Company Execs Arrested In Immigration Crackdown
Charges Filed Against 25 Downstate Employees

POSTED: 11:58 am CDT April 4, 2007
UPDATED: 1:41 pm CDT April 4, 2007

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Executives at a Beardstown cleaning company were arrested Wednesday on federal charges that they hired illegal immigrants by arranging for them to steal the identities of U.S. citizens.

Federal immigration agents arrested Gerardo Dominguez-Chacon, the plant manager for Quality Service Integrity Inc. and Maria del Pilar Marroquin de Ramirez, the QSI personnel administrator. The charges against the two Beardstown residents include aggravated identity theft.

Authorities also have filed charges against 25 other employees at QSI, a contractor that cleans a Cargill meat-processing plant, and have arrested 11 of them.


Officials claim Dominquez-Chacon had access to several assumed identities which he provided to new employees. Authorities also accused him of providing information to illegal immigrants regarding obtaining false identification documents, including social security numbers of U.S. citizens.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone arrested Wednesday had attorneys. One number listed for QSI was disconnected, another led to Cargill. A Cargill spokesman declined to immediately comment on the arrests.

"Any employer who knowingly hires illegal aliens risks federal felony charges. It's not a risk worth taking," the U.S. attorney for central Illinois, Rodger Heaton, said in a statement.

Officials said they also have taken 49 illegal immigrants into custody. Most of QSI's work force turned out to be illegal, they said.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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