The president of two Chicago-area staffing companies that supplied temporary workers to suburban warehouses has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for hiring illegal aliens to form his labor pool. The sentence resulted from a worksite enforcement investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Clinton Roy Perkins, 66, was sentenced Feb. 16 to 18 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for knowingly hiring illegal aliens at the staffing companies. He pleaded guilty in September 2010. On Feb. 25, U.S. District Judge Joan B. Gottschall also ordered the forfeiture of $465,178 in proceeds obtained as a result of the criminal activity.

Perkins, of Wayne, Ill., was the president of Anna II Inc., and Can Do It Inc., staffing companies located at 801 Golf Lane in Bensenville, Ill. Anna II/Can Do It provided both skilled and unskilled labor to clients operating warehouses in various suburbs. The workers performed janitorial services, loaded and unloaded freight packages and merchandise, and installed and removed structures inside warehouses.

In his plea agreement, Perkins admitted to knowingly hiring more than 10 illegal aliens from Mexico as temporary workers between October 2006 and October 2007. The illegal workers hired by Perkins were not required to provide documents establishing their immigration status or lawful right to work in the United States.

Perkins and his son-in-law, Chrispher Reindl, paid the illegal workers' wages in cash and failed to deduct payroll taxes or other withholdings. Perkins and Reindl directed low-level supervisory employees to transport illegal workers back and forth between locations near the aliens' residences in Chicago and work sites in the suburbs. Both also provided bogus six-digit numbers - purporting to be the last six digits of the aliens' Social Security numbers - to a company, knowing that their workers were in the country illegally and did not possess valid Social Security numbers.

Reindl pleaded guilty in November to hiring illegal workers and is scheduled for sentencing in March.

"We will hold employers accountable for their actions," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Chicago. "Mr. Perkins knowingly hired an illegal workforce and circumvented our nation's immigration laws for financial gain. The goal of our enforcement efforts is two-fold - reduce the demand for illegal employment and protect job opportunities for the nation's lawful workforce."

Wendy Padilla-Madden reports on Lawogix's I-9 blog that Howard Industries, the Laurel, MS company raided in 2008, has pled guilty and will pay $2.5 million, a record fine in Mississippi:

Howard Industries, a privately held manufacturer of electrical transmission and distribution equipment, pled guilty yesterday to conspiracy to violate immigration laws for actions discovered during an August 2008 immigration raid on the company’s transformer plant in Laurel, Mississippi. The company also agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine (largest ever in the state of Mississippi), which is roughly 5 times the original base amount, for the actions of one human resources manager. Clearly, there was some wrong-doing here, but what exactly did the company do (or fail to do) to earn such a dubious distinction within the state of Mississippi? Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

The Nation’s Largest Workplace Immigration Raid

On August 25, 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in consultation with the US Attorneys’ office raided the company’s manufacturing plant in Laurel, Mississippi and arrested 595 workers who were believed to be undocumented. Approximately 475 of these workers were sent to a detention center and most of them were later deported (few were convicted on identity theft charges). Meanwhile, the company repeatedly denied allegations that it had knowingly hired individuals without work authorization, putting all of the blame on its human resources manager, Jose Humberto Gonzalez, who was later charged in a 25-count indictment with conspiracy and employee verification fraud.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services E-Verify Self Check is voluntary and available to any individual who wants to check his own work authorization status prior to employment and facilitate correction of potential errors in federal databases that provide inputs into the E-Verify process. When an individual uses E-Verify Self Check, he will be notified either that 1. his information matched the information contained in federal databases and he would be deemed work-authorized, or 2. his information was not matched to information contained in federal databases which would be considered a ``mismatch.'' If the information was a mismatch, he will be given instructions on where and how to correct his record(s). This newly established system will be included in the Department of Homeland Security's inventory of record systems.

I was pretty enthusiastic when the news hit that Memphis was getting its first Chipotle. The restaurant is opening in a few weeks and it's right around the corner. Definitely good news for burrito fans like myself.

Unfortunately, while the 1100-restaurant chain has a lot of fans, the folks at ICE are apparently not any of them. The company's 50 stores in Minnesota have been hit hard with an I-9 audit that has resulted in hundreds of firings. And the Wall Street Journal is now reporting that 60 more restaurants in Virginia and DC are under investigation.