Thread: W. Va.-Illegal immigrants worked on new Greenbrier casino

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May 12, 2010
Illegal immigrants worked on new Greenbrier casino, police say

For the second time this year, White Sulphur Springs police have detained a group of illegal immigrants who worked at The Greenbrier resort, the town's police chief said Wednesday.

By Eric Eyre

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- For the second time this year, White Sulphur Springs police have detained a group of illegal immigrants who worked at The Greenbrier resort, the town's police chief said Wednesday.


Last weekend, the police department turned over seven undocumented workers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, after a traffic stop along U.S. 60 in Greenbrier County. The men worked for an out-of-state subcontractor that's helping to build an $80 million underground casino at The Greenbrier, said White Sulphur Springs Police Chief James Hylton.


The workers -- natives of Honduras and Mexico -- told police they were being paid $13 an hour to put up drywall in the underground casino, Hylton said.


"They didn't have work visas, and none of them had a driver's license," Hylton said Wednesday. "Every one of them was illegal."


Hylton said his department does not patrol The Greenbrier's grounds because the resort is outside White Sulphur Springs town limits. State Police and the Greenbrier County Sheriff's Office have jurisdiction on the resort property.


"But when they come into my town, they're in my town," Hylton said.


A spokesman for Clancy & Theys Construction Co., the general contractor on The Greenbrier casino project, said the workers were employed by a firm affiliated with a drywall subcontractor.


The subcontractor, I.M. Clifford & Associates of Covington, Va., asked drywall employees to show valid work visas on Friday, said Clancy & Theys vice president Jamie Tollenaere, who works out of the firm's office Newport News, Va. Workers without proper employment documentation were fired, he said.


"The system worked in this case, and the employees were terminated," Tollenaere said.


West Virginia Department of Labor routinely visits the casino construction site, Tollenaere said. The agency has identified "no illegal worker incidents," he said.


He added that The Greenbrier's owner, Jim Justice, spoke to the contractor about hiring employees with proper documentation before construction began last fall.


"Mr. Justice made it very clear at the start of the project, he expects Clancy & Theys, and all of the subcontractors, to comply with all requirements for hiring to ensure the employment of legal workers," Tollenaere said.



Hylton said the undocumented workers told him they were staying at the Budget Inn in White Sulphur Springs.


Three of the seven men were detained late Friday night and early Saturday morning, after a White Sulphur Springs police officer spotted a 1999 Toyota pull out of a local convenience store parking lot onto U.S. 60 without stopping. The driver and two passengers couldn't speak English, and the officer called Hylton to the scene, the police chief said. The men were taken to the White Sulphur Springs police station.


A short time later, another police officer arrived at the convenience store parking lot to watch the Toyota and wait for a tow truck. Four men approached the officer. One said it was his car being towed, Hylton said.


The officer detained the four men and drove them to the police station.


With assistance from Greenbrier County's 911 center and U.S. Immigration officials, police determined that the seven men were illegal immigrants, Hylton said. They were transported to South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, and then later taken to an immigration detention facility in Florida.


The workers detained were Saul Alvarado, 31, of Tela Atlantido, Honduras; Harlye Grevis Caceres Flores, 25, and Romel Caceres Hernandez, 30, both of Tocoa Colon, Honduras; Zuniga Fernando Garcia, 19, and Ramon Millon Perez, 24, both of Mexico City; and Jorge Alberto Martinez Galvan, of San Luis Potosi, Mexico.


In February, White Sulphur Springs police apprehended six illegal immigrants after a disturbance at the Village Inn, Hylton said.


At least one of the men was intoxicated, and someone in the group broke a motel window shutter, the chief said. The men told police they worked for a Beckley-based landscaping contractor hired by The Greenbrier.


Hylton said his department has apprehended 22 illegal immigrants since 2008, and at least 13 of those worked at the Greenbrier.


The Greenbrier's new underground casino is expected to open July 2. It was originally scheduled to open April 1, but construction was delayed by winter storms and a project expansion.


The casino will have 320 slot machines and 38 table games, including craps, roulette, black jack, mini-baccarat and poker.


Reach Eric Eyre at erice...@wvgazette.com




http://wvgazette.com/News/201005120883

The sad part of all this is that West Virginians need those jobs instead of bringing in illegal immigrants.

The Mafia always covered their trail with fake enterprises. All of the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS realize that many "subcontractors" are organized exclusively to hire ILLEGALS while they persist in seeking out these "subcontractors" and they use their supposed "ignorance" of the hiring practices to "end run" the law. Construction, Oil Refineries, Retailers, and many others use the services of "subcontractors" to secure their "cheap labor" at the expense of United States Citizens. As our President commented, as long as the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS are able to claim ignorance of the law without penalty they will maintain their effort to secure "cheap labor" resulting in the ILLEGALS continuing to scurry across our unsecured National Borders.

I believe I expressed my thoughts before on how the major Political Parties cater to the ILLEGALS. The problem for at least the last 20 years is too many Elitist Politicians from both major Political Parties, have been willing to turn the United States into a welfare state to insure most of our citizens obtain Third World status by importing ILLEGALS for cheap labor to take United States Citizen’s jobs for their Political Contributors and Special Interest Groups or outsourcing United States Citizen’s jobs to Third World Countries. Too many U.S. Citizens are wrapped up into winning one for their political party and our nation's survival becomes secondary to PARTY Loyalty!

West Virginia Taxpayers will wake up one morning and find 20 - 30 percent of the Education Budget being utilized to educate the ILLEGALS and their anchors and their hospital ER's full of ILLEGALS with several hours wait time and that is before the ER's have to go out of business. Just take a look at what our southwest states are up against with the constant drain of resource and the ILLEGALS will continue to move north looking for more U.S. resources to take.