Honduran worker faces deportation in Michigan job-site probe
Honduran worker faces deportation in Michigan job-site probe
Updated 9:06 AM; Posted 9:06 AM
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GRAND RAPIDS, MI - U.S. Border Patrol says a Houston construction company and others have used workers in the U.S. illegally to construct Family Dollar and Dollar General stores in Northern Michigan.
"One company in particular is Montoya Erectors," Border Patrol agent Niklas Green wrote in a federal criminal complaint.
He said Border Patrol agents have arrested "multiple" workers for Montoya Erectors who are in the U.S. illegally.
The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Green said Border Patrol, beginning in August, has been investigating out-of-state construction workers in northern Lower Peninsula and throughout the Upper Peninsula.
On Sept. 25, agents stopped a 2008 Chevrolet Silverado with a Texas license plate, in Cedarville, in the Upper Peninsula, which resulted in four arrests of workers illegally in the U.S., Border Patrol said.
The truck was driven by a Montoya executive, the agent said.
On Oct. 12, Border Patrol received information that workers here illegally were building a new Dollar General in Cedarville. Police were conducting surveillance at the job site when they spotted the Silverado pickup truck that had been stopped in September.
Border Patrol agents conducted a traffic stop on M-134 after the truck left the job site. Before the truck came to a full stop, near Central Savings Bank, a man later identified as Martires Enrique Martel, jumped out and bolted for the woods, the agent wrote.
Martel allegedly led them on a 100-yard foot chase before he finally complied with orders to stop.
Martel told agents he ran because he was not supposed to be working in the U.S. He is a citizen of Honduras, the government said.
Agents checked his fingerprints against others on file after determining he had been processed in 2013 under a slightly different name. He had been arrested and removed from the U.S. three times before, the government said.
He was arrested in Texas in 2005 for unlawfully entering the U.S. from Mexico but did not appear for court dates. Immigration and Customs Enforcement found him in jail in 2009 after a traffic violation, court records showed.
He was deported to Honduras on Nov. 16, 2009. He was then arrested on June 24, 2010, by the Border Patrol in Texas and soon deported. On Sept. 5, 2013, he was arrested in Texas for unlawfully entering the U.S. from Mexico. He was deported about a week later.
Martel is accused of entering the U.S. witout permission after having been previously removed. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison and removal from the U.S.
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