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.
I think almost all workers out here in California are illegals. In restaurants, construction, landscaping, painting, etc. None of them can speak English, I always have to speak Spanish with them.....
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.
How much overtime do you think their employees work each day. I would imagine strong interior enforcement efforts means they are grabbing every illegal they hear about.
Just a little window dressing.
Dear immigration enforcement:
Please come to Flushing, NY.
Preferably right before primary day (say, 1st week of September), this way all those illegals that have registered to vote will stay away and we will have a clean primary.
I am in L.A. and I refuse to speak spanish (which I can do) to people who are supposed to work with the public. In fact, at local MacDonald's and the like, I ask "do you understand English? Is it OK if we do this in English???" loudly and pointedly, PARTICULARLY when they are transacting business in espanol. The more spanish around me, them more I clip my English to be as "Anglo" as possible.
My point is always made. And, yes, I get embarrassment from the people behind the counters and anger from those on my side.
We need a Constitutional Amendment that says the Official Language of the USA is English -- this will save billions and will ensure that we don't have to know another language to transact daily business.
I'll be persuaded when I see the stats going up, and I mean going up bigtime.
When I see those people doing time, I'll start taking such efforts seriously.
I did notice all the "owners" seem to be illegal themselves.
Looks like there are no anglos exploiting illegals.
Cool!
I think you may be on to something.
I think a drivers license or Passport, and the the SS # is usually enough.
It's funny. The HR/Payroll lady at my school is an immigrant from Vietnam.
She makes sure us native born folks are in compliance.
You want the government to control what language may be spoken in a business transaction in the United States?
How about McDonalds ???? This is a bunch of window dressing.
And to think I wasted my time going to college!
Why don't they also demand either Pelosi, Feinstein or Boxerrrrrrrrrrrrr, give their seats to them (illegals, that is)?
1. At minimum wage, that would take almost 100 hours per week, and over 100 hours with any payroll withholding for Social Security. Where's the urgency for an increase in minimum wage?
2. We need more of this. When employers are discouraged from hiring illegals, then the illegal job market slows down, which slows down the traffic across the border. Then we can see some effective border control.
No wall or amount of uniformed troops can stop 400,000 determined people from crossing illegally. Drop that number to 10,000 or less per month, and we can expect to control the border.
sw
" You want the government to control what language may be spoken in a business transaction in the United States?"
I believe the words he used was "We need a Constitutional Amendment"
and Yes, I for one support that.
We have a job opening for a dishwasher. It pays $580 (cash) a week.
Nice to see you back.
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