Navy contractor accused of using illegal immigrants [Connecticut]

AP/WFSB ^ | Apr 15 06

[ncountylee]

GROTON, Conn. -- The U.S. Navy has been asked to investigate allegations by a carpenters union that subcontractors working on new military housing in Connecticut and Rhode Island have hired undocumented workers and paid them substandard wages.

The allegations sparked a series of demonstrations this week at the housing projects outside the submarine base in Groton and in Portsmouth, R.I.

"Our guys found they were being paid less than they were supposed to be paid," said Bert Durand, spokesman for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. "Any time employers are able to hire workers and exploit them, it has a trickle down effect on other workers. That becomes the industry practice."

Connecticut U.S. Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, both Democrats, have asked the Navy to investigate.

"The Navy is aware of the allegations," said Chris Zendan, a spokesman.

Navy officials have had discussions about the issue with GMH Military Housing, which oversees the projects, Zendan said.

[Disturbin]

If only they had "documents" .....

[stopem]

Oh no, please tell us this isn't true.
They have infiltrated our U.S. Navy?


The illegal criminal alien invaders need to be kicked out of this country now!

[joesnuffy]

Paid less by who?....

Who pocketed the difference?....

Like RR advised...follow the money.

[middie]

It's more than a few years since I took, and hated, the law school course in labor law. I don't recall off-hand the name of the statute, but there is a federal law requiring contractors on a federal construction project to pay all workers the prevailing union wages irrespective of whether they are union members. Thankfully, my recollection of that is vague and I've never touched an issue even close to involving labor law.

[jamese777]

"Oh no, please tell us this isn't true.
They have infiltrated our U.S. Navy?


The illegal criminal alien invaders need to be kicked out of this country now!"

Nobody really knows how many illegals are already iN the US military. It is kept quiet but one way to earn permanent residency and eventually citizenship is to enlist in the military. We have our own "American foreign legion," it just isn't publicized.
When military recruiters get desperate to make their quotas, "stuff" happens:
Marines: Looking for a Few Good Aliens?
Recruiter on trial for selling IDs to enlist illegals
by Douglas Gillison
Village Voice

A general court martial is about to begin at Parris Island, South Carolina, for a U.S. Marine recruiter accused of selling and delivering counterfeit documents to illegal aliens in order for them to join the service.
Gunnery Sergeant Hubert A. Lucas, 35, is one of four suspects named in a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, part of which was obtained by the Voice.

The report says an investigation began on August 11, 2004, after an intelligence report by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency revealed that a Marine at Camp Pendleton in California, who had admitted to entering the United States illegally and enlisting with a counterfeit green card and stolen Social Security number, identified Lucas as the individual who charged her $250 for the documents for the purpose of effecting her fraudulent enlistment in the Marine Corps.

During an interview, the Marine told immigration authorities that she bought the counterfeit documents from people in New York City who told her they’d be delivered to a specific hotel in Miami and to await further instructions. Those eventual instructions were to enlist at the Marine recruiting sub-station in Perrine in Miami-Dade County, Florida. According to the report, the recruit also said she “engaged in a consensual sexual relationship” with Lucas. (One of the charges against Lucas is that he housed one or more prospective recruits in his personal quarters.)

Her accusations prompted a review of recruiting activity at the Perrine sub-station. According to the report, investigators found 23 recruits who may have fraudulently entered the Marine Corps. Twenty suspect alien registration numbers, along with Social Security numbers for all 23 recruits, were queried through federal databases. It turned out that every single one was “either completely fraudulent or assigned to a different person.” The investigation later identified three more alien recruits suspected of fraudulently enlisting.

The charges against Lucas span from late 2001 to mid-2004, and include fraudulent enlistment, conspiracy to commit fraud, and dereliction of duty. Potential sanctions include dishonorable discharge, several years’ jail time and forfeiture of pay, according to a Marine Corps spokesman.

Captain John Schwab, defense counsel for Lucas, was unable to comment for this article.

Investigators seem prepared to say this was simply a money-making scheme. “The facts seem to indicate that this was only a for-profit fraud case and it is being investigated as such,” said NCIS spokesman Ed Buice in an e-mail.

Lucas’s trial comes at time when the Army is having trouble meeting its recruiting goals, a shortfall generally attributed to the prolonged and bloody combat in Iraq. But unlike the Army, the Marine Corps reported that it has been exceeding its goals, enlisting 29,173 recruits between October 1, 2004, and August 31 of this year. At the Lucas sub-station, “productivity was about average,” said Master Sergeant Rhys Evans, a spokesperson for the Sixth Marine Corps District.

Legal permanent residents are allowed to serve in the armed forces, if they present a green card. It used to be that those cards, as with documents from native-born recruits, where vetted by the recruiter and a liaison from the local Military Entrance Processing Station, according to a Marine Corps spokesman.

But last year, after several cases surfaced of illegal aliens enlisting in the military using counterfeit documents, the Defense Department told the Military Entrance Processing Command to begin verifying alien registration and Social Security numbers with the appropriate federal authorities. This may mean that many illegal aliens who have enlisted since are cases of identify-theft.

There are currently about 37,500 foreign nationals from over 200 countries serving in the active duty forces and reserves . Seventy-one have died in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. The law currently provides for expediting the citizenship applications of U.S. service personnel, who become eligible to apply the first day they enlist. The presence of non-citizens in the U.S. armed forces dates back to the 18th century—“more than 660,000 military veterans became citizens through naturalization between 1862 and 2000,” according to a report by the nonprofit CNA Corporation.

Service by illegal immigrants is another matter entirely. The penalty for emerging from invisibility varies from case to case. Some have faced discharge and even deportation from the country they have sworn to defend.


Margaret Stock, an associate professor of law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, says she’s periodically consulted by attorneys representing illegal service members. “I do think there are probably a significant number of people in the military who had some issue with their immigration status at some point,” she said.

In a December 2003 article in Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, Stock wrote that the federal statute limiting enlistment to citizens and green card holders specifically states that this rule applies “in time of peace.” She cited section 329 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which holds that "[a]n alien or a noncitizen national of the United States" who "has served honorably" in the armed forces during a "period which the President by Executive order shall designate as a period in which Armed Forces of the United States are or were engaged in military operations involving armed conflict . . . may be naturalized . . . whether or not he has been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence..."

While the policy may not be clear on how to treat illegal service members, it is clear that they are serving.

Lance Corporal José A. Gutierrez, 28, who entered the United States illegally and got a green card on false pretenses, became only the second U.S. serviceman to die in combat when he fell victim to “friendly fire” in the port city of Um Qasr on the first full day of fighting.

Liliana Plata, 25, also from Mexico, assumed the identify of another woman in order to join the Air Force in 1999. Before her true identity was revealed, leading to her discharge in 2003, she was deployed four times in as many years to locations around the world, ultimately guarding Tallil Airbase in Iraq, earning lavish praise from her commanders and, she says, winning 10 medals and promotion to Senior Airman.

It is impossible to know how many other U.S. servicemen and women are guarding secrets like this. The military has recognized the immigrant population as a valuable resource in meeting its recruiting goals. “[M]uch of the growth in the recruitment-eligible population will come from immigration,” according to the CNA Corporation’s report, which also says that noncitizens typically perform very well in the military.

While it’s Army policy to enlist only citizens and legal residents, the service gets more flexible during wartime. “In any particular case, separation for an erroneous or fraudulent enlistment may be appropriate,” Lieutenant Colonel Pamela Hart, of the public affairs office, wrote in an e-mail. “In other cases, a commander may determine that a soldier has served so meritoriously that he or she may recommend an exception.”

This contrasts sharply with statements by Army spokesman Joe Burlas, who told reporters in September 2003 that "if there are any illegal aliens in the Army, they have fraudulently enlisted. When they're caught, they are discharged from the Army."

Jack Richbourg, an immigration attorney in Memphis, says he is currently representing two African men who were not legally admitted to the U.S. and who were recently discharged from the Army. “These people were recruited. They went in and were recruited by someone,” said Richbourg. “But by hook or by crook they get into the service, and I say that that’s enough.”

Or maybe not. “Almost every day we saw people come in with that predicament,” said Los Angeles immigration attorney Carl Shusterman. From 1976 to 1982, Shusterman was an attorney and then a prosecutor at the L.A. office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, where he says “hundreds” of Vietnam veterans who were illegal aliens became U.S. citizens by virtue of their military service.

Shusterman says their numbers began to dwindle once President Carter ordered an end to section 329 benefits in September 1978. Since then he says that in private practice he has represented “maybe half a dozen” service members who were not legal permanent U.S. residents. Among those was the celebrated case of Danny Lightfoot, a fraudulently enlisted Marine from the Bahamas who was ultimately permitted to remain in the Corps and for whom Shusterman succeeded in obtaining U.S. citizenship in 1994.

“My heart was pounding 1,000 beats per second the whole time I was in the recruiting office,” Liliana Plata wrote in an e-mail. “Because this was me going straight to the wolf's mouth.” Plata, originally from Mexico City, says she bought a U.S. birth certificate from a man in Los Angeles who told her the person it named had died as a child.

She first came into contact with military recruiters at her high school. “I loved the whole idea of the military,” she wrote. “The integrity, the respect, the good feeling you get from giving something back without expecting something in return.” But when she first heard that she needed a birth certificate, her heart sank. “Right then I knew I will never be able to join. I was stuck with a low-paying job doing God knows what because I'm an illegal.”

But she was able to buy the documents she needed from someone in Los Angeles. She enlisted and began what promised to be a highly successful career. One of her commanders called her an “outstanding leader” with “unlimited potential.” Soon enough, however, the original holder of her birth certificate turned out not only to be alive but to have discovered that one of the people who also bought her identity from the same Los Angeles broker had since run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

Identity-theft charges against Plata were dropped in July once it was clear she wasn’t behind the unauthorized spending. “[M]y whole chain of command in my squadron was doing everything they could to keep me in,” wrote Plata. “They gave me a General Discharge under Honorable Conditions.”

Unlike the Navy or the Marine Corps, the Air Force and Army restrict the time of service for noncitizens to four and eight years, respectively. Citizenship is required to obtain security clearances, to become a commissioned or warrant officer, and to join certain special programs like the Navy SEALs.

"If you claim to be a U.S. citizen when you sign your enlistment papers, your citizenship as an American is material to the enlistment," said Professor Stock, explaining that those who lie merely about their immigration status, rather than their nationality, have the best chance of maintaining their position in the military.

“If the person is a good soldier, hasn’t done anything wrong in the military, is performing well,” said professor Stock, “I don’t see any reason in the world why you should discharge him when the statutes allow them to be in and allow them to become citizens. In fact, it undercuts our war-fighting effort to be discharging people like that.”

[middie]

Found it---It's the Davis-Bacon Act


This section includes the answers to several of the most frequently asked questions about administration of the Davis-Bacon and related Acts.

Section A


INTRODUCTION


THE DAVIS-BACON AND RELATED ACTS (DBRA)


The Davis-Bacon Act as amended, requires that each contract over $2,000 to which the United States or the District of Columbia is a party for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works shall contain a clause setting forth the minimum wages to be paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics employed under the contract. Under the provisions of the Act, contractors or their subcontractors are to pay workers employed directly upon the site of the work no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits paid on projects of a similar character. The Davis-Bacon Act directs the Secretary of Labor to determine such local prevailing wage rates.

[mtbopfuyn]

"Our guys found they were being paid less than they were supposed to be paid," said Bert Durand, spokesman for the New England Regional Council of Carpenters.

No. They're illegals and shouldn't be paid a dime. They should be sent back from whence they came and their employer heavily fined and given jail time.

Someone please check my figures: US population = 300 million. Illegals = 13 million. For every 30 Americans (child and adult) there is 1 illegal.

[Condor51]

****but there is a federal law requiring contractors on a federal construction project to pay all workers the prevailing union wages irrespective of whether they are union members.***

You are correct. That clause is in every Federal, State of IL Bid Document Package / Specifications. Some localities like Park Districts, insert it too and many regular commercial type project AIA Bid Packages have it also.

I could grab a Spec, one of many I have laying around, and cite it chapter and verse, but I have some 'stuff' to do soon. But you're correct.

[HiJinx]

Dual-Topic Ping!

The post is about a sub-contractor using illegal alien labor. Happens all the time, that's what the Wal-Mart kerlufle was all about.

Someone else embedded a second article here about military recruiters being courtmartialed for bringing illegals onto active duty. Comment on that: I spoke at length last week with a Czech refugee who entered the US Army in Italy in the early 50s. Basic training was hell on him, as he did not speak English. But, he made it, and he counts himself a better man for that.

Bottom line? Legal immigrants in uniform is fine - outstanding! Illegals? No way, Jose.

[ApplegateRanch]

Whole new meaning to "picking lettuce"!

Guess Americans just won't carpenter, like so many other jobs Americans won't do. so illegals have to fill the gaps.

I never realized Americans were so lazy & picky:

Won't pick fruit.
Won't garden, mow lawns, or landscape.
Won't bus tables or wash dishes.
Won't build fences.
Won't milk cows.
Won't janitor.
Won't lay tile.
Won't drive charter buses...with Mexican licenses.
Won't construction labor.
Won't roof.
Now, won't even carpenter, plumb, or wire.

Or, is every panderer & pimp lieing when they repeat the mantra, "They are only doing the jobs Americans won't do!"?

[RJS1950]

Four years ago the subcontractors working on base housing at Offutt AFB NE were hiring illegals, and firing the american workers as the mexicans became available. They are probably doing the same right now as the old housing is being torn down.

[stopem]

Why? Why would they hire illegals?
Think about that, when my Husband was stationed there security was tight because of SAC now they let a foreign national who entered illegally, who may be here to do who knows what, on a base like Offutt?

NO ONE can guarantee what the illegal alien invaders TRUE intent is, nor how many of them are criminals (besides the act of entering our country illegally).

The illegals have aligned themselves with some of the most dangerous communist, marxist, hate groups (look at this site and read the horrific propaganda here against our troops and war in Iraq:)
http://www.aztlan.net/us_troops_massacre_iraqi_family.htm )

Enemies domestic.

These are the kind of people who the illegals are being supported by and who are helping them to demonstrate AGAINST this country.
These people cannot be given amnesty.

They said on May 1 they will shut down our ports, railroads, wall street and our economy, there is a transcript of the Lou Dobbs show with the leader of the May 1 demonstration saying what he will do to America, and if our politicians when they return proceed with giving them guest worker/amnesty than that would be horrid.

IF they threaten to harm the country once what is the true intent of their sneaking in? They are making demands, they sneak in illegally and align themselves with dangerous people, what could be concluded from that?

I would be willing to bet that IF GIVEN THE CHANCE to enter LEGALLY to be fingerprinted, photographed, background check, interrogated, BEFORE given entry to
"Do the "JOBS" Americans wont do"
They WOULD NOT ENTER!!!!

WHY? because their intent is not truly known!

[RJS1950]

Why? Why would they hire illegals?

That's easy, it's cheap for the contractors (they pocket more of the money) and since SAC went away the security in terms of WHO gets on base has slipped some. I was stationed there twice, once under SAC and the second time during the transition from SAC to STRATCOM. I retired out of there and live about 2.5 miles from the old museum gate. Half of the gate guards are now contract civilians. The old Wherry housing (inside the base perimeter) is now being torn down and I'm sure the contractors are hiring illegals to work on the demolition and cleanup. There are plenty of locals who would like to hire on, but they get "laid off" as soon as the cheap labor arrives on the scene. Things have changed drastically and LeMay is probably still spinning in his grave.

[RJS1950]

This is not new. A couple of years back there was a big raid, I believe at the Norfolk shipyard where they rounded up over 200 illegals working on Naval ship refurbishment as welders, pipefitters and steelworkers. More jobs americans won't do. The contractors who hire them should be screwed to the wall. Ignorance of their status is no excuse.

[nutmeg]

Connecticut ping!

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