Audit Shows Illegal Workers Hired

signonsandiego.com ^ | 4-15-05 | Leslie Berestein

[onyx]

Lack of penalties on employers seen as incentive

By Leslie Berestein

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 15, 2005

EARNIE GRAFTON / Union-Tribune

ID badges, some with access to the 32nd Street naval station, were taken from people working in the U.S. illegally.

In what immigration officials are calling the most widespread hiring of unauthorized workers by a local employer in years, 86 people have been found to be working illegally for a San Diego military contractor, more than half the company's 167-person work force.

The unauthorized workers were discovered during a federal audit of Naval Coating Inc., a contracting company that paints and sandblasts U.S. Navy and commercial ships. In keeping with the recent trend in work-site enforcement, the employer faces no immediate criminal or civil penalties, although an investigation is pending.

Eighteen Naval Coating employees, all in the country illegally, were arrested in their homes early yesterday morning by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two of them, including one who had a drug smuggling conviction, had been deported before. Thirteen undocumented immigrants found living with the workers were also arrested.
The rest of the unauthorized workers are being sought. Most had clearance to enter the U.S. Naval Station at 32nd Street, as well as shipyards they were sent to that contract with the military.

ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack said that while other work-site enforcement actions in recent years have netted more arrests – 31 unauthorized employees of Continental Marine were arrested a year ago – the Naval Coating audit unearthed the greatest number of employees found working illegally for a local company in at least five years.

All of the 86 unauthorized workers had presented counterfeit driver licenses, state-issued identification cards, Social Security cards or green cards. Some of the documents had spelling and punctuation errors, Mack said.

Immigration laws require employers only to request identification from applicants, not to verify its authenticity. But the sheer number of unauthorized workers discovered at Naval Coating has raised a red flag, Mack said, warranting further investigation.

"Definitely, it is quite concerning to us that this company had such a large number of unauthorized workers," she said, adding that most had been with the company a year or less.

Yesterday afternoon, a receptionist at Naval Coating said that company president and owner James Kuvelas had instructed her to say "no comment."

The company was audited as part of Operation Safe Cities, a federal work-site inspection program that targets local businesses in industries deemed sensitive to national security breaches, such as military contractors and airports.

Since the program's inception in December 2003, more than 540 businesses in San Diego and Imperial counties have been audited, and more than 160 workers arrested.

But none of these workers has had ties to terrorism or came from nations designated by the federal government as "special interest" countries linked to terrorist activities. Of the 18 arrested yesterday, 17 are from Mexico and one is from Guatemala. All the detainees are expected to be returned to their native countries.

So far, none of the employers targeted under Safe Cities has been penalized. According to ICE, only two employers in the city of San Diego have been referred to the U.S. attorney for prosecution since 2000.

"The magnet continues to be there," said Joe Dassaro, president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents agents in the San Diego area. "(The employers) go back to the same practices because they are not penalized."

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Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579;

leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com

[cripplecreek]

In the case of our friend in Russia, she'll only be contributing to America. Since she's already a licensed pediatrician she will do a year internship at the hospital where my wife works for a year. That means that America gains a free doc for a year.

[sdpatriot]

oh this is rich. with every post by the pro-illegal bunch the elitist snobby agenda is further revealed.

who's going to pick your cotton massa? certainly not little Johnny and Jane Johnson... oh no, they're much to GOOD for that! and they have soccer practice!

is this what our public leaders think? are they too just a bunch of elitists soft-handed snobs who think these alien spanish speaking people should be doing the dirty slave labor for them?
i find that disgusting.

maybe you and your pro-illegal buddies should have been raised to learn how to work ... and i mean WORK for a living. maybe you all should have taught YOUR children to work to earn a buck.

your pro class division rhetoric is offensive to us blue collar types with NO "higher" education who make a living doing skilled and not so skilled labor - all the while paying our taxes and obeying the laws. my husband taught himself to run a crane at 17 years old and ended up operating the biggest crane in the state. he taught himself welding and traveled all over this country from southern texas to Barrow Alaska doing that. he ruined his knees kneeling in the permafrost for 14 hour days, 7 days a week, welding pipe in MINUS 40 below zero. i have worked at menial jobs before we had kids - a sawmill at 16 to a welders helper, and my kids have dug fence posts in 100PLUS heat, scrubbed public toilets, broke horses and had their own business at 17 and 18 yrs old to pay for school. while their friends had mommy and daddy paying for school they were out all summer with no weekends off working in the dirt and dust and mud and creosote peeling the skin right off their faces piling RRTies and banding them. they paid for a total of 7 years of school in 2 summers doing jobs other 18 year olds were TOO DANG GOOD to do. they paid for the ILLEGAL's tuiting too - someone has to pay it - who do you think makes up the difference?

looks like this isn't a "economic problem" after all. it's an elitist, spoiled, lazy, fat, problem. looks like people like you would rather max out the credit cards or have Johnny apply for student loans or have Grandpa Rich pay for a 2005 car and tuition rather than tell Johnny - "get off yer fat lazy duff and go learn how to work and save your money - then go to school. go get a job on the Texas Highway for the summer, boy!"

thanks for the insight. i already suspected it, but you made it clear. their IS a class distinction in this country and i'm dang glad i was born to a humble hard working HONEST LAW-ABIDING American farmer and then married one and then raised two more. the snotty elitists need to start scrubbing their own toilets - slavery was abolished in this nation, stop trying to bring it back.

[Ben Ficklin]

We have many, many different temp worker programs/different work visa numbers. Skill and earning capacity range from very low to very high

The two visas to be reformed cover the lowest skilled/lowest paid.

[Ben Ficklin]

With all due respect, I doubt that you very much about illegals.

I also doubt that you know much about the wide variation in skills and earning capacity of the people that enter this country to work.

If you think the secret to life is blue collar work and you want your children and grandchildren to do that, it is ok.

Myself, I didn't particularly care for the menial jobs so I got an education.

[sdpatriot]

you doubt i very much "what"? about illegals? know any thing? why? because i said i didn't have a "higher" education? LOL ok.. glad to see you aren't trying to hide you elitist attitude.. same ol'..

you also doubt i know.... blah blah blah..... LOL
yeah - i know, i'm just a dumb little hick.. funny i homeschooled my kids and one has a 4.00 in College right now though.

and i doubt you could out work me, out shoot me, out skin a buck me, or out happy me. whatever makes you feel good though FELLOW... just don't expect "certain others" that are beneath you to clean your toilet ok? i don't expect YOU to do my thinking for me.. God forbid.

i didn't say blue collar work is the secret to life, i said it is the MEANS to paying for a dang good honest life for my husband and i, and a means to pay for school for my kids, not to mention a great learning experience for them. not everyone expects a FREE ride in life. and hard work is good for a young person - it really makes them appreciate that dollar. how do you say it? oh yeah - i doubt you know much about that... lol

to bad you didn't learn how to read while getting that education, or you would have seen that i wrote that my kids worked their teenage years to PAY for an education. - which is outragously high because they have to pay for the kid sitting next to him in class who didn't pay.

it's kids like mine that pay for the feeders, and they paid with the sweat of their back, so i wouldn't be so condescending.

funny, George Bush told that single mom at the Town Hall meeting on Social Security that Americans were the hardest working people on earth. she wasn't a doctor ot professor either. or was he talking about illegals? LOL
in my little home town there are no illegals - yet. seems all the toilets get scrubbed, the highways get built, the hotel rooms get made up.... etc. i wonder who in the world is doing those jobs? maybe elves?

next time you eat some beef.... think of me will ya? just doing a job you're to la.. i mean- smart to do.... LOL

[Ben Ficklin]

Do you see your contradictions? You fault me because of my education, yet your child is educated.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

in my little home town there are no illegals - yet. seems all the toilets get scrubbed, the highways get built, the hotel rooms get made up.... etc. i wonder who in the world is doing those jobs?

That's the same point I make as well, we don't have too many illegals either but all that work seems to be getting done. Maybe they're the invisible kind of illegals, doing the jobs "no one wants to do".

[international american]

Put the owner in prison for 10 years.

[Iscool]

Do you consider sandblasting to be a popular career?

Union sandblasters make 15-25 bucks per hour, with benefits...A lot of American cititzens do sandblasting for a living...How much you think these criminals are getting paid???

Not only is this criminal contractor cheating Americans out of work, he is cheating we, the taxpayers by not paying the applicable taxes on his criminal employees...

IF you support this criminal activity, you should be in jail as well, as an accomplice...

[international american]

" It is like trying to stop a speeding train and
turn it around in five seconds."

We are being invaded.
This is war.
You stop it in 5 months when you act like it is a war.

[Iscool]

This is a subject you don't want to talk about because you know that there are jobs and no one here wants to them.

If you don't want sandblast, How about laying asphalt in the west Texas sun? Changing sheets and cleaning toilets at the NoTell Motel? Tin Bending has a great future?

You are either dishonest, or you don't get out much...Americans will do 'all' of these jobs...And Americans 'do' all of these jobs...And, tin knockers make pretty good money...

[sdpatriot]

i have no contradiction. my kids paid for both 5 years of College and 2 years of vocational school by first saving the money they earned doing these supposed jobs Americans won't do. they did them. they saved the money until they had enough to pay for all their future education. they still are working these "no American's will do" jobs part time. so what you keep saying is a myth. i do KNOW that personally. meanwhile, you sit up there on your elitist "higher educated" self made pillar and keep repeating the mantra that "no Americans will do these jobs". you know nothing of the semi-skilled, unskilled labor force. you've shown your ignorance on that.

i don't make those kind of choices for my kids, they decided a higher education on their own. even though i predict they will yearn for the freedom and honest work of a rancher and perhaps even return to it one day.

regardless - they paid for their tuition the old fashioned way. (and they're not illegals or children of illegals) which blows your theory out of the water.

[moehoward]

Funny, about the only place I continue to read that tired old "jobs Americans wont do" lie is here on FR.

[k2blader]

Bump.

This is the main problem with our immigration system. The law is not being strictly enforced.

[judgeandjury]

I made a statement the deals with the issue of jobs that Americans don't want to do. The jobs that Americans don't want to do is is the most central/most important issue when it comes to illegals and guest workers.

From the article:

"...86 people have been found to be working illegally for a San Diego military contractor, more than half the company's 167-person work force."

Let's see, 86 out of 167 workers were illegal aliens. That means that the other 81 workers weren't illegal aliens. Now what was that you were saying about jobs that Americans don't want to do?

[Iscool]

Remember it is the third party that brought us Carter and Clinton.

Completely inaccurate...You guys gave us Clinton...

We told you and told you we wouldn't vote for the New World Order Bush but you insisted on wasting your vote on this anti-American globalist anyway, and you got Clinton...

And I (and many more like me)will not vote for a New World Order hack again this time...I'm sorry to say that I voted for George, twice...However, if you guys won't vote for a pro-American candidate this time, you'll get what you deserve...

[Iscool]

I think what these characters mean is jobs 'they' won't do...If things fell apart, they'd probably go on welfare before they'd lower themselves to do manual work...And they probably couldn't do it on top of that...

[sdpatriot]

that's exactly what they mean..

[Vigilanteman]

Yes, we have a lot of temp worker programs, but too many are designed to provide employeers with cheap labour to undercut the American worker, not to address genuine shortages.

The result is that we are circumventing the 13th ammendment and creating an underclass rather than assimilatable pro-American foreigners who might actually want to adopt this country rather than milk it.

It is quite true that many illegal aliens willingly come here and work a near slavery existence because there is more hope getting ahead here than in their own country. That factoid, however, neither justifies circumventing the 13th ammendment or asking the taxpayers at large to subsidize the income and benefit packages which the exploiters of illegal alien labor are unwilling to pay.

Look at cripplecreek (Post #41) for an example of the type of immigrant we should be welcoming.

Then tell me how many exploiters of foreign worker's would be willing to put sponsorship on the line the way cripplecreek has done.

[Ben Ficklin]

I think you should go to jail for being a union man. The situation in you state is not good.

I don't know what your exposure to illegals is. I first became aware of illegals as a child in the 40s so they don't bother me much.

In areas where there is a lot of growth they are required. If all the people moving from Mich to Texas would just stay there, we wouldn't need as many illegals in Texas.

As for the employer in this article. It is common knowledge that he has to accept their documents at face value. If he doesn't, he runs the risk of being sued.