Posted on 05/11/2006 4:57:10 PM PDT by xjcsa
CEDAR FALLS --- A rental agreement and a car crash spiraled into an immigration investigation that led to a raid at Cedar Falls restaurant last month.
This according to court records unsealed today as federal charges were filed against Julio Zapala-Urbina, the third co-owner of Julio's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina.
Zapala, who owns 50 percent of the business and is its president and chairman, was charged with harboring and engaging in a practice of employing illegal aliens in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.
He was arrested Wednesday night and appeared in a federal court in Kansas City, Mo., today, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan in Cedar Rapids.
Agents with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement searched Julio's in Cedar Falls April 27, and co-owners Martha Lopez-Angel and Juan Manuel Lopez-Angel were arrested on immigration charges a week later.
Then on Wednesday, ICE officers raided another restaurant owned by Zapala, this one in St. Joseph, Mo., and found nine undocumented aliens. Zapala also owns a restaurant in Maryville, Mo.
Authorities seized $17,000 in cash during the Cedar Falls search and froze the restaurant's bank account, records state.
After the Cedar Falls raid, Zapala moved staff from his St. Joseph operation to keep the Cedar Falls restaurant running, records state.
"Businesses who knowingly employ illegal aliens are on notice that they will be criminally prosecuted," said Pete Baird, assistant special agent-in-charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Kansas City.
"Using ICE's unique immigration and customs law enforcement authorities, we'll also make every effort to seize all assets that may be associated with the illegal activity," he said.
Julio's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina opened in the former Camp David steak house building in February.
Records show investigators became suspicious in March when Julio's employee Guadalupe Mendoza-Nava applied to live at Country Terrace Mobile Home Village in Cedar Falls. Mendoza listed his place of employment, but the Social Security number he used on the application was discovered to be invalid during a credit check.
Then on April 10, ICE agents detained two unnamed Julio's employees after they were involved in a traffic accident in Benton County.
Both said they were from Mexico and entered the United States illegally. They also said they weren't asked to show proof they were authorized to work in American and didn't complete any paperwork when they were hired. They said they were paid in cash.
Later in April, source working with ICE authorities approached co-owner Juan Lopez at Julio's, and Lopez told him could earn $580 in cash a week as a dishwasher.
Lopez also told the source he didn't need a Social Security Card or a Permanent Resident Alien Card to get the job and that he may be able to talk with other employees about obtaining bogus documents, records state.
The following day, the source worked a full day without showing any documentation and without filling out any paperwork,
The restaurant was raided April 27, and 12 workers were taken into custody.
Four days later --- on May 1 --- immigration agents returned and detained another undocumented Julio's employee, who is identified in records only as Subject No. 7. He said Zapala told him to travel to Iowa to help reopen the Cedar Falls restaurant after the raid, records state.
This wasn't Subject No. 7's first brush with authorities. He had been arrested by ICE agents in February in St. Joseph and placed on supervised release.
At the time, he had been working for Julio's in Missouri and told his manager about the arrest. He was allowed to return to work after showing a card that gives no official employment authorization, records state.
The Wednesday raid at Julio's in St. Joseph found nine undocumented workers who were taken into custody. Other than the nine, only Zapala, his girlfriend and another person were working at the business, records state.
The raids were part of the Department of Homeland Security's Secure Border Initiative.
Under SBI, Homeland Security seeks to gain operational control of the borders while re-engineering the detention and removal system to ensure that illegal aliens are removed from the country quickly and efficiently.
SBI also involves strong interior enforcement efforts, including enhanced worksite enforcement investigations and intensified efforts to track down and remove illegal aliens inside this country.
Contact Jeff Reinitz at (319) 291-1578 or jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.
It appears that he does.
Some of these folks around here would pass a Constitutional Amendment mandating Evangelical Protestantism as the official religion of the United States, if they could figure out how to herd all the different versions of it together.
Sort of. To begin with, all publicly printed materials should be exclusively in English (unless they are targeted and independently funded for a specific purpose, sort of like how they target actors for ethnic roles).
But you are right -- as long as public business is not being conducted, we should let it go.
"Please come to Flushing, NY."
PLEASE COME TO EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA!
ping
3rd restaurant owner arrested on immigration charges; restaurant in Missouri also raided
As mandated by American citizens, you bet...
And a hearty "Top o' the mornin'!" to you, too, Mary-worshipper.
LOL!!! I knew that would get a rise out of somebody.
there are 30 million of them in this country, and at least half of them are in Los Angeles.
Posted on 05/11/2006 4:57:10 PM PDT
Posted on 05/11/2006 4:57:10 PM PDT
Yeah, they actually don't delete posts after two weeks...so it's still here, two weeks later. Why the confusion?
Why the confusion?
I received an e-mail recently. Without going into detail, suffice to say that some people with a problem decided to wear blue and gold caps with an "INS" logo. If I remember correctly, "INS" stood for "Inner Neighborhood Services". Apparently, the results were amazing. LOL
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