MENTOR — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 10 people early Wednesday at the Jalapeno Loco Mexican restaurant on Mentor Avenue here.
Eight of them were workers, allegedly smuggled into the U.S. illegally.
The others including, Alvaro Soto, of Willoughby, allegedly were part of a multi-state human smuggling ring.
ICE agents also had search warrants and removed $18,000 in cash and other significant documents from an office inside the restaurant.
The eight workers face deportation and Soto faces smuggling and possibly money laundering charges.
ICE agents also searched Soto’s apartment on Gardenside Drive in Willoughby and the Queensdale Apartments here in Mentor.
Today’s ICE raid was one of several being carried out in Ohio, and at several locations in Western New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Georgia.
ICE is a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
“ICE seeks to eliminate the magnet of illegal workers coming to the U.S. by imposing criminal sanctions and fines on egregious employers that are hiring this illegal workforce and undermining the U.S. economy,” Channel 3 News reporter Dave Summers reported.
Wednesday afternoon, United States Attorney Terrance P. Flynn and Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also announced the arrests of five individuals in the Western District of New York, a sixth person in Bradford Pennsylvania, and three persons in West Virginia.
An eleventh person is still being sought.
All 11 are accused of conspiring to harbor illegal aliens, primarily undocumented Mexicans, who had been smuggled into the United States for the purpose of employing these aliens at seven Mexican restaurants, three in Western New York, one in Bradford Pennsylvania, one in Mentor, Ohio, and one in Wheeling and one in New Martinsville, West Virginia.
If convicted, the 11 could face a maximum term of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Simultaneously with the arrests, ICE agents and state and local police agencies executed search warrants at the seven Mexican restaurants, six residences occupied by the owners and managers of the restaurants, twelve apartments used to house undocumented aliens, and a safe deposit box at a branch of Community Bank on Vineyard Drive in Dunkirk, New York.
Soto should be facing RICO charges....these are RICO offenses.
If they want to be in the USA, let them do it LEGALLY. (like my gr grandparents did.)