MURRIETA: Chuy's restaurant fined by immigration agency

By AARON CLAVERIE aclaverie@californian.com
September 20, 2011 5:30 pm

A Mexican restaurant in Murrieta, Chuy's Mesquite Broiler, was recently fined $17,765 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a work-site probe.

The agency levied the fine Aug. 26 after it determined the employee eligibility documentation turned in by the restaurant for multiple employees was incomplete, according to the restaurant's manager, Michelle Brandstetter.

"It was paperwork," she said. "It wasn't that we were doing anything wrong."

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice released the news about the fine last week after The Californian requested a list of Southwest County businesses audited by the agency.

Besides Chuy's restaurant, which is near Walmart on Murrieta Hot Springs Road, a pallet recycling company in Riverside was fined $10,940 on April 1. Those are the only two area companies to face fines this fiscal year.

The agency, as part of its mission to protect employment opportunities for eligible workers, audits businesses to determine whether their workers are authorized for employment in the U.S.

In many cases, the audits are conducted on businesses involved in the construction of critical infrastructure ---- bridges and the like. But the agency also conducts audits after receiving information about a business or a tip.

Kice said the agency only releases information about audits and investigations if the targeted business is fined or there has been a criminal conviction.

"We don't want to impugn the reputation of a business that was being a good citizen," she said.

Brandstetter said the agency, as part of the probe this summer, told the restaurant that two of its employees were unauthorized. She said they were fired "on the spot."

The paperwork issue, however, ended up triggering the fine, a matter of not writing in identification information on the eligibility forms required by the agency.

Instead of filling in the info, Brandstetter said the restaurant kept copies of Social Security cards and driver's licenses for various employees in the respective employees' files.

"We had all the information," she said.

Brandstetter said she thinks the Murrieta restaurant, a franchise operation, was targeted because of the arrests in April of the founders of the Chuy's chain in the Tucson area, the franchise's home base.

The three owners and the company's accountant were arrested, according to an ICE press release, and charged with a host of criminal violations, including unlawful hiring and harboring of illegal immigrants, conspiracy to defraud and tax evasion.

Brandstetter said the situation is annoying for the restaurant, because trying to fight the fine might have ended up costing as much or more than the fine amount, a lose-lose situation for a small business.

"How do you afford that?" she asked.

From Oct. 1, 2010, through Aug. 8, ICE collected $8.5 million in fines through enforcement efforts, according to Kice.

Kice was asked about ICE's activity in Southwest County after news broke in Escondido last week regarding a business that fired one-fourth of its 200-person workforce.

Kice wouldn't confirm that the business, Escondido Disposal Inc., was audited, but company officials have said they were in fact probed by the agency and that they cooperated with the investigation.

Call staff writer Aaron Claverie at 951-676-4315, ext. 2624.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/murri ... z1Ybfl34jf