Fischer Homes supervisors charged with harboring illegal aliens – ICE Press Release
05/09/2006
Via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Press Release
— Four supervisors arrested on criminal charges and 76 illegal alien employees apprehended —
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Amul R. Thapar, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, today announced the arrest of four construction supervisors of Fischer Homes Inc. and 76 illegal alien workers at Fischer Homes construction sites in Kentucky. Headquartered in Kentucky, Fischer Homes is a leading builder of homes in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.
A coordinated investigation by ICE, the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division and local law enforcement agencies resulted in the arrest this morning of the four Fischer Homes construction site supervisors pursuant to criminal complaints issued in the Eastern District of Kentucky. Those arrested are:
• Timothy Copsy, a Fischer Homes construction manager
• Doug Witt, a Fischer Homes superintendent
• William Allison, a Fischer Homes superintendent
• Bill Ring, a Fischer Homes assistant superintendent
Each of the defendants is charged in a criminal complaint with aiding and abetting, harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage or private financial gain. The maximum possible punishment for the crime charged is up to 10 years imprisonment, $250,000 or both. The defendants made their initial appearance this morning in federal court in Covington, Kentucky.
During the enforcement operation today, ICE agents also apprehended 76 illegal alien workers at three
Fischer Homes construction sites in Hebron, Union and Florence, Kentucky.
“Today’s case is another tough step in our targeted and aggressive enforcement of our immigration laws within the interior of the United States,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “We will continue to bring criminal actions against employers who are consistently harboring illegal aliens. We will stop this type of illegal facilitation.”
ICE Assistant Secretary Myers said, “ICE has no tolerance for corporate supervisors who harbor illegal aliens for their workforce and deny labor opportunities for legitimate American employees. This enforcement action demonstrates how we will use all our investigative tools to bring these individuals to justice, no matter how large or small the company.”
Assistant Secretary Myers and U.S. Attorney Thapar praised the collective efforts of the local and federal community who are giving their time, expertise, and full cooperation to this ongoing effort. A criminal complaint is an accusation only and that person is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.
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RECENT ICE WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT CASES
Today’s enforcement action is the latest in ICE’s ongoing efforts to target illegal employment practices through criminal investigations, prosecutions, and asset seizures. Last fiscal year, ICE worksite investigations resulted in 127 criminal convictions and a total of 1,145 arrests, up from 46 criminal convictions and 845 arrests the previous year. Below is a sample of ICE worksite enforcement cases brought in the past month.
• On May 2, 2006, Robert Porcisanu, the owner of an Indiana business that performed stucco-related services at construction sites in at least seven Midwest states was charged with money laundering, harboring illegal aliens, transporting illegal aliens, and false statements in connection with an illegal employment scheme. Porcisanu faces as many as 40 years in prison. ICE is also seeking the forfeiture of $1.4 million. His firm was allegedly able to undercut the bids of contractors to perform work at construction sites by taking advantage of cheap labor costs from the use of illegal alien employees.
• On April 19, 2006, ICE agents arrested seven current and former managers of IFCO Systems North America Inc, pursuant to criminal complaints in Albany, New York, charging them with harboring illegal aliens for financial gain. ICE agents also apprehended 1,187 of the firm’s illegal alien employees during search warrants and consent searches executed at more than 40 IFCO locations nationwide. The arrests were the result of a year-long investigation of IFCO, which determined that more than half of IFCO’s employees during 2005 had invalid or mismatched Social Security numbers. IFCO is the largest pallet services company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas.
• On April 14, 2006, the operators of Baltimore’s best-known sushi restaurants agreed to forfeit more than $1 million and pleaded guilty to criminal charges of conspiracy to commit alien harboring and money laundering in connection with an illegal alien employment scheme. The investigation found that the operators of the three Kawasaki restaurants in Baltimore exploited cheap, illegal labor to maximize profits in order to purchase new homes and luxury vehicles for themselves.
• On April 11, 2006, a federal indictment was unsealed in Ohio charging two temporary employment agencies and nine individuals with hiring and harboring illegal aliens; mail and wire fraud; and laundering approximately $5.3 million. The indictment alleged that HV Connect, Inc., and TN Job Service, Inc. provided hundreds of illegal alien employees to unwitting companies in Ohio by falsely representing that they were legal. The indictment also alleged that the owners of these agencies used the profits from this scheme build a new home and purchase jewelry for themselves.
Employers walk a legal tightrope
Illegal immigration is built into U.S. law.
That’s the no-holds-barred truth, spoken by Mira Mdivani, an Overland Park attorney specializing in immigration law.
“Employers have to violate the law, and people have to come
illegally, and now the potato is too hot to handle,” Mdivani said in
calculated hyperbole.
The numbers of H1B and H2B work visas authorized by Congress are
inadequate, she said. The annual visa quotas often are snapped up by
the first day of the fiscal year, leaving employers another year of
time and expense to try to get legal work permits for people they hire.
At a recent employment law seminar sponsored by the Overland Park Chamber of Commerce,
Mdivani counseled about a dozen employers who were trying hard to dot
their i’s correctly and stay out of trouble if immigration officials
come calling.
Mdivani congratulated them on their concern — and then presented a daunting outline of how to hire immigrants legally.
Currently, she said, she’s representing an immigrant whose work visa
has expired. The system is so backlogged, though, that it may be a year
before her client gets the updated paperwork that certifies legal
worker status.
The client’s employer thinks the worker must be fired because of the visa expiration.
“That’s not right,” Mdivani said. “You don’t have to get rid of the
person. The person is perfectly authorized to work. The permit is
automatically extended, even if the paperwork takes a year.”
But extensions are different from first-time authorizations. And
that’s the truly hot potato. Countless U.S. employers simply ignore
immigration law and hope the authorities don’t visit.
That’s why it was somewhat bittersweet to hear the detailed
questions from the handful of Overland Park business operators who
attended Mdivani’s presentation.
Take their concerns about proper handling of I-9s. Those are the Employment Eligibility Verification forms distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 required employers to
verify the identity and work authorization status of all employees by
filling out I-9 forms. It’s a headache that, essentially, asks
employers to be immigration police and forgery experts.
But the worries about ferreting out illegal workers don’t stop
there. Employers who want to walk a legal line also need to be careful
about how they handle their I-9 paperwork.
For example, Mdivani said, a company leaves itself wide open for
discrimination lawsuits if it asks for I-9s only from workers who
appear to be foreign-born.
“If discovery finds that ‘Peter Smith’ doesn’t have an I-9 on file
but ‘Pedro Rodriguez’ does, that could be a problem. The law needs to
be applied the same to everyone,” Mdivani warned.
And then there’s the matter of when an I-9 form is presented to the worker. It must be after the job offer is extended, not before, to avoid the appearance of discriminatory hiring practices.
That fine line between immigration and civil rights law is a tightrope for the employers who are trying to do things right.
And that’s a sector that hasn’t been massing in demonstrations in recent weeks.
ICE Increases Sweep and Arrest Activity
Via The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)
04/26/2006
Following on the heels of the employer raids last
week that made national headlines and resulted in the arrests of over
1,000 alleged undocumented workers, and the arrest and criminal
indictment of several corporate managers, further reports are reaching
AILA that ICE is conducting additional sweeps in communities in various
parts of the country. This is consistent with DHS’s announced intent to
beef up enforcement of immigration laws within the U.S. as part of the
Secure Border Initiative. It appears that there are two prongs to the
interior actions: investigations of employers and sweeps looking for
individual alien “absconders.”
Reports from New York and New Jersey indicate that sweeps and
arrests have taken place in Brentwood, Bay Shore, and Farmingville on
Long Island, and in Newark, Elizabeth, and Willowbrook, and at the
Garden State Plaza. The AP reported yesterday 183 arrests in Florida
last week related to enforcement of deportation orders involving aliens
convicted of crimes.
AILA is also hearing that ICE is conducting employer actions,
including multi-state raids on specific companies, with reports from
AILA members of employer clients being raided in New York, Ohio and
Illinois.
At a press conference Thursday, April 20, 2006, announcing that
week’s raids and arrests, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a
crackdown on employers, saying: “We are looking at those people who
adopt as a business model the systematic violation of U.S. laws,”
Chertoff said. “We are continuing to investigate other companies.”
AILA will continue to monitor these events and update members as events unfold.
AILF has just compiled and posted an Employer Sanctions and “Know Your Rights” resource list that provides links to important materials and information. In
addition, AILA and AILF are working on an updated advisory for
employers faced with workplace raids.
Struggle on two fronts
Soldier fights in Iraq, wife battles deportation efforts
Sgt. Elhadji Mansour Ba has too much on his mind for a man in a combat zone.
He’s fighting for his country, while his country is trying to deport his wife.
Ba is working in one of Iraq’s most dangerous provinces, al-Anbar,
near the Syrian border. It’s his second tour in Iraq for the U.S. Army,
this time backing up Marines who are fighting the insurgency.
“I cannot protect my family when I am far away trying to protect our country,” he said.
So, Ba, 32, is leaving his post there temporarily to defend his
wife, Nana Diallo, at a hearing tomorrow in U.S. Immigration Court in
Arlington County. He is a member of the 506th Quartermaster Company,
based at Fort Lee.
He reported to the unit on Aug. 20, three days after the government ordered his wife into removal proceedings.
A native of Senegal, Diallo, 33, faces deportation to her country of
citizenship, France, for staying here long after her temporary visa
waiver expired nine years ago. The Department of Homeland Security also
has accused her of fraud because of the mistakes her husband said he
made on the application to allow her to remain here legally.
“I was confused,” Ba said in a phone interview from Iraq last week.
Diallo is a military wife in a waiting game, living in a neat home
in Colonial Heights with the couple’s son, Ibrahim, who will turn 5
next week. The child is a U.S. citizen, as is his father, who was born
in Senegal but naturalized in 2000.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” she said.
Anita R. Schneider, her immigration lawyer, is a little perplexed,
too. Diallo’s plight won’t be easy to solve because she went to Paris
with her husband last summer to obtain a visa from the U.S. Consulate
there. She got the visa, but she technically hasn’t been allowed back
into the country.
If Diallo had stayed in the United States, she could have gotten
legal permanent residence as the wife of a U.S. citizen. Now, the
government regards her as an “arriving alien,” not someone who has
lived here since 1997.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not comment
on Diallo’s case. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection said her
case doesn’t meet the criteria for a humanitarian parole.
Diallo and her husband traveled to Paris in late June, a few days
after Ba re-enlisted in the Army. They had married in 2003, while he
was home on leave from his first tour of duty in Iraq. After he
returned in early 2004, he started the process of making his wife’s
presence in the country legal.
The problem was, he thought his wife and son would join him in
Germany, where he was stationed with the 147th Ordinance Unit. He put
Germany as her home address, which the government later would cite as
one instance of alleged fraud. The National Visa Center instructed them
to travel to Paris for the visa because Diallo is a French citizen.
Diallo went to the consulate in France and received the visa in late
July. When she returned home she was stopped at Dulles International
Airport, where border and customs officials questioned her. They didn’t
detain her but gave her deferred inspection status to sort out the
problems they found with her papers.
They wanted to know why she had put Germany as her home address.
They also wanted to know why she had answered “no” instead of “yes” to
a question that asked whether she had been unlawfully present in the
United States for more than a year. It was part of a larger question
about whether she had ever committed an aggravated felony and been
ordered to be removed from the country.
“I did not think that this described the wife of a U.S. soldier who
had never been in trouble,” Ba explained in an affidavit last month.
Ba also mistakenly said in another part of the application that
Diallo had overstayed her visa waiver from 1997 through 2003, instead
of 2005. Her lawyer, Schneider, said the error was immaterial because
they had not tried to conceal her illegal status. “There was no fraud,”
she said in exasperation.
This was the type of problem the couple had tried to avoid when Ba
completed the papers for his wife. “He was telling me he was going to
do everything because he didn’t want me to make any mistakes,” Diallo
said.
The biggest mistake of all was leaving the country to process her
visa. Not only did Diallo become inadmissible, but she also faced a
10-year bar from returning because she had lived here illegally for so
long. They didn’t know that because they didn’t have a lawyer.
“We would have said, ‘Don’t leave the country, no, no, no!'” Schneider said.
Tomorrow, Schneider will ask an immigration judge to grant Diallo a
waiver of the 10-year bar so that she can formally enter the country
and adjust her status.
Ba is traveling from Iraq to attend the hearing. He’s an
automated-logistics specialist, but his duties there range from setting
up portable showers to manning a gun truck.
He moves constantly in dangerous territory. He worries about his wife and son.
“I keep saying to myself, what’s going to happen to them if something happens to me?”
Former SI swimsuit model denied U.S. entry
MIAMI, Florida (AP) — Former Sports
Illustrated swimsuit model May Andersen, accused of hitting a flight
attendant on a plane from Amsterdam to Miami, was refused entry into
the U.S. on Monday, officials said.
Andersen, 23, will be
returned to the Netherlands on the next available flight, said U.S.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann.
The model,
who has appeared in SI’s swimsuit edition and posed for Victoria’s
Secret, was charged with assault after allegedly becoming unruly and
violent on the flight last Thursday. She was held in the Miami-Dade
County jail and then moved to federal immigration custody.
Mann
said Andersen was seeking to enter the U.S. under the visa waiver
program, which permits some visitors to enter without visas. His agency
on Monday determined that Andersen was “inadmissible” under that
program.
The specific reasons for the denial were not provided because of federal privacy protections.
Andersen
was charged with simple battery, resisting arrest without violence and
disorderly intoxication. It was not immediately clear Monday how the
immigration decision would affect that case.
Her attorney in Miami did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Department of Homeland Security unveils comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy for the nation’s interior
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
PRESS RELEASE 04/20/2006
|
WASHINGTON The new interior enforcement strategy represents the second phase of The interior enforcement strategy will complement the Department’s
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, “Illegal ICE Assistant Secretary Myers said, “This strategy lays down a Goal one: identify and remove criminal aliens, fugitives and other immigration violators
Goal two: build strong worksite enforcement and compliance programs to deter illegal employment
Goal three: uproot the criminal infrastructure that supports illegal immigration
|
|
— ICE — |
Maryland woman sentenced for conspiracy to commit involuntary servitude and harboring an illegal alien for financial gain
14-Year-Old Nigerian Girl Brought to U.S. and Held Against Her Will
Via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
|
GREENBELT, United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein stated, “This “Too often human traffickers bait young girls with promises of the “The acts committed by this individual — holding a child as a On November 18, 2004, Stella Udeozor was convicted by a federal jury Testimony showed that the couple induced the young girl to come to In addition to constantly yelling at and insulting the victim, the The jury also returned three special findings relating to George Udeozor, age 49, is a fugitive and has not yet been tried in this case. He is currently facing extradition from Nigeria. United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the U.S. Department |
|
— ICE — |
Navy sinks marriage-for-money scam
Eight sailors charged with taking $35,000 for sham marriages
JACKSONVILLE, Florida (AP) — Eight
sailors were charged Tuesday with arranging sham marriages to Polish
and Romanian women to help the women obtain U.S. citizenship and to
collect bigger military housing allowances for themselves.
An
investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that none of the women lived
with the sailors they married.
In all, the eight sailors received
$35,000 in fraudulent basic housing allowance payments, investigators
said. One sailor was allegedly getting $1,836 per month.
The Navy
terminated the allowances in November. If convicted, the seven current
and one former sailor from the USS Kennedy and USS Simpson could face
up to five years in prison per count.
Basic housing allowance is
a tax-free payment that active-duty members of the U.S. military
receive to offset their housing costs if they do not live on base. The
amount is based on location, marital status and the number of
dependents.
One of the women, a Polish nanny, was also charged,
and authorities were seeking seven other women, six of them Polish and
one Romanian.
Each paid $6,000 for the weddings to the sailors so
they could petition for U.S. citizenship, according to U.S. Attorney
Paul Perez.
The NCIS investigation began last September when a
Navy petty officer assigned to the Kennedy was approached by a seaman
from the Simpson with the opportunity to receive a basic housing
allowance for marrying a Polish woman.
The seaman who arranged
the marriage was to receive $6,000 from the woman and the petty officer
was to receive the basic housing allowance, officials said.
Five
of the sailors appeared Tuesday in federal court in Jacksonville. They
were released after each signed a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Nanny’s time in U.S. running out
Via The Boston Herald
Time
is running out for a 32-year-old Hingham nanny who overstayed her
student visa and is set to be deported to her native Belgium Thursday.
Victorian
Vannerom has spent the last month in the Suffolk House of Correction at
South Bay awaiting deportation after her arrest in January by U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Efforts
by her employers – two Hingham biotech executives whose twin sons
Vannerom cared for – to legally adopt her have failed, said Alicia
Secor, 43.
Secor and husband Jim McGorry, 49, hired Vannerom in 2004 and said she has become an integral part of their family.
“It’s
a shame. I can’t tell you how much we are going to miss her,” Secor
said. “I still feel in my heart of hearts there should be a legitimate
way for her to stay in the United States.”
The
Vannerom case has raised questions about how aggressively ICE should
target immigrants in the United States who hold down jobs, have no
criminal record and pay taxes, as Vannerom did.
US-VISIT under the microscope
Via FCW.com
02/13/2006
The honeymoon appears to be over for the Homeland Security
Department’s system for spotting criminal aliens when they cross U.S.
borders.
For the past three years, the U.S. Visitor and
Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program had escaped much of the
criticism other DHS programs received. Congress generally praised the
program’s progress since its creation in 2003 in response to the 2001
terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Public Discourse Project, successor to the
9/11 Commission, gave US-VISIT a B, the highest grade it gave to any
DHS program, when its members issued a final report last December.
Last
month, however, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security
Subcommittee and the Government Accountability Office said they had
concerns about whether US-VISIT is effective and well-managed.
INS into DHS – Where is it now?
On November 25, 2002, the President signed the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 into law. This law transferred INS functions to the new Department
of Homeland Security (DHS). Immigration enforcement functions were placed within
the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security (BTS), either directly, or under
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) (which includes the Border Patrol and INS
Inspections) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (which includes the
enforcement and investigation components of INS such as Investigations,
Intelligence, Detention and Removals).
As of March 1, 2003, the former Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) was abolished and its functions and units incorporated into the new
Department. Below are links to Web information about
the new locations, responsibilities and contacts (HQs/field) of the former INS
immigration services and immigration enforcement units.
F-Nonimmigrants: Entry and Exit FAQ
F-Nonimmigrants: Entry and Exit FAQ – Via Ice
SEVP made every effort to provide complete answers to these common
questions. However, each person’s individual circumstances differ. So
while these questions and answers serve as a general guide, they may
not provide all the information you need to determine whether it is
appropriate to travel or whether you will be readmitted to the United
States. You can contact your Designated School Official (DSO), your
embassy or consulate, or your legal counsel for further assistance.
Please remember that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
officer at the Port of Entry (POE) decides whether or not nonimmigrants
are admitted to the United States. This decision is based upon the
facts and circumstances presented at the time you apply to enter. SEVP
cannot guarantee that you will be admitted or readmitted to the United
States.
-
1. Initial Entry For Students (F-1 Nonimmigrants)
2. Reentry For F-1 Nonimmigrants Traveling Outside The United States For Five Months or Less
3. Renewing Your F-1 Student Visa
4. Reentry for F-1 Students or Conducting Research Abroad
5. Initial Entry for Spouses and Minor Children of F-1 Students (F-2 Nonimmigrants)
The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 
A Look Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons
Via DemocracyNow!
Undocumented immigrants are one of the largest growing populations
being detained by the U.S government. We look at the issue of
immigration detention, focusing on the treatment of immigrant
detainees, the trend towards privatization of detention centers and the
policies behind it all.
Click to read discussion about US Immigration Prisons