Thread: Arrests at Cessna

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Posted on Thu, Jun. 01, 2006



Arrests at Cessna spotlight complexity of immigration debate

ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. - Rogelio Ortega said he paid $15 in California for the bogus Social Security card he used to obtain work at Cessna Aircraft Co.

The Wichita company, hungry for experienced aircraft workers during the industry boom here in the late 1990s, hired him and about 14 of his former co-workers who made their way to various U.S. sites to find work after being laid off from a struggling Mexican aircraft plant. Some of those workers have since moved on to other jobs.

Ortega's job interview at Cessna was done in Spanish, and the resume he gave them listed only his work experience in Mexico, he said. After more than four years working at Cessna, Ortega lost his job after an injury at the plant left him with work restrictions.

When Ortega went to the media recently with the story of his struggles to get medical treatment for his job injuries, a Cessna attorney warned him in an April 26 letter, obtained by The Associated Press, that contacting the media is "a dangerous move" given his illegal immigration status.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and the U.S. attorney's office in Wichita issued news releases announcing the arrests and indictments of five Cessna workers, some longtime employees, for alleged immigration violations.

Both agencies lauded the company for its cooperation, with U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren calling it "a model for all employers."

Ortega was not among those five arrested.

Cessna spokesman Robert Stangarone said Ortega's injury claim was unrelated to those arrests, sparked by an anonymous tip that the company got specifically on those five workers. He has declined to discuss Ortega's claims, other than to say they have no factual basis.

Cessna has never knowingly hired someone not authorized to work in this country, he said.

"The irony is that so much aircraft work has gone to Mexico," said Frank Larkin, spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Washington, D.C., the union that represents workers at Cessna.

Larkin said he did not know whether the use of illegal immigrants at aircraft plants is widespread nationwide but noted that similar high-profile arrests were also made recently at an aircraft plant in Boston.

"If American companies are looking toward Mexico for aerospace workers, it is unfortunate that U.S. workers may have lost their jobs in the course of this strange transaction," Larkin said. "Hundreds of aerospace jobs have moved from Wichita and elsewhere to Mexico over the past several years in search of cheap labor."

Each job applicant at Cessna must provide documents proving their identity and work eligibility, such as a Social Security card, driver's license, birth certificate, permanent residence card or passport, Stangarone said.

"If the employee provides required documentation, which reasonably appears to be genuine, then the employer is obligated to accept it," Stangarone said. "Cessna, like other employers, is prohibited by law from demanding further identification or proof of identity, citizenship or work eligibility."

More than a week before the immigration arrests at the Cessna plant, Ortega told AP he once asked his immediate supervisor at Cessna what would happen to him if the company discovered he had no legal documents to work there. Ortega said the supervisor told him not to worry about it: Cessna had lots of illegal immigrants working at the plant.

To make that point during one interview at his Wichita home, Ortega pulled out a list of Cessna employees who worked in his former department at Cessna, and methodically went through each page - making a mark with a magic marker besides the name of each aircraft worker he claimed was an illegal immigrant.

Seven names were marked by the time he was done. AP has since checked the names it got from Ortega against the five Cessna workers indicted Wednesday and found three names that matched.

Ortega's work as an aircraft interior installer at Cessna for more than four years allowed him to bring his wife and two children to this country. Their third child was born here. He bought a house in Wichita for his growing family.

Ortega, 42, said he went to the media with his story, despite the risks of deportation, because he wanted people to know how big companies use illegal immigrants - then discard them when they get hurt on the job.

"We committed a crime by not having papers in this country," he said in Spanish. "We are not bad people."

Let me see if I heard this correctly. The guy interviews in Spanish with only Mexico work references. Gets hurt. An attempt is made to blackmail him out of benefits. The feds suddenly arrest five illegals and praise the company. The company states it has never knowingly hired illegal alliens.

Could it be the corporations are even a tiny bit worried about fines? I don't know why they should be given the empty words we see flying back and forth in congress. But.... (another whimsical thought)) wouldn't it be nice if they were all fined based upon the penalities established in the current NOT ENFORCED legislation.... maybe our deficit would be decreased by those who created it in the first place!.

sigh flights of fantasy are refreashing.

Another job that an American won't do I'm sure there would be many Americans lining up for the chance at those jobs.

These are jobs American were laid off from at Cessna in 2002

read ... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9649C8B63