Thread: FL: Feds: 100 workers at Duval courthouse site provide fake

Feds: 100 workers at Duval courthouse site provide fake ID documents
Four more illegal workers arrested; mayor considers breach of contract

* By Matt Galnor
* Story updated at 7:54 PM on Monday, Nov. 9, 2009

More than a quarter of the workers at the new Duval County Courthouse construction site provided false identification documents to the city, authorities said.


Federal officials discovered about 100 fake documents after looking at the paperwork the city started collecting three weeks ago to crack down on arrests of undocumented workers.


The city was informed of the federal checks Monday , the same day four more undocumented workers were arrested near the construction site, according to immigration officials.


Nineteen illegal workers have been arrested in three incidents since September.


A top aide to Mayor John Peyton asked city attorneys Monday to determine whether the continued problems could be considered a breach of contract by Turner Construction, the contractor on the $350 million project, or any of the firms hired by Turner.


Last month, the city made all of the 350 people listed as employees reapply for badges to work on the site. Employees had to fill out an additional form, that the city keeps on file. If the worker is not a U.S. citizen, the city also keeps a copy of the documents the workers provide.


All paperwork is available for inspection by federal authorities, Peyton spokeswoman Misty Skipper said.


Skipper said the city expects to get the list of 100 illegal workers today and will give it to Turner. Turner must revoke all badges for those workers and permanently ban them from the project, or the city will find Turner in breach of contract, according to a letter sent to the company Monday.


“Please know the City of Jacksonville takes this issue very seriously and will not tolerate the hiring of undocumented or unqualified workers for any construction project in our community,â€

Nice to know that some cities are trying to do the right thing.

[quote]“Please know the City of Jacksonville takes this issue very seriously and will not tolerate the hiring of undocumented or unqualified workers for any construction project in our community,â€

They arrested alot of illegal aliens. Why werent they deported?

100 Illegals Working On New Courthouse
City Review Of Employment Records Found Undocumented Workers

POSTED: Tuesday, November 10, 2009

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Just because the long-delayed new Duval County Courthouse is finally under construction doesn't mean all the controversy is behind the project.

One of the selling points to build the new $350 million courthouse was to create jobs for the city, but it was expected those jobs would be American workers -- not illegal immigrants.

So city workers said they were shocked when they learned Monday that out of 350 construction workers hired at the courthouse, 100 of them had falsified green cards.

That does not sit well with Kelly McMullen.

"I've been looking for a job since March, February of this year and I can't get any work anywhere," McMullen said.

Hiring undocumented workers could be a major problem for the contractors building the courthouse.

"Our primary concern is to make sure everyone who is working is doing so legally, so we have asked the General Council's Office to examine all of the facts involved, all of the laws involved and any contract provision to determine how best we should move forward," said Misty Skipper, spokeswoman for Mayor John Peyton.

The city has sent a letter to the general contractor, Turner Construction, saying, "knowingly hiring illegal workers could include contract termination." The city says the work badges of all the 100 illegal workers must be revoked, and failure to do so would be a breach of contract.

Federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials have been watching the construction site and have picked up 19 illegal workers near the courthouse since September.

The U.S. Border patrol told Channel 4's Jim Piggott that they are not legally allowed on the construction site, so the city has required the contractor to keep extensive records of employees, including green cards of anyone not a citizen of the United States. A review of those records on Monday revealed that scores of immigrant workers did not have proper documentation.

The city said they will be watching even closer in the future.

"Our concern is that there are people working on a city job site ... not doing so legally," Skipper said.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/21575650/detail.html

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-4677--0-0.html

This sounds like a job for the Lone Protestor.

Great step by the city council people. Though, to clean up Florida they have a hell of a ways to go to get rid of the ILLEGAL ALIENS!

Great job Jax! Now if we can just another 150 cities to do this, they will know illegals are not welcome here!

And there currently are approximately 20 to 30 million unemployed Americans. Unbelievable!!!!!!!