Thread: Ca-Green-card agency worker faces immigration charge

Jul 11, 8:07 PM EDT


Green-card agency worker faces immigration charge

By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer




SAN DIEGO (AP) -- An employee of a company that cleans the offices of a federal agency that issues green cards was arraigned Friday on charges of being in the country illegally, authorities said Friday.

Miguel Angel Mejia worked for a Northrop Grumman Corp. subcontractor when he was arrested Tuesday at a Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego, said Marie Sebrechts, an agency spokeswoman.

Federal agents acted on a tip that Mejia assumed another person's identity to obtain a green card, according to a statement of probable cause.

Mejia, of El Salvador, did not enter a plea to a felony charge of re-entering the country after deportation, said Debra Hartman, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego. He was deported in March 2007, according to the probable cause statement.

Magistrate Judge William McCurine Jr. set bail at $30,000 and scheduled a hearing July 24. The judge appointed a defense attorney, Holly Hanover, who did not immediately respond to a phone message.

Northrop Grumman, a Los Angeles-based defense and technology company, collects fingerprints and photographs for citizenship and green card applicants nationwide, including the agency's Chula Vista office.

A company spokesman, Tom Henson, declined to comment on the case but said Northrop Grumman will cooperate with investigators.

Sebrechts, the agency spokeswoman, said the government does not keep employment records on its contractors.

"We don't contract employees, we contract companies," she said.

One of the agency's own employees noted a "discrepancy" in Mejia's immigration records, which lead to the arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Sebrechts said.

The complaint comes barely one month after President Bush signed an executive order to require contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S. The order says departments and agencies must insist that contractors use an electronic system to verify that workers are eligible to work.

Citizenship and Immigration Services is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security that manages citizenship and residency applications and the Web-based E-Verify employment verification system.

More than 74,000 employers have signed up for E-Verify, about one-third from Arizona, which requires companies to enroll.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said last month that the federal government has had some embarrassing moments when illegal workers have been discovered to be working for contractors they hired.

"The federal government should lead by example and not merely by exhortation," he said.

Federal employees hired since October 2007 must submit to electronic verification of their immigration status. No date has been set for the requirement on federal contractors.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/ ... TE=DEFAULT

SO WE DO NEED E-VERIFY AND THE SAVE ACT. HUH SPEAKER PELOSI? SENDING THIS PUPPY TO HER OFFICE AND TO THE OTHER CO-SPONSORS WHO HAVEN'T SIGNED THE DISCHARGE PETITION.