Both sides agree, however, that the case is about U.S. citizens taking matters in their own hands because they feel that illegal immigration is out of control.
"This points out the need to have private enforcement. It gives private citizens some recourse to protect themselves," said Howard Foster, the employees' attorney and a noted immigration-control activist who has taken on large corporations across the country. His clients, through him, declined interview requests.
Research is mixed on immigrants' impact on U.S.-born workers. George Borjas of Harvard University has concluded that, between 1980 and 2000, the wages of U.S.-born men without a high school diploma have decreased by as much as 7.4 percent because of immigrant labor. But other economists say filling jobs that Americans tend to avoid spurs the economy to grow locally, reducing automation and outsourcing, and enriching local coffers through taxes and shopping.
"Ninety-plus percent of the time, wages are helped by the influx of documented and undocumented immigrants," said Dan Siciliano of Stanford University. "It's no fun for that 10 percent. But we shouldn't get rid of immigrants who help those nine out of 10 workers."
Keeping illegal immigrants out of company jobs should be easy, since the law requires employers to check a list of documents for all job applicants, and many workers without papers tend to pick up temporary jobs where they're paid cash. But corporations say it's nearly impossible to spot fake documents. Some immigration enforcement officials agree that, as a result, companies not considered "critical infrastructure" face a minimal risk of prosecution.
"The argument 'I tried my best' is usually successful unless you have a mole with a tape recording, 'Give me illegal aliens to hire,"' said Victor Cerda, former counsel for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But now the government plans to crack down harder on employers who harbor and hire illegal immigrants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday after a series of nationwide raids at a pallet manufacturer's plants. More than 1,100 people were arrested on administrative immigration charges.
Juan Morillo, Mohawk's attorney, said immigration officials haven't approached the company since the lawsuit was filed in January 2004. Mohawk also argues that going beyond routine document checks for applicants who look Hispanic would only open the company up to charges of discrimination.
"The company feels very strongly the desired effect is to make it more difficult to hire Hispanics," Morillo said about the lawsuit, adding that the company "will not do anything to try and change the demographics of its work force."
Immigrants and advocates fear, however, that companies will make such changes, especially in places like northwest Georgia where the Hispanic immigrant population is new. From 1990 to 2000, the town's Hispanic population jumped from 39 to 1,821, according to census figures. Most of those new residents immigrated from Mexico and Central America.
"The city is growing because of the Hispanics," said Armando Rodriguez as he helped customers at his butcher and deli shop near Matul's. "But they don't like us."
Rumors about crackdowns on illegal immigrants and the lawsuit before the Supreme Court are spreading fear and confusion, said America Gruner, a community health worker from Mexico who has lived in nearby Dalton for five years.
"A lot of people want to leave; some take for granted that many people are going to be deported," she said.
Still, immigrants like Rodriguez say they like the "very quiet village" because it's good for their children. This is where the 41-year-old Guatemalan, who first moved to California when he was 20 and eventually worked for Mohawk, realized his small entrepreneur dream.
"I dreamed of working, making money and going back," he said with a grin, sparkling piInatas hovering above his cash counter. "But now I like it here."
------------------------------
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/14397892.htm
By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO, Associated Press Writer
Owner Brenda Matul, 29, counts on the influx of Hispanic immigrants to the community to seal the success of her 5-month-old Tienda la Guadalupana - and her life's journey from Central America to become a naturalized U.S. citizen with U.S.-born, bilingual children.
"One day we can grow more if immigrants keep coming to us for imports," Matul said about her clientele. "But now they're worried and afraid, afraid of going back, of poverty."
Immigrants account for nearly one out of every six of Calhoun's 13,000 residents. Like virtually everyone else in town, at some point, most have worked for the world's largest carpet makers, headquartered here and in nearby towns.
Now, one of those companies faces a lawsuit over the immigrant workers it hires, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Wednesday. The litigation could change this community and set precedents for how the country deals with immigration.
One current and three former employees of Mohawk Industries Inc. have filed a class action lawsuit against the firm, alleging it knowingly hired hundreds of illegal immigrants to suppress legal workers' wages. The company categorically denies knowledge of any illegal workers on its payroll and says it provides all employees with competitive wages and health benefits.
The case raises the three pivotal questions in the immigration debate: Are immigrants, legal or not, coming to work in the U.S. because the economy needs them or because companies exploit cheap labor to the detriment of U.S.-born workers? Should the front-line controls on illegal immigration be the personnel offices of manufacturers? And will stricter checks on hiring documents for applicants who look or sound foreign discriminate against all Hispanics?
The Supreme Court will focus only on whether a company and its agents - recruiters, in this case - can be considered a racketeering enterprise under civil provisions of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which allows the plaintiffs to ask for triple damages.
Both sides agree, however, that the case is about U.S. citizens taking matters in their own hands because they feel that illegal immigration is out of control.
"This points out the need to have private enforcement. It gives private citizens some recourse to protect themselves," said Howard Foster, the employees' attorney and a noted immigration-control activist who has taken on large corporations across the country. His clients, through him, declined interview requests.
Research is mixed on immigrants' impact on U.S.-born workers. George Borjas of Harvard University has concluded that, between 1980 and 2000, the wages of U.S.-born men without a high school diploma have decreased by as much as 7.4 percent because of immigrant labor. But other economists say filling jobs that Americans tend to avoid spurs the economy to grow locally, reducing automation and outsourcing, and enriching local coffers through taxes and shopping.
"Ninety-plus percent of the time, wages are helped by the influx of documented and undocumented immigrants," said Dan Siciliano of Stanford University. "It's no fun for that 10 percent. But we shouldn't get rid of immigrants who help those nine out of 10 workers."
Keeping illegal immigrants out of company jobs should be easy, since the law requires employers to check a list of documents for all job applicants, and many workers without papers tend to pick up temporary jobs where they're paid cash. But corporations say it's nearly impossible to spot fake documents. Some immigration enforcement officials agree that, as a result, companies not considered "critical infrastructure" face a minimal risk of prosecution.
"The argument 'I tried my best' is usually successful unless you have a mole with a tape recording, 'Give me illegal aliens to hire,'" said Victor Cerda, former counsel for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But now the government plans to crack down harder on employers who harbor and hire illegal immigrants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday after a series of nationwide raids at a pallet manufacturer's plants. More than 1,100 people were arrested on administrative immigration charges.
Juan Morillo, Mohawk's attorney, said immigration officials haven't approached the company since the lawsuit was filed in January 2004. Mohawk also argues that going beyond routine document checks for applicants who look Hispanic would only open the company up to charges of discrimination.
"The company feels very strongly the desired effect is to make it more difficult to hire Hispanics," Morillo said about the lawsuit, adding that the company "will not do anything to try and change the demographics of its work force."
Immigrants and advocates fear, however, that companies will make such changes, especially in places like northwest Georgia where the Hispanic immigrant population is new. From 1990 to 2000, the town's Hispanic population jumped from 39 to 1,821, according to census figures. Most of those new residents immigrated from Mexico and Central America.
"The city is growing because of the Hispanics," said Armando Rodriguez as he helped customers at his butcher and deli shop near Matul's. "But they don't like us."
Rumors about crackdowns on illegal immigrants and the lawsuit before the Supreme Court are spreading fear and confusion, said America Gruner, a community health worker from Mexico who has lived in nearby Dalton for five years.
"A lot of people want to leave; some take for granted that many people are going to be deported," she said.
Still, immigrants like Rodriguez say they like the "very quiet village" because it's good for their children. This is where the 41-year-old Guatemalan, who first moved to California when he was 20 and eventually worked for Mohawk, realized his small entrepreneur dream.
"I dreamed of working, making money and going back," he said with a grin, sparkling pinatas hovering above his cash counter. "But now I like it here."
--------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/wireless/content/metro/dekalb/stories/0420raid.html
44 arrested in immigration raid at DeKalb business
By TERESA BORDEN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/21/06
A day after launching the largest workplace raid in the history of the national immigration service, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff on Thursday announced a sweeping new policy to catch and sanction those who hire illegal immigrants.
Netting near 1,200 workers in 26 states, including 44 in Atlanta, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on Wednesday fanned out across the country to arrest workers at 40 plants belonging to IFCO Systems North America Inc., a pallet and crate maker that they say knowingly employed illegal immigrants. They also arrested seven company executives in the year-long investigation. One of them, Abelino Chicas, an assistant general manager, was arrested in Atlanta.
 File | |
| Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a push to enforce workplace immigration laws Thursday, a day after IFCO locations across the United States were raided. | |
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IFCO Systems is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and has North American headquarters in Houston.
A receptionist at IFCO's location on South River Industrial Boulevard in Atlanta declined to comment on the raid and read a statement from company headquarters that indicated IFCO was cooperating with authorities. She said the plant manager was not available for comment.
The investigation began when agents got a tip that workers at an IFCO plant in Guilderland, N.Y., had been seen tearing up W-2 tax forms and an administrator had acknowledged that the workers were illegal immigrants, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
Further investigation revealed that employers took the workers to and from work, provided housing for them, and deducted money from their checks to cover those costs. The affidavit said that former employees told agents it was common practice for IFCO to hire workers without Social Security numbers or with fake documents.
Ken Smith, special agent in charge of ICE in Atlanta, said some immigrant laborers tried to run when agents showed up at IFCO's Atlanta plant. One even jumped in a car and tried to speed away, almost hitting an agent, Smith said. He said that person was being charged with assault on a federal officer. Most of the remaining workers will likely agree to voluntary departure and be sent back to Mexico, he said.
Worldwide, IFCO has about 3,300 employees, according to business tracking service Hoover's. U.S. sales made up more than half of IFCO's 2004 revenues of $495.9 million.
In addition to the Atlanta arrests, agents apprehended 44 workers in Charlotte, 20 in Greenville, S.C., and 21 in Charleston, S.C.
The IFCO operation signaled a new strategy to ramp up enforcement against employers of illegal immigrants. Chertoff said agents would focus on building criminal cases against businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, rather than merely imposing administrative fines.
"Employers and workers alike should be on notice that the status quo has changed," Chertoff said at a Washington press conference. "We intend to find employers who knowingly or recklessly hire unauthorized workers and we will use every authority within our power to shut down businesses that exploit an illegal work force to turn a profit."
In the IFCO case, immigration officials said that more than half of those arrested had mismatched or invalid Social Security numbers. Businesses are required by law to verify the Social Security number of every new hire. Bad numbers should at least trigger a more vigorous check. But in this case they were ignored, officials said.
Employer compliance will involve better Social Security number checks, Chertoff said. For that, he is seeking legislation that will allow ICE officials access to Social Security records.
Chertoff said the initiative would also involve identifying and deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes and aggressively investigating smuggling networks, areas on which ICE has focused since it was formed in 2003 during the government reorganization that spawned the Department of Homeland Security.
"Hard-hitting interior enforcement will reinforce the strong stance we are taking at our borders," Chertoff said. "We will aggressively target the growing support systems that make it easier for aliens to enter the country and find work outside of the law."
According to ICE, about 630,000 foreign-born criminals enter the nation's prisons and jails each year. Another 590,000 people are criminal fugitives who have been ordered deported, a figure that grows by 40,000 yearly. Part of the new effort, Chertoff said, will involve identifying foreign-born criminals and arresting fugitives, then preparing their deportation before they finish serving their sentences so that they can be moved directly from a prison cell to a plane home.
The change comes at a time when Congress is wrestling with various proposals to reform immigration, strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border, and deal with an estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. ICE has borne much criticism over its enforcement — some call it a lack of enforcement — of immigration law inside the country.
"This issue is really heating up," said Mary Odem, an immigration expert at Emory University. "They are responding to the tremendous public outcry that is happening on both sides."
"This is a timing issue," said Hector Chichoni, an attorney with Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, an immigration law firm with clients in the hospitality and agriculture industries. "The country is now going for immigration reform. ... The government has become more and more knowledgeable about how problematic and big this issue is. They want to put their house in order."
George Grayson, an immigration expert at the College of William and Mary, said the operation was a reaction to public displeasure with ICE's performance, manifested in state measures to crack down on illegal immigration, like Georgia's SB 529, signed into law this week by Gov. Sonny Perdue.
In 2004, only three businesses in the United States were fined for employing illegal immigrants. ICE spokesman Dean Boyd says that is because ICE has gradually abandoned administrative cases against employers in favor of criminal ones.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2004, ICE began 465 criminal worksite investigations that resulted in 160 arrests and 46 convictions. In 2005, Boyd said, the number of criminal investigations increased to 511, with 165 arrests and 127 convictions.
As a result, more than 1,600 people were arrested on immigration violations over those two years. Immigration violations are not criminal offenses, but they can result in a person being returned to his home country.
Staff writer Mike Tierney contributed to this article.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0421/p01s04-usju.html
from the April 21, 2006 edition
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http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/14390569.htm
Nearly 1,200 arrested in crackdown on illegal workers
BY DAVE MONTGOMERY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Federal immigration agents, carrying out the largest workplace bust in U.S. history, arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants employed by a nationwide pallet services company and filed criminal conspiracy charges against seven current and former managers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Thursday.
The 26-state roundup, conducted Wednesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, targeted Houston-based IFCO Systems North America Inc. and capped a 14-month investigation that involved a former illegal immigrant working as an undercover operative for ICE.
IFCO managers actively recruited illegal immigrants and provided housing, transportation and bogus work documents, officials said. Approximately 53.4 percent of the Social Security numbers for 5,800 IFCO workers during 2005 were either invalid, belonged to children or dead people, or did not match the names registered with the Social Security Administration, according to investigators.
Chertoff, underscoring the investigation's scope, said the roundup surpassed the 2005 total of 1,125 worksite arrests. ICE agents, assisted by the Justice Department, executed criminal search warrants at 40 plant sites in Texas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois and 15 other states.
On its Web site, IFCO describes itself as a national leader in pallet systems, which are used as platforms for shipping. E-mail and phone messages to IFCO's public affairs spokesman were not returned. In a statement, the firm said it was cooperating with authorities.
Chertoff said the raid exemplifies an emerging strategy by his department to beef up and expand workplace enforcement. The strategy, Chertoff said, includes aggressive criminal prosecution against "bad actors" who knowingly and consistently hire illegal aliens, as well as a crackdown against widespread misuse of Social Security numbers.
The toughened enforcement occurred as Congress grapples with an array of legislative proposals to deal with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants and resentment of them is rising across the country. The Senate next week will resume deliberations on a proposed comprehensive immigration bill that would put most illegal aliens on a path to permanent legal status. The House of Representatives opposes such terms, and passed a law-enforcement-only measure in December.
The seven current and former IFCO supervisors were arrested and named in criminal complaints that could result in maximum 10-year prison sentences and fines of up to $250,000 for each alien. They were charged with conspiring to transport and harbor illegal aliens for commercial and financial gain.
The officials included Robert Belvin, 43, Clifton Park, N.Y., former general manager of the IFCO plant in Guilderland, N.Y.; Abelino "Lino" Chicas, 40, Houston, assistant general manager of the Houston West IFCO plant; James Rice, 36, Houston, a former regional general manager; William "Billy" Hoskins, 29, Cincinnati, general manager of the Cincinnati plant; Michael Ames, 44, Shrewsbury, Mass., general manager of IFCO's plant in Westborough, Mass.; Dario Salzano, 36, Amsterdam, N.Y., assistant general manager of the IFCO plant in Guilderland, and Scott Dodge, 43, of Amsterdam, a former plant foreman in Guilderland.
Two other employees were arrested on criminal charges relating to fraudulent documents. The alien workers, predominately from Mexico and Latin America, were arrested on civil violations on being in the country illegally and face deportation to their home countries. More than 200 had been returned by mid-day Thursday, ICE officials said.
According to a government affidavit, the investigation began in February 2005 when a company employee at the Guilderland plant called ICE agents to report that he had seen Hispanic workers ripping up W-2 forms. The employee said a manger told him that the Hispanics were illegal aliens, had fake Social Security cards and did not intend to file their taxes.
ICE, a branch of Homeland Security, worked with the New York State Police in the expanding probe and enlisted a "confidential informant" who had helped ICE in an earlier prosecution against alien smugglers in Texas. The informant began working with ICE after he was arrested by the Border Patrol for entering the country illegally, according to the affidavit.
ICE provided the informant employment authorization and temporary status to remain in the United States while assisting in ICE investigations. He was also paid during the IFCO investigation, the affidavit said.
The informant, who taped many of his conversations with IFCO officials, introduced himself to Hispanics at a grocery store near the Guilderland plant and met with Belvin in April 2005. He told the manager that he was an illegal immigrant without papers but said "he would buy some in New York City over the weekend," the affidavit said.
After going to work at the company, the informant was told by the company's bookkeeper that he should claim to be married with six dependents on his W-4 to reduce the amount withheld from his paycheck, according to the affidavit. IFCO officials also reimbursed the informant for obtaining false identity documents and used him to recruit other illegal workers, according to investigators.
Several employees who entered the country illegally told ICE investigators that they stayed in houses provided by company officials and were shuttled to work. One worker from Honduras said he told a supervisor "named James" that he did not have documents to work in the United States and was instructed to sign a blank federal form that requires verifying employment eligibility.
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http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4798023&nav=5kZQ
State law forces local law to take on INS duty
April 20, 2006
Albany -- A new tough state Immigration Act pushed through by Governor Sonny Perdue mandates Georgia Police Officers enforce laws against people in the United States illegally.
The new act requires local Police check the legal status of everyone charged with a felony or DUI, and if undocumented, be turned over to federal Immigration Authorities.
But could it be another unfunded mandate that local departments will have to bear?
Dougherty County Sheriff Jamil Saba says he worries Governor Perdue's Immigration law will make it tough on law enforcement officers, as they encounter the thousands of people living in South Georgia illegally. "You just going to have to stop them, and check their card. And if they don't have a card they are going to have to go straight to jail," Sheriff Saba said.
Saba knows Dougherty County 's Jail and the others in South Georgia could become crowded as Officers are forced to hold illegals. "If that's the case, I'm sure we are going to get a few in our jail, and I'm sure these surrounding counties are going to get a lot of them."
It has been state law to contact Federal Immigration and Customs officials when undocumented persons are arrested. But Sheriff Saba said the feds never did their job. "They never would really come to check them out and look at them, so we just had to turn them a loose, because we can't keep holding them."
Saba said he got so frustrated with the Feds failure to act in the past, he stopped bothering with them. "I ain't seen nothing yet about what they were supposed to do for us, so we told them we're not going to do it anymore."
Now this new Georgia law requires local authorities enforce federal immigration laws, that the feds are ignoring. And Saba says money promised to train the local officers rarely comes through, making the local departments pay the added cost.
With thousands of illegals in South Georgia, police could face staggering numbers of people they must arrest. "If you see one, you just stop him and check it out. When you get this unfunded mandate stuff, it's hard, because you don't have the money in your budget to do it," Saba said.
Governor Perdue's Immigration Act calls for federal funding for training Police and enforcement, but Sheriff Saba worries that is just another promise of money South Georgia law enforcement will never see.
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Erik Voss
erik@ICAtlanta.org
404-457-5901 Direct
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