Thread: Fischer Homes Raided By Agents In Northern Kentucky

http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S ... 0&nav=0zHF

Illegal Immigrants Rounded Up By Agents In Northern Kentucky
May 9, 2006 10:26 AM PDT


The Boone County Sheriff's Department along with the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement officials have arrested numerous illegal immigrants this morning in northern Kentucky.

Reports are saying that the agents are apparently targeting Fischer Homes, a prominent home builder in northern Kentucky and Cincinnati.

Calls to the FOX19 Newsroom have told us Federal Agents have entered the Fischer building in Crestview Hills.

Well will have the latest on FOX19.com and a full report tonight on the FOX19 Ten O'clock News.

Report: Cliff Jenkins

Wow, Great news. I will have to watch the local news.

http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S ... 9&nav=0zHF

Agents Target Fischer Homes In Illegal Immigrant Roundup
May 9, 2006, 12:13 PM
Federal Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agents and IRS agents have entered a northern Kentucky homebuilder as part of a illegal immigrant roundup in the Tri-State.

The Fischer Homes Headquarters in Crestview Hills is at the center of the roundup. ICE agents apparently took numerous illegal immigrant workers into custody.

The US Attorney's office has not released an official statemtent of how many immigrants were rounded up but reports say as many as 85 immigrants were taken into custody.

The roundup started this morning around 6 a.m. when officials began taking people into custody around highway US 42 near Florence. Calls to the FOX19 Newsroom reported that several Boone County Sheriff's deputies and a police helicopter were canvassing the area looking for immigrants.

We will have the latest information as it becomes available on FOX19.com and the FOX19 Ten O'clock News.

Report: Cliff Jenkins


http://www.wcpo.com/news/2006/local/05/09/fischer.html

Allegedly Undocumented Home Workers Arrested


Reported by: Deb Haas
Web produced by: Mark Sickmiller
Photographed by: 9News
First posted: 5/9/2006 1:29:47 PM
Last updated: 5/9/2006 1:41:45 PM
WCPO-TV will have an update on 9News starting at 5 p.m.

Police have taken at least 85 people into custody in connection with an investigation of Fischer Homes.

The investigation, which has been going on for two years, involves the hiring of undocumented workers and illegal aliens, Channel 9's Deb Haas reports.

Haas reports most of those arrested are laborers, but some employees at Fischer's headquarters in Crestview Hills were also taken into custody.

Investigators were also in other areas of Northern Kentucky earlier Tuesday, "rounding up" illegal immigrants, police said.

It's not clear how the investigations tie together.

Great again. You notice that they said IRS also. Now that is the way to go. Some people don't fear ICE or INS.....but tell them the IRS is going to audit and you will see panic in their eyes. The reason, the IRS almost aways wins in court because their witnesses are numbers..hard to beat.

I am not going to get my hopes up. It is probably another dog and pony show as with the raid on the German pallet manufacturer where all the arrested illegals were let go and management wasn't charged with anything, When the ICE princess was asked about this on a FOX news interview she had no comment. So take it with a grain of salt. Business is way too entrenched in the government for it to function as it's founders originally designed it to do, i.e. be responsive to the electorate who hired them.

Slight revision in the number of illegals apprehended.

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/health ... etail.html

Immigration Crackdown Targets Homebuilder

POSTED: 4:19 pm EDT May 9, 2006
UPDATED: 7:07 pm EDT May 9, 2006

BOONE COUNTY, Ky. -- Four construction supervisors and 76 illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday as part of a two-year investigation, officials said.

The workers were nabbed at three Fischer Homes construction sites in Northern Kentucky. The workplace crackdown then continued into the evening at Fischer Homes' headquarters.

"I came back from lunch and everyone was here, and they were just investigating," employee Jenny Farrell said. "We weren't told what was going on."

Workers were soon told to go home and return to work Wednesday.

"They just took our driver's license and took our information off of that, and phone numbers, and asked us what we did here for the company," Farrell said.

The four supervisors arrested are:

Timothy Copsy, a Fischer Homes construction manager
Doug Witt, a Fischer Homes superintendent
William Allison, a Fischer Homes superintendent
Bill Ring, a Fischer Homes assistant superintendent

Each is charged with criminal complaint aiding and abetting, harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage or private social gain. They face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. All four appeared at a federal court in Covington on Tuesday morning.

Fischer Homes said it couldn't comment on the investigation, but the company's president issued a news release Tuesday afternoon.

"Fischer Homes utilizes a rigorous screening process for all of its employees, including citizenship verification," the statement from Robert T. Hawksley said. "We require all subcontractors to sign a document promising they will use no illegal aliens as employees. Fischer Homes does not in any way, condone the hiring or use of illegal immigrants."

Fischer Homes utilizes a rigorous screening process for all of its employees, including citizenship verification

That's what they all say. But it has been proven here by Lowe's that you really can check on employees before you hire them. Lowe's uses an outside firm and it takes three days for background check. False ID or other issues and you don't get hired and no second chance. When you go into the stores here you see the results...no illegals.

I was happy as heck to hear Fischer Homes was taking. I loved it, was an answer to my prayers.

76 suspect illegals arrested
Fischer Homes construction sites, headquarters raided
BY JIM HANNAH | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
FLORENCE - Suspected illegal immigrants scattered as a helicopter swooped from the predawn skies and federal agents swarmed the Tamarack Trace apartments Tuesday.

Thorns cut Ricardo Mauricio's arms as he sprinted through bushes into the cover of a stand of trees with two friends.

"God protected me today," said Mauricio, a 25-year-old Guatemalan who said he crossed the Mexico-U.S. border illegally about six months ago.


He hid in the trees for three hours while agents detained 76 suspected illegal immigrants, raided the Crestview Hills headquarters of Fischer Homes and arrested four construction site supervisors for the home builder.

"This was not a random roundup of illegal aliens," Dean Boyd, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said. "These were arrests that were conducted as a result of a criminal investigation that has been carefully planned . . . for some time."

The four construction site supervisors - Timothy Copsy, Doug Witt, William Allison and Bill Ring - are each charged with harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage or private financial gain.

The maximum possible punishment for the charge is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The four appeared in U.S. District Court in Covington, where they pleaded not guilty and were released from custody on their own recognizance.

No one answered the doors at the Independence homes of Copsy and Witt Tuesday evening. Ring was reached at his Florence home but said all statements would come from Fischer. Allison could not be contacted.

The 76 suspected illegal immigrants remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday night. Each is charged with entering the country illegally, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. U.S. Marshal John Schickel said 66 were being held at the Boone County jail in Burlington and 10 at the Grant County jail in Williamstown.

Boyd said the suspected illegal aliens were working as laborers at three Fischer Homes developments in Hebron, Union and Florence.

FISCHER DENIES CHARGES

Some Fischer employees, who wished not to be identified, said they returned from lunch to find a police officer guarding the first-floor elevator at headquarters and preventing anyone from re-entering the offices.

A representative for Fischer Homes released a written statement as local, state and federal law-enforcement officials, including the IRS, were seen coming and going from the building.

"Fischer Homes utilizes a rigorous screening process for all of its employees, including citizenship verification," Fischer Homes president Robert Hawksley wrote. "We require all subcontractors to sign a document promising they will use no illegal aliens as employees.

"Fischer Homes does not, in any way, condone the hiring or use of illegal immigrants."

Hawksley wrote in the statement that his company will continue to operate according to the legal and ethical traditions it has established during more than 25 years in business.

Dan Dressman, executive vice president of Northern Kentucky Home Builders, said all the group's builders use a general agreement with their subcontractors, requiring them to abide by state and federal laws.

He said most builders rely on subcontractors for 95 percent of their workers, and a large part of that labor is immigrant workers, especially for drywall, bricklaying, landscaping and roofing work. Dressman said there's no way of knowing how many illegal immigrants might be working on local home-building sites.

NO TOLERANCE

A statement released by federal immigration officials in Washington, D.C., said the arrests and raid demonstrate how they will no longer tolerate corporate supervisors who harbor illegal aliens, no matter how small the company.

Boyd said the case was initiated more than a year ago and was not in response to the public protests in connection with the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

"On the national level, we are really stepping up our efforts to investigate illegal employment schemes," he said. "Expect more investigations like this. We are bringing criminal charges against employers, seizing assets and using all the tools at our disposal to target employers who are illegally hiring, harboring or laundering the proceeds of those schemes."

CONCERN AS WORD SPREAD

Sister Juana Mendez started getting frantic calls from immigrants at 7 a.m. They weren't sure if it was safe to come home after their workdays were over or even pick up their children from Boone County public schools.

One woman was crying, said Sister Mendez, who helps immigrants through the Diocese of Covington's Centro de Amistad ("Friendship Center").

"She was hysterical. She said, 'What am I going to do?' She had a son in one school and a daughter in another," the nun said.

Mauricio, who sends money to help support children he left behind in Guatemala, said he, too, didn't know what to do next.

At 3 p.m., Mauricio stood forlorn in front of his apartment, looking for his wife. She had left for her factory job about 5 a.m., and the police arrived about 6 a.m., he said. All day, he had been calling her cellular phone, but she didn't answer, and he didn't know where she was.

It wasn't clear Tuesday night if his wife was one of the arrested.

Mauricio said he was concerned about friends and relatives who he saw with plastic handcuffs around their wrists. They should have been treated with more dignity, he said.

"If I have to leave, I will leave ... ," Mauricio said. "But don't treat me like an animal. ... We have rights. Why? Because this is the land of God. The only thing we don't have is papers, identification."


http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... /605100358

When you go into the stores here you see the results...no illegals.

That's why I shop at Lowes, but not Home Deport.