http://www.wvnstv.com/story.cfm?func=vi ... ryid=14098

Ohio County's Burgoyne Struggles to Enforce Immigration Laws
Posted Thursday, September 14, 2006 ; 06:00 AM

Sheriff says smaller ICE offices in the east are swamped, can't detain every illegal immigrant.
Story by Beth Gorczyca Email | Bio

WHEELING -- Tom Burgoyne knows all too well about the problems with illegal immigration in West Virginia and America.

As sheriff of Ohio County, Burgoyne and his deputies encounter it almost every week.

In the past 18 months, Burgoyne's department has detained 83 illegal immigrants, mostly along the county's short stretch of Interstate 70.

Now Burgoyne wants to go after the businesses that employ those undocumented workers and the people who hire them.

"We are looking at two companies right now who utilize unauthorized workers," said Burgoyne, a former FBI agent. "We are working with the Division of Labor and Ohio County Prosecutor Scott Smith to look into their activities. Our ultimate goal is to charge these companies."

But Burgoyne isn't sure what good charging the companies will do right now. Under state law, a company that employs undocumented workers is subject to a $1,000 fine per illegal worker.

"When you are talking about a large company, $1,000 per employee doesn't impact them much," the sheriff said. "We've been talking with some of the delegates from the Northern Panhandle about it. I think we need to strengthen the laws (relating to undocumented workers) in West Virginia."

The two companies Burgoyne and others are looking at are both based out of state but do business in Ohio County. One company specializes in driveway paving. According to some of the workers Burgoyne has interviewed, the company's owner drives down to Florida and hires the workers, and they follow him back up north.

"He'd find a trailer for them to live in and paid them decent wages," Burgoyne said. "One worker told us he paid them $13.50 per hour. My deputy looked at me and said, 'Sheriff, that's how much I make.'"

The other company works as a subcontractor to a subcontractor for a cable installation company. The illegal workers work as independent contractors for the small sub-subcontractor.

Burgoyne doesn't know how his county compares with other counties in West Virginia in terms of the number of undocumented workers pulled over. That's because law enforcement agencies aren't required to track that number or even arrest people who are in the country illegally.

"There's no one place all of the information has to be funneled to," he said from his office this week. "I only know how many arrests Ohio County has because that's the county I work in."

Although laws don't require Burgoyne's department to detain those workers, the sheriff said his office does. And most times they turn those illegal workers over to the Pittsburgh office of the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Early on, our relationship with ICE was not so good," Burgoyne said. "They told us unless (the detained workers) had criminal complaints pending against them we needed to let them go."

The two sides eventually resolved their disagreement -- but not before Burgoyne's office started detaining the illegal workers and sending the bill to the Pittsburgh ICE office.

"Now we have an agreement," he said.

But Burgoyne also understands where the ICE agents are coming from.

"The Pittsburgh office only has five or six agents," he said. "They are swamped. Other cities in the west may be bigger, but the offices in the east are smaller. They only have a couple of agents. They don't have time to detain and track down every illegal immigrant. They typically let them go unless they have a criminal record."