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  1. #1
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    DOJ sues Las Vegas casino for screening non-citizen workers

    DOJ sues Las Vegas casino for screening non-citizen workers

    Jim Kouri
    Law Enforcement Examiner

    While proponents of immigration enforcement have been told that the federal government monitors the hiring of illegal aliens by the private sector, including adherence to the federal employment verification (I-9) program, Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department appears to have made a decision to penalize organizations that zealously comply.

    For example, on Thursday the Justice Department announced that it filed a civil lawsuit against the Tuscany Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, accusing the company of engaging in "a pattern or practice of discrimination in the employment eligibility verification and re-verification process."

    The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires employers to treat all authorized workers equally during the hiring, firing and employment eligibility verification process, regardless of their national origin or citizenship status. However, it is still a criminal offense to avoid the I-9 verification process in the hiring of job applicants.

    The DOJ complaint alleges that Tuscany treated non-citizens differently from U.S. citizens during the employment eligibility verification and re-verification process by requesting non-citizen employees to provide more or different documents or information than required during the initial employment eligibility verification process, and demanded specific documents during the re-verification process.

    The complaint further alleges that Tuscany subjected lawful permanent residents to unnecessary re- verification based on their citizenship status after requesting and entering into the payroll system the expiration date of their Permanent Resident Cards (green cards) for purposes of re verification.

    Some believe this lawsuit is nothing more than payback by the Obama DOJ since earlier this year the Tuscany Hotel and Casino booked a special conference by a law enforcement group that was not favorable to the Obama administration. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) has stated their goal is to "take back America from the unlawful incursions and overreach of state and federal governments and their agencies."

    Speakers at the event included Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff Bradley D. Rodgers, Sheriff Richard Mack, and Larry Pratt, founder and executive director of Gun Owners of America, none of whom are popular in the Obama White House or DOJ.

    According to a member of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the casino had an interest in verifying immigration status as part of its loss prevention program and may have exhibited over zealousness in its internal security program, but a casino environment requires more security than most workplaces due to the enormous amounts of cash involved in that industry.

    The ICE agent, who requested anonymity, stated that Holder and his illegal alien-friendly department is more interested in protecting illegal aliens than "in protecting Americans from the crimes perpetrated including workplace crimes."

    “Employers must not treat authorized workers differently during the employment eligibility verification process based on their citizenship status or national origin,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The department vigorously enforces the anti-discrimination provisions of the INA so that authorized workers are treated fairly in the work place.”

    According to several sources, Perez is a zealot for protecting illegal aliens as proven by his record of pursuing cases against entities that attempt to control or curtail illegal immigration.

    Perez's complaint, which seeks monetary and injunctive relief, was filed before the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) of the Department of Justice and served on the company on May 29, 2012.

    The Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA, which protects work authorized individuals from employment discrimination on the basis of citizenship status or national origin, including discrimination in hiring, firing and the employment eligibility verification (Form I-9) process.

    source: DOJ sues Las Vegas casino for screening non-citizen workers - National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com
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    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Senior Member ReggieMay's Avatar
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    Dems are really counting on those illegal alien votes.
    "A Nation of sheep will beget a government of Wolves" -Edward R. Murrow

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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    From 2010.

    GOP files complaint charging voting violations by unions


    Posted: Oct. 29, 2010 | 9:45 a.m.

    Republicans filed a complaint with the Nevada secretary of state's office late Thursday alleging that labor unions representing casino workers were engaging in an unlawful pattern of coercion and intimidation at early voting sites.

    The nine-page complaint was filed by Reno attorney David O'Mara on behalf of Babette Rutherford, a poll watcher at one site.

    It was O'Mara's second complaint on alleged voting irregularities this week. Earlier, he said he was legal counsel for the state GOP but after the secretary of state questioned his direct affiliation, O'Mara said that two weeks ago he became legal counsel for the Nevada GOP Victory Committee, which he called a "federal reporting committee" for the state party.

    Nevada GOP Chairman Mark Amodei said O'Mara doesn't work directly for the party but is aware of him. He said Sharron Angle's U.S. Senate campaign is taking the lead in monitoring potential election irregularities.
    Angle is challenging Sen. Harry Reid in a high-profile and hard-fought race. A strong union get-out-the-vote effort could make a difference in that race, with such efforts traditionally benefiting Democrats such as Reid with heavy organized labor support.

    In his latest complaint, O'Mara said the unions have "systematically" and "repeatedly" violated state and federal election laws.

    "The reports indicate that several unions are engaging in activities that appear to be intended to intimidate and coerce their members into casting their votes in the election under the close scrutiny and supervision of union personnel," he said. "Union personnel have gone far beyond merely busing union members to early voting polling locations."

    O'Mara said poll watchers this week documented questionable conduct at Boulevard Mall, Las Vegas Outlet Mall and the Regional Transportation Commission at the Clark County Government Center.

    D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 casino workers, called O'Mara's claims "absurd."

    "I didn't know it was against the law to encourage people to vote in a nonpartisan fashion," Taylor said. "The Republicans don't have their facts straight."
    Danny Thompson, the state AFL-CIO executive secretary-treasurer, said the Operating Engineers Union also participated, and that no laws were broken.

    "This is what we do every year," Thompson said. "Every time we mount an effort, the Republicans accuse us of doing something wrong. We're not doing anything different than what they're doing, which is turning out our base."

    Taylor said the Culinary Union this year worked with about 20 casinos in a nonpartisan effort to get workers out for early voting, which ended Friday. He said union and nonunion employees, as well as some managers, participated.
    "We've done big busing before, but never in a cooperative way with the casinos, which I think is great," Taylor said.

    Ten MGM Resorts International casinos, including the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Monte Carlo and New York New York, participated in an effort to accommodate employee needs, said MGM Resorts spokesman Alan Feldman. As of late Thursday about 2,000 MGM Resorts workers had taken a bus to the polls, usually during their lunch hour, he said.

    "We're not filtering or telling our employees how to vote," Feldman said. "We want them to be connected to the community and feel as though their voices are being heard."

    O'Mara alleged the unions unlawfully offered lunch to members as an incentive to vote. Taylor said the food was provided by the casinos, and Feldman said all MGM Resort employees are offered lunch on the company tab.

    O'Mara also charged that union members escorted members from buses to the polling sites to prevent them from leaving, and surrounded the polls to "conspicuously" monitor members going to vote.

    "Many of the union personnel who participate in this vote-monitoring and intimidation effort wear either union T-shirts or official-looking polo shirts emblazoned with the designation 'Political Operation Team,' which is reasonably likely to mislead people into falsely believing that the union supervisor is acting in a governmental or quasi-governmental capacity or otherwise exerting authority under color of law," he wrote.

    O'Mara provided detailed accounts from poll watchers who said they saw union representatives at the three polling sites he named. At the Boulevard Mall on Wednesday, for example, poll watchers saw union representatives create an "intrusive, coercive and intimidating" atmosphere for voters, he wrote.

    After escorting people off the buses, a half-dozen union representatives were observed at the entrance to the polling place and all around it.
    "Most of them had their arms crossed and were staring intensely into the polling area, carefully watching the union members as they voted," O'Mara wrote.

    None of the union escorts had a sticker identifying them as election observers, he said.

    But it was unclear late Friday if such stickers are required, and O'Mara provided no statements from voters saying they felt intimidated.

    Friday at the Boulevard Mall, the Las Vegas Review-Journal observed tour and shuttle buses come and go with casino workers throughout the afternoon. The housekeepers, cooks and other workers waited in line with other voters, cast their ballots and returned to the buses that brought them.

    Several men in white polo shirts embroidered with "Operating Engineers Political Team" coordinated the movement of the workers from the buses to the polling line.

    Tim Cremins, on scene for the Operating Engineers, called O'Mara's claims "utterly ridiculous."

    "Intimidating anyone is going to make them vote against you, not for you, so it's a ridiculous notion," he said, adding that most voters likely have their minds made up when they arrive at the polling station. "We're ... not advocating. This is just to get people to the polling place."

    O'Mara asked Secretary of State Ross Miller to assign his complaint to the Nevada Election Integrity Task Force to investigate the allegations.

    Miller said Friday morning that he hasn't had a chance to read it. The secretary of state, meanwhile, released a report of his investigation of O'Mara's earlier claims of early voting discrepancies in Clark and Washoe counties.

    In a 56-page report, Carolyn Ellsworth, Miller's securities administrator, said she found no fraud.

    "My investigation reveals no evidence of voting machine tampering or voter fraud," Ellsworth wrote. "It does reveal the presence of occasional human error in the election process, which cannot be avoided as long as humans are a part of the process."

    O'Mara had alleged that daily polling logs kept by election officials in Clark and Washoe counties showed more ballots cast than the tally of voters at seven early voting sites, five in Southern Nevada and two in Northern Nevada. The count was off by two ballots at one site, and by one each at six others.

    Voting machines may have recorded extra votes erroneously, or people were allowed to cast votes without signing up, O'Mara wrote.

    But Ellsworth said in her report that she interviewed county election officials and determined proper safeguards are in place to prevent that.
    "It is my opinion, after a review of the procedures in place for poll workers, that the procedures attempt to balance the need to prevent voting fraud at the polls with the need to assure that every qualified voter is permitted to vote, and that said balance is achieved in these procedures," Ellsworth wrote.

    Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said Wednesday that he had "reconciled" the balloting differences here, but he would not say how.

    GOP files complaint charging voting violations by unions - News - ReviewJournal.com
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  5. #5
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ReggieMay View Post
    Dems are really counting on those illegal alien votes.
    ----------------------------------------------

    Their best friend, Harry Reid, is in office today because of their votes.
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    Without question or reservation, Reid and Holder must go. Periiod!!!

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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Learned Lessons: DOJ sues Tuscany Hotel and Casino LLC

    by Ann Cunon June 5, 2012

    Imagine starting the work day with an announcement the Government is suing your organization. That’s exactly what happened last week when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on May 29, 2012 it was suing Tuscany Hotel and Casino, LLC (“Tuscany”), located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    Based on the complaint (dated May 11, 2012), the DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel has been investigating this organization for months. While we don’t report on every single DOJ lawsuit related to I-9 issues, the facts of this case offer some valuable lessons to our readers.

    Why the Government Is Suing

    On June 7, 2011, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Office of Special Counsel (OSC) began investigating a complaint filed against Tuscany Hotel and Casino, alleging Tuscany violated certain anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

    During the course of the investigation of that single complaint, OSC decided to broaden its investigation of Tuscany to include “possible pattern or practice of document abuse against non-U.S. citizens.”

    After multiple deadline extensions, OSC filed a complaint with the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO), the administrative body that decides on these matters. The complaint alleges Tuscany violated the immigration-related unfair employment practices provisions of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1324b). The government seeks:

    • Payment of back wages and reinstatement for alleged victims

    • Other appropriate injunctive measures

    • Civil penalty for each violation

    The Facts of the Case

    According to the OSC complaint, here’s what happened (short version). (These facts are the government’s version and may be disputed by Tuscany.)

    In late December 2010, Tuscany allegedly committed document abuse and discriminated against an employee because of that employee’s citizenship status. Six months later, that employee lodged a complaint with OSC on June 7, 2011, which triggered OSC’s investigation of Tuscany. In October of 2011, OSC expanded its investigations of Tuscany to include other patterns and practices that may have resulted in discriminatory results.

    During its investigations, OSC found that from January 2006 to October 2011, Tuscany applied a different standard of employment eligibility verification practice to its non-U.S. citizen employees, including Legal Permanent Residents possessing “greencards”:

    (1) Regularly recorded the expiration dates of work authorization documents;

    (2) Required employees to who elected to present List B and List C documents to also provide List A documents expiration dates;

    (3) Recorded those expiration dates in its payroll system;

    (4) Tracked those expiration dates for future re-verification; and,

    (5) During the re-verification process, required to see only work authorization documents issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

    Tuscany employees who were U.S. citizens were not subjected to the above practices (that were in violation of the INA).

    Lessons Learned

    Although this is an ongoing case, and assuming all the alleged facts are true, our readers should be very vigilant about unevenly applied employment practices when it comes to the Form I-9 employment eligibility verification process.

    (1) The saying “I love all my children the same” should probably be applied in the employment eligibility verification process. The many publicized cases over the years makes clear that when employers apply one standard practice to one group and another standard to another group that is expressly forbidden by law, there will be consequences. Over documentation and document abuse (as highlighted Attorney Allen Orr, Jr., of Orr Immigration Law Firm P.C.) can easily create problems for employers.

    Takeaway: We encourage employers to work with their attorneys to evaluate their internal I-9 policies. Does it comply with the law? Are there exceptions that need to be made that can comply with the law? Are practices applied evenly to the workforce?

    (2) This particular case did not discuss issues of unauthorized workers, but rather, how an employer’s conduct allegedly violated the law. When employers do not actively recruit or employ an international workforce, employers can easily believe that their internal practices are not vulnerable to violations of the law. As we have seen, however, one complaint to OSC by an authorized worker can lead to serious charges.

    Takeaway: A homogenous workforce can give employers a false sense of security. Policies that actively encourage the hiring of one group of individuals, absent a valid legal basis, can also raise other employment issues. As a risk management best practice, employers should consult with experienced employment and immigration attorneys to determine how its I-9 processes stack up against industry norms and against the law.

    (3) Many employers utilize payroll systems to help manage its internal human resource data. When properly deployed, payroll systems help streamline many business processes and are very valuable. Because the I-9 employment eligibility verification process usually resides within the HR department, it’s easy for employers to group I-9 and payroll together, especially where electronic I-9 software is concerned. The danger, however, occurs when employers integrate these processes in a way that threatens the “legal compliance” aspect of the I-9.

    Takeaway: The I-9 process is a compliance risk for employers and should be managed as a risk rather than perfunctory form process. The level of scrutiny the government has paid to I-9 non-compliance versus payroll errors is highly disproportionate. Because the law specifically forbids certain practices related to I-9 processing and assigns civil penalties and other relief, employers who are relying on a payroll system should consult with experienced legal counsel to determine how to integrate the payroll system with the I-9 process (if at all) and when to do so. More importantly, employers who are currently or anticipate using an all-in-one software (that integrates electronic I-9, payroll, ATS and benefits) should seriously evaluate if the software inadvertently puts an employer at heightened risk of I-9 non-compliance, especially where the vendor lacks the proper legal guidance on I-9 compliance.

    Learned Lessons: DOJ sues Tuscany Hotel and Casino LLC - The I-9 and E-Verify Blog
    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  8. #8
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Check it out. When the tens of millions of illegal aliens figure out they will actually have to PAY for something (e.g., O B A M A C A R E), they go shit-fit wild in the streets.

    -------------------------------------------------------------


    10,000 Las Vegas Union Casino Workers in Revolt, May Strike Over Obamacare

    Posted on 7 March, 2014 by Rick Wells



    The Las Vegas Culinary Union is unhappy with obamacare. They were a big factor in the Nevada vote and were instrumental in helping to get Obama elected both times. They were in favor of obamacare as was their leadership as long as the negative impacts were being felt by someone else. Now that it is impacting them directly, they’re singing a different tune. It’s a kind of bluesy sounding version of “si se puede.”

    Maybe mindlessly following the dictates of union bosses isn’t such a good idea. Critical thinking in the election process is not a requirement, but it can be useful. They made their bed, it’s bedtime, but they aren’t about to take this lying down.

    The real possibility exists of the union voting to go on strike if contract negotiations to keep their existing benefits are not resolved satisfactorily by March 20th. That is the trigger date, and with 10,000 members, it could be a major blow for the city of Las Vegas.

    Speaking for the disgruntled Obama-supporting workers of Local 226, Donald Taylor, Unite Here President said, “The biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Vegas is the new costs imposed on our health plan by Obamacare. Even though the president and Congress promised we could keep our health plan, the reality is, unless the law is fixed, that won’t be true.”

    Donald should have phrased his comments along the lines of even though Obama and the Democrats told them that. No Republicans said anything of the kind. Those lies came from the lips of Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer and company.

    Now that there are no more elections in his future, B. Hussein Obama seems much less concerned with pleasing his union constituency. They seem to have lost their usefulness. To illustrate that point, the Obama regime decided their policy would be to deny unions requesting exemptions earlier this week. Over the summer, the Obama administration also rejected union requests for federal subsidies.

    It’s clear the luster has faded from their relationship. While Obama no longer needs the unions, it will be very interesting to see how they react to being discarded like a used Kleenex by the guy they were in such admiration of. It’s so sad when infatuation blocks clear judgment in a one-sided relationship.

    But the union workers will move on. They will survive. Perhaps they will regain their strength and learn from their mistakes sufficiently to retaliate against Democrats up for reelection. The dissatisfaction of unions across the country could make for some very interesting midterm elections.

    It’s too bad that Harry Reid isn’t up for reelection this year.
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  9. #9
    Senior Member vistalad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME View Post
    Some believe this lawsuit is nothing more than payback by the Obama DOJ since earlier this year the Tuscany Hotel and Casino booked a special conference by a law enforcement group that was not favorable to the Obama administration. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) has stated their goal is to "take back America from the unlawful incursions and overreach of state and federal governments and their agencies."

    Speakers at the event included Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Sheriff Bradley D. Rodgers, Sheriff Richard Mack, and Larry Pratt, founder and executive director of Gun Owners of America, none of whom are popular in the Obama White House or DOJ.
    The next thing you know, 'Bama & Co. will tell the IRS to go after the Tea Party. Oh wait, that's already happened.
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  10. #10
    Senior Member HAPPY2BME's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by vistalad View Post
    The next thing you know, 'Bama & Co. will tell the IRS to go after the Tea Party. Oh wait, that's already happened.
    *********************************************
    Americans first in this magnificent country

    American jobs for American workers

    Fair trade, not free trade
    -------------------------------------------------

    Mitch McConnell On Tea Party Challengers: 'We Are Going To Crush Them Everywhere'

    "I think we are going to crush them (Tea Party) everywhere," McConnell told the New York Times in an interview published Saturday. "I don't think they (Tea Party) are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country."
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