Posted on 08/06/2007 3:30:50 PM PDT by SeafoodGumbo
The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers on the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring illegal immigrants on projects in three states. Some had improper welding certification.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Jose S. Gonzalez, 32, at his office in Greenville Thursday, according to a news release. Tarrasco Steel was hired as a subcontractor for rebar installation services to major bridge projects in Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. The federal government considers those bridges as critical infrastructure, and they were part of routine inspections of facilities that if damaged could pose a threat to national security and public safety.
"There is a serious public safety concern when illegal aliens, who are not authorized to work in the country legally, and who do not possess valid welding certifications, are employed in the construction of bridges in our communities," said Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Customs Office of Investigations in New Orleans, in a news release.
On inspections of several construction sites March 29, representatives of several federal agencies confirmed the majority of Tarrasco Steel employees were using bogus Social Security numbers, and 77 immigrants were arrested. Twenty-six of them worked for Tarrasco Steel. Some of them worked on the Biloxi bridge, the Huey P. Long bridge in New Orleans, and a project on Interstate 40 in Memphis, among others, the news release said.
In April, nine Tarrasco employees caught in the March 29 operations were charged with fraudulent use of immigration documents and Social Security account numbers. Investigators served a search warrant at the Tarrasco office in Greenville and they got copies of payroll records. They allege Gonzalez falsified information on the I-9 Employee Eligibility forms. Investigators learned that several workers had inappropriate welding certifications.
Several South Mississippi law enforcement agencies participated in the investigation, including the Harrison County Sheriff's Department, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Biloxi Police Department.
Gonzalez was indicted on July 29 and $457,368 has been seized from Tarrasco accounts, the news release said.
I’m currently in the boiler repair/installation trade. Small stuff mostly. Possibly will get out soon and maybe take a semi technical position in a power plant or maybe on a maintenance crew of some place that has lots of boilers. I also have a BSCE. Don’t use it though. Got the FE but not the PE. I’ve found I can’t stand blue prints or calcs or office politics. I gotta be in the field somehow. I’m currently doing both estimating and repair work and have the responsibility of keeping the companies ‘R’ stamp up to date and all repairs legit. THat’s about as much calcs as I can stand.
I even went to grad school, but couldn’t stand it. That’s how I got the gig at the bridge testing lab.
I think it was illegal Native Americans.
But this is not the way the system was originally designed to work. Welding procedures were invented by each individual entrepreneur, and he then paid to have it approved. He basically taught his own guys how to weld.
gee, is making good rebar welds important for bridge supports? /sarc
Let's all repeat the mantra: They're ALL only doing what Americans would NEVER want to do! /s
Hehe. It took me about ten seconds to figure that bumper sticker out.
The FAA had a couple of field techs who loved it when they got a thermite job at one of the sites.
In b-school, one of cases in a manufacturing class was about weld problems on thermal couples for GE aircraft engines.
Bottom line, provided by a classmate that worked at that particular plant when the Harvard type blew through to write the case, the union welders bid on work, and rework paid extra, ergo, it was to the welder's benefit to screw up the initial weld to get higher pay to fix it.
Many of those arrested worked for the Greenville-based Tarrasco Steel, a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, and were employed on construction of a new U.S. 82 bridge over the Mississippi River between Greenville and Lake Village, Ark.
Tarrasco, owned by Jose S. Gonzalez, has been under ICE investigation following allegations of criminal misconduct. Tarrasco Steel provides steel re-bar and employees for construction jobs.
Always a nitpicker. You know I meant, if all the planned reactors came on line.
We lost a lot of regional work because of the WPPSS debacle so much so the DOE took their super collider project to Texas. Right after that many of the area shipyards went tits up, it wasn’t a happy time for trades services in Pugetopolis.
ping
Somali canibals.
I thought the plant Hanneford ? near the tri-cities was nuclear.
The government arrests someone or carries out a bust everynow and then to try to appease the natives. In no way is enforcing border law a priority for them.
The welders have to be certified. The places that do welder certification do actual demonstration of welding knowledge and skill. It would be hard to get by with faking it, including language.
You get what you paid for !
It is. The plan was to build 4 more.
Bttt!
ok first off, its dangerous having someone with out a cert. for welding weld. and second off, it’s not a job that americans don’t want. i work for a welding company, and the workers here (ALL AMERICAN) love doing what they’re doing. you can’t group all americans together like that and say it’s something that we don’t want to do. that’s just wrong, rasist and sterotypical! if someone hires another person that doesn’t have a cert. for what they were hired for they were in the wrong. and if the employee fakes the cert. then they are just as wrong. end of story.
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