Thread: MT: Vehicle registration sting catches IAs at refinery

Vehicle registration sting catches illegal immigrants at refinery
By GREG TUTTLE
Of The Gazette Staff

An effort to crack down on refinery workers in Laurel accused of ignoring state vehicle registration requirements also netted several allegedly illegal immigrants.

Nine people were arrested for immigration violations Monday evening as they were leaving work at the CHS refinery, a spokesman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said. The nine workers remained in custody at the Jefferson County jail and the Yellowstone County jail on Tuesday and could eventually face deportation.

At least nine citations also were issued to workers who had not registered their vehicles in Montana, said a Montana Highway Patrol officer involved in the unusual sting operation.

State law requires anyone working in Montana to register his or her vehicle, said Patrol Sgt. Scott Ayers. The "gainful registration" requirement has no grace period and applies to anyone who works in the state, he said. The sting operation was conducted between 5 and 8 p.m. Monday evening and included six Highway Patrol troopers and several Yellowstone County sheriff's deputies stationed at the exit of an employee parking lot. A federal agent was also at the scene to take custody of immigration detainees.

Messages left Tuesday at the Sheriff's Office were not returned.

Ayers said the operation was conducted after numerous complaints were made to local law enforcement about the large number of out-of-state licenses on vehicles coming and going from the CHS refinery. The refinery has been involved in several multimillion-dollar upgrades in recent years.

Ayers said the refinery management was contacted about two weeks ago and was asked to remind workers of the vehicle registration laws. The sting operation was then conducted.

"We asked for compliance several times before we went out there," he said.

MHP officers stopped 21 vehicles exiting the parking lot with out-of-state license plates. Nine gainful-registration citations were issued and 12 warnings were issued for the same offense, Ayers said. One citation was issued for a driver with no insurance, and one warning was issued for a light violation, he said.

County deputies also issued a number of citations and warnings.

Workers who could not provide proper immigration documents were turned over to the federal agent.

Pat Kimmett, manager of the CHS refinery, said the company informed workers about the vehicle registration requirements and issued a subsequent warning after being contacted recently by law enforcement. He said the workers, which have ranged in number from several hundred to 2,400, are employed by dozens of contractors who are involved in various stages of a construction project at the site.

"We do not check all the paperwork," Kimmett said. "It's the responsibility of the contractor."

The building contractors are required by contract to adhere to all government rules and regulations, Kimmett said.

Contractors whose employees were arrested Monday on immigration violations have since reported that the workers had filed proper documents before they were hired, Kimmett said. CHS has also asked all of the contractors to check the employment records of their employees, he said.

Ayers said that during the operation, several refinery employees told officers that numerous workers appeared to be fleeing the refinery grounds by scaling a fence on the south side of the property and running into fields. Ayers drove through the area in the dark but could not locate anyone, he said.

"I have to surmise they were undocumented workers," he said.

It was unclear Tuesday what fate awaits those refinery workers taken into custody and held in the county jails.

Jessica Fehr, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Billings, said she could neither confirm nor deny that an investigation was being conducted as a result of the law enforcement activity at the refinery.

Carl Rusnok, a spokesman in Dallas, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within Homeland Security, confirmed Tuesday that nine illegal immigrants were arrested at the refinery. Six of the those arrested are being held in the Jefferson County jail and three are held at the Yellowstone County jail. The federal agency contracts with numerous local jail facilities across the country to hold immigration detainees, he said.

If any of those arrested at CHS are from Mexico and have no criminal record, they may be given the opportunity to voluntarily return to that country, Rusnok said. Deportation steps would begin for those who come from a country other than Mexico or who have a criminal record, he said. Anyone slated for deportation can appear before a federal judge to make a case for staying in the country.

It was unclear Tuesday how often such immigration cases involving numerous arrests at one company happen in Montana, but Rusnok said the case highlights the need for enforcement across the country.

"The problem of illegal immigration is a problem in all 50 states," he said.
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles ... finery.txt

I will watch for the SOB stories

Illegal workers arrested at Laurel refinery

Posted: Feb 12, 2008 03:43 PM PST

Updated: Feb 12, 2008 06:06 PM PST

Illegal workers arrested at Laurel refinery









Reporting from KTVQ in Billings





Illegal aliens working at the CHS Refinery in Laurel were arrested Monday night, following a joint operation by the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office and the Montana Highway Patrol.

What started as an effort to ticket out of state sub-contractors working at the refinery who haven't registered their vehicles in Montana, turned into an illegal immigration bust-netting nine illegal aliens, one of whom was a 15 year old boy.

The sting operation took place during shift change, where Sheriff's Deputies and Highway Patrolmen mounted a traffic checkpoint just outside the gates of the refinery.

Yellowstone County Sheriff Chuck Maxwell said five highway patrol cars and three Sheriff's office units took part in the sting.

Nine illegal aliens, including the 15 year old boy were arrested by Sheriff's deputies.

State troopers meanwhile detained four illegal aliens.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would not release details or photos of the illegal aliens detained, but Sheriff Maxwell told Montana's News Station that all nine of the illegal aliens were working as subcontractors on the new coker plant at the CHS Refinery.

"I believe this is more serious than just registration violations," said Sheriff Maxwell. This is certainly got some additional problems here if we're allowing illegal aliens to work in our own refineries here within our own our communities."

Refinery Manager Pat Kimmet meanwhile says he has not been contacted by federal immigrations officials with any of the details, but he says the responsibility lies with the contractors.

Kimmet added, "We have been told by the contracting firms involved- that each of the employees involved had submitted the proper government I-9 employment form and we have gone back to all of our contractors and asked them to confirm that all of the documentation is in place and correct."

Kimmet said that once a full report is available the refinery will take quote..."appropriate action at that time. We have already made it very clear to our contractors that they must comply with all the rules and we will certainly continue to emphasize that to them. We will determine if we need to take additional action if indeed there was determined to be a problem."

Sheriff Maxwell says Sheriff's Deputies attempted to enter the facility last week to place warnings on the out of state licensed vehicles, but were denied entry by refinery security staff.

Refinery Manager Pat Kimmet says the refinery instead placed the warnings on vehicles on behalf of the Sheriff's office.

"About a week ago we were contacted by law enforcement concerned about vehicle license requirements," said Kimmet. "We cooperated with that effort by instructing our security staff to place warning notices on all the vehicles bearing out of state license plates. In addition to that we provided local authorities with a list of those vehicles. We cooperated and are committed to all the laws and regulations and we require our contractors to meet them as well."

Kimmet says Immigration and Naturalization Services officials have been through the refinery in the past, and, to his knowledge, they have not found a significant problem.

Problems with illegal aliens could, nonetheless, be even more widespread at the refinery. Sheriff Maxwell told the News Station's Aaron Flint that once the illegal aliens were pulled over, some began placing cell phone calls to other workers at the refinery. Soon thereafter, several people were spotted jumping the fence at the refinery.

In addition to the people reportedly jumping the fence, we're told 15 vehicles were left in the parking lot at the close of business.

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Glob ... =menu227_5

What started as an effort to ticket out of state sub-contractors working at the refinery who haven't registered their vehicles in Montana, turned into an illegal immigration bust-netting nine illegal aliens, one of whom was a 15 year old boy.

15 year old apparently working at CHS Refinery--isn't this in violation of child labor laws?


"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

To heck with turning them loose to find their way back to Mexico, arrest them, transport them to the border and send 'em across.

Refinery sting continues; immigrants head to detention
MHP officers have cited 12 drivers for not having Montana license plates
By JAN FALSTAD and ZACH BENOIT
Of The Gazette Staff

LAUREL - A sting operation to crack down on CHS refinery workers for vehicle registration requirements continued Wednesday, and nine illegal immigrants arrested at the refinery Monday were on their way to a detention facility in Arizona.

State law requires anyone working in Montana to register his or her vehicle.

On Monday, members of the Montana Highway Patrol and Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office stationed at the exit to an employee parking lot began pulling over employees with out-of-state license plates as they left.

Through Tuesday, MHP officers had pulled over at least 31 drivers, issued 12 gainful-registration citations and given out 19 warnings. County deputies also issued citations and warnings beginning on Monday. Patrol Sgt. Scott Ayers said numbers for Wednesday's operation - which included four MHP officers and several county deputies - won't be available until later today. There was a significant reduction in violations, he said.

"Progressively, we're getting compliance," Ayers said. "Monday, probably 50 percent of the vehicles were from out of state. The second day, it was about 20 percent, and today it was only about 5 percent."

He said the decrease is likely because of "more (workers) who just went out and got their plates."

Trooper Seth Cavalea said that whether a driver is issued a citation or a warning is up to the officer's discretion. He said that if the driver was cited in the past year or had recently moved to Montana, it could be the difference between a citation and a warning.

The operation began after law enforcement officials received a number of complaints about out-of-state license plates at the refinery.


Illegal immigrants
Monday's sting also resulted in the arrest of nine illegal immigrants. During the operation, refinery employees informed officers of several people attempting to escape by scaling a refinery fence and running into the adjacent fields.

Ayers said that, to his knowledge, no illegal immigrants were arrested in the sting Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tim Counts, Minneapolis spokesman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said the nine illegal immigrants arrested Monday were driven from Helena to Twin Falls, Idaho, on Wednesday. Today they will be flown on a Justice Prisoner and Alien Transport System jet to a processing facility in Arizona. They will end up at a detention facility in Eloy, Ariz.

"We expect most, if not all, of them will be deported," he said. "We've determined most of them were illegal aliens."

If the workers voluntarily sign off on deportation, they could be back in their home country in a couple of days, Counts said. If they fight deportation, the legal process can drag out for months or years.

With more than 400 federal statutes governing immigration and customs laws, Counts said his department has to set priorities on enforcement, with the top being national security and the second community safety.

When asked about the priority of suspected illegal aliens working at a refinery on the outskirts of a city like Laurel, Counts said critical infrastructure facilities such as airports and water treatment plants are high on the list.

"And it is a good argument that a refinery would be higher on the list than a fast-food outlet," he said.

However, ICE takes more than one factor into account when ranking enforcement actions, including quality of the information received, he said.


Out-of-state workers
Bob Papin, business manager for the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 30, said that when Turner Industries Group out of Baton Rouge, La., was hired to construct the CHS refinery coker last spring, skilled labor in the Billings area was scarce.

The locals were busy doing the spring turnaround or annual maintenance work at the same refinery in Laurel, Papin said, so most of the workers Turner brought in for the coker project were from out of state. At the height of the work, as many as 2,400 people were working at CHS, he said.

Workers reporting to him have been complaining for almost a year, he said, that the parking lot was full of vehicles with out-of-state plates and asking why state and local laws were not being enforced.

That some workers may have been jumping the refinery fence Monday evening and escaping the sting operation concerns him.

"You're working in a facility that is highly dangerous, and if you have people in there who are not skilled or trained to be in there, you're creating some situation that could be detrimental to the health and lives of everybody," Papin said.

While there may have been a labor shortage of local skilled workers last spring, there isn't now, said Rion Miles, business agent for the Operating Engineers Local 400. Miles also serves as president of the Southeastern Montana Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents more than a dozen unions.

"I can tell you right now all the union trades have people sitting on their out-of-work lists now," he said.


Published on Thursday, February 14, 2008.
Last modified on 2/14/2008 at 12:49 am

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles ... ysting.txt

Refinery contractor insists he didn't hire illegal immigrants

By TOM HOWARD
Billings Gazette
LAUREL, Mont. --Officials from a Louisiana company that is building the $325 million coker at the CHS Inc. refinery in Laurel assured the public on Friday that the project is being completed safely and professionally, even though the contractor was fined $40,000 for hiring unlicensed electricians.

Turner Industries Group LLC, the general contractor on the CHS project, has been working in Laurel for the past 22 months, with as many as 700 workers on the job. But the project is winding down and workers will soon head home.

Company officials also insisted that none of the nine illegal aliens who were detained earlier this week are employees of Turner Industries.

"There are a number of subcontractors that are on the job, but they don't work for us. They work for the refineries," said Al Martino, project manager for Turner Industries. He said he doesn't know the name of the company that hired the illegal workers.

Turner Industries recently agreed to pay the state a $40,000 fine - with $20,000 of that stayed - for hiring unlicensed electricians for the project. John Noland, a Turner Industries employer who is the master electrician on the Laurel project, also agreed to pay a $1,000 fine. Noland said Friday that as part of the settlement, Turner Industries neither admits nor denies guilt in the dispute. "It's just a settlement," he said.

"I can assure the people of Laurel that they are not jeopardized in any way by the quality of our work," Noland said. "I've been doing this for 30 years, and I know a good electrician from a bad one. This work is overseen by several engineers. It's a quality job, and the citizens have nothing to worry about."

Noland said the disagreement with the state resulted in part because Montana's licensing requirements are different from those in other states. Noland said that in reviewing Montana's licensing statutes for electricians, he came across a section that allows certain exemptions, and he thought Turner Industries would be exempted from the licensing requirement under Montana law.

The Montana Department of Labor and Industry started receiving complaints last fall that 79 unlicensed employees were performing electrical work at CHS that required state-licensed workers. The State Electrical Board investigated and filed disciplinary actions against Turner Industries and Noland.

Noland said Turner Industries initially offered the work to licensed Montana electricians. "Our doors were always wide open to Montana electricians," he said.

Several Montana electricians worked for a short time, but they left the job, saying they didn't have the specialized skills to do the type of industrial work involved at the Laurel project, Noland said.

"This was such a particularized type of construction that they left of their own volition," Noland said.

Martino said the company then brought in out-of-state electricians who have been doing this type of work for many years.

"Some of these guys have 20 or 30 years worth of experience and all they do is industrial work," Martino said. "They've built more refineries than Montana will ever have."

Turner Industries' dispute with the state came to light this week after a sting operation in which workers leaving the refinery were pulled over for not having Montana license plates, a requirement of state law. Nine illegal aliens who had been working at the project were detained as part of the stops.

Martino said Turner Industries licensed all of its company vehicles in Montana, and he guessed that 95 percent of the company's employees complied with the Montana law. "I don't really have an opinion on that. It's the law, and there's no use fighting it," he said.

Kyle Phipps, Turner Industries' safety supervisor for the Laurel project, said there's no truth to rumors that Turner Industries has subjected workers to unsafe conditions.

"There are rumors that people have been working without hard hats or harnesses. That's simply not true," Phipps said. "We have worked 1.3 million man hours with no major incidents, no lost-time accidents."


http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/arti ... 7d0f0d.txt

Story available at http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles ... ration.txt

Published on Friday, February 15, 2008.
Last modified on 2/15/2008 at 1:05 am

Registration sting nabs dozens
By ZACH BENOIT
Of The Gazette Staff

LAUREL - Efforts by the Montana Highway Patrol and Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office to crack down on CHS refinery workers with unregistered vehicles concluded Thursday.

The operation, which was intended to enforce a state law requiring all workers in Montana to register their vehicles, also led to the arrests of nine illegal immigrants on Monday.

From Monday to Wednesday, Highway Patrol officers pulled over 42 CHS employees as they left work. During that period, 12 gainful-registration citations were issued and 30 warnings were issued to employees with out-of-state license plates. While the final tally wasn't available late Thursday evening, Patrol Sgt. Scott Ayers said most employees at CHS had registered their vehicles in Montana, if they were originally from out of state, by the conclusion of the sting.

"It's not 100 percent compliance," Ayers said. "But the number of out-of-state plates (at CHS) is significantly lower now. Most of these people went out and got their plates."

County deputies also issued warnings and citations. Messages left at the sheriff's office seeking final numbers were not returned Thursday.

During Wednesday and Thursday's operation, many of those pulled over had already paid for their Montana plates. They just hadn't attached them to their vehicles. Ayers said those drivers were issued warnings and made to fasten the plates on the spot.

Overall, he was pleased with the efforts.

"I think that we achieved our objective," he said. "I am satisfied. But we'll be checking back randomly to check compliance."

Yellowstone County Treasurer Max Lenington said his office began receiving complaints regarding the number of out-of-state vehicles coming and going from CHS every day about eight months ago. Since his office has no enforcement authority, those complaints were referred to the sheriff's office.

The number of complaints convinced the sheriff's office and MHP to act.

In a letter to the sheriff's office, MHP and Lenington, state Rep. Ken Peterson laid out the need to enforce the vehicle licensing requirements.

"Anyone who comes here for employment is required to register his or her vehicle and pay a fee," he wrote. "Some of my (constituents) have pointed out that it does not appear that the laws in this regard are being properly enforced."

He went on to say that "every person who lives in Montana has the personal responsibility to obey the law."

Drivers issued citations were hit with an $85 fine and told to get Montana plates as soon as possible. Lenington said gainful-registration violations are moving violations, which is why law enforcement officials couldn't just watch employees drive into the parking lot and issue a ticket. Instead, they waited outside of the lot and pulled over offending drivers as they exited the lot onto South Eighth Avenue.

Thirty-six vehicles were registered at the Laurel vehicle registration office on Monday and Tuesday, although it is not clear how many of those were for CHS employees.


Charges of illegal re-entry
The illegal immigrants were arrested after CHS employees told law enforcement they saw men scaling a fence at the south end of the complex and running through the adjacent fields during Monday's sting.

Efrain Sanchez-Pulido, 30, of Mexico, appeared on a criminal complaint before U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby. If convicted, he faces 20 years in prison and $250,000 fine. Sanchez-Pulido had been previously deported in 2006.

He was arrested after the vehicle in which he was a passenger was stopped on Monday near Laurel by the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's department and Montana Highway Patrol conducted a sting operation to crack down on refinery workers for vehicle registration requirements.

During the operation, officials arrested nine illegal immigrants. Eight of the illegal immigrants were on their way to a processing facility in Arizona. The ninth is being prosecuted in federal court on charges of illegal re-entry, said Tim Counts, Minneapolis spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Sanchez-Pulido, speaking through an interpreter, waived his right to a preliminary hearing. The case will be presented to a grand jury for indictment.

Ostby appointed Billings attorney Tanya Dvarishkis to represent Sanchez-Pulido. Dvarishkis said her client, who was unemployed earlier, had been in Laurel three days and was working 10-hour shifts at the refinery. Dvarishkis said Sanchez-Pulido was earning $17 an hour but did not specify his job.

According to an affidavit by Larry Suek, a senior special agent with ICE, he interviewed Sanchez-Pulido by telephone after the vehicle in which he was raiding was stopped. Sanchez-Pulido admitted to Suek that he is a citizen of Mexico was in the country illegally. He was transported to U.S. Border Patrol Office in Billings and fingerprinted. The agency said Sanchez-Pulido had been deported on March 9, 2006, through Brownsville, Texas and did not have permission to return.Registration sting nabs dozens | Crackdown started after numerous complaints to officials


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WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2008 Last modified: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:18 PM MST

Vehicle registration crackdown continues

By Larry Tanglen Outlook Staff

Yellowstone County Sheriff's deputies and Montana Highway Patrol troopers continued the out-of-state vehicle registration enforcement at the Laurel CHS Refinery through Thursday of last week that resulted in nine suspected illegal alien Mexican nationals being sent to sites in Arizona and Utah for possible deportation back to Mexico.

Last week's crackdown on unregistered foreign (out-of-state) vehicles and undocumented workers was the result of citizen complaints received by the agencies and requests for stepped-up enforcement by local law makers.

State laws require that vehicles registered in another state that are used for gainful employment in Montana must be registered and fees paid to the State of Montana, Yellowstone County Sheriff Chuck Maxwell told the Outlook.

Sheriff's Captain Bill Michaelis said his department discontinued the vehicle checks after last Wednesday night. The department issued 19 citations for improperly registered vehicles Monday through Wednesday. Michaelis said deputies will return to do spot checks at the refinery's west employee parking entrance again this week.

“We continued our enforcement effort through Thursday evening,â€

$17 an hour??