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Gwinnett companies hiring illegal immigrants avoid scrutiny

By MARY LOU PICKEL, BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/08/07

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have moved to Gwinnett County in recent years, drawn by an abundance of jobs at hotels, restaurants and construction sites.

Their arrival has helped transform a county long cast in black and white. Now one in four people in Gwinnett was born abroad — a higher proportion than any other county in metro Atlanta. Their numbers include an undetermined number of illegal immigrants working numerous jobs.

It's a violation of federal law to knowingly hire an illegal immigrant, but companies that do so in Gwinnett and beyond hardly ever get in trouble.

Immigration authorities say they use limited resources to protect national security and target employers who abuse immigrants, skirt tax laws or forge documents.

"The sheer volume of our work requires us to prioritize our response among our investigative duties," said Ken Smith, special agent in charge of the Atlanta office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the 1990s, the feds fined hundreds of companies a year for hiring illegal immigrants, but the number of such fine notices plummeted from 1,461 in 1992 to three in 2004.

Federal authorities say the drop is due, in large part, to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The attacks shifted the focus of immigration work site enforcement toward protecting sensitive targets, such as airports and nuclear power plants, and away from cracking down on average employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The feds say now they also target employers who commit crimes, such as abusing workers or committing fraud.

The new focus led authorities to detain seven people in Gwinnett County in February.

Agents detained four janitors at Jillian's restaurant on Sugarloaf Parkway in Lawrenceville and three janitors at Dave & Buster's on Venture Drive in Duluth.

The seven were among nearly 200 suspected illegal immigrants nationwide who were taken into custody amid a national investigation into the janitorial-services company that employed them, Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla.

The government charged the company with evading $18.6 million in employment taxes.

As a result of the government's focus on national security and cases involving crime, most businesses that hire illegal immigrants in Gwinnett County and beyond rarely get in trouble for doing so.

Nationwide, local governments, including Gwinnett, have stepped into the void with policies of their own.

"The federal government has obviously ignored the problem for too long," said Gwinnett Commissioner Lorraine Green.

Green pushed a change in Gwinnett's contracting policies in June that requires companies with county contracts to verify that their new hires can legally work in the United States.

Yet the new statute has no effect whatsoever on many employers in Gwinnett that don't seek county contracts.


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FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION IN GWINNETT

Reliable estimates of the illegal immigrant population are elusive. Here's a look at the foreign-born population in Gwinnett and a few nearby counties, which includes illegal immigrants as well as foreign-born U.S. citizens and immigrants who are in the United States legally.




One in four people in Gwinnett were born outside the United States




County
Foreign-Born
Total population
Foreign born (% of total)


Gwinnett
185,449
757,104
24.5


DeKalb
115,997
732,602
15.8


Cobb
102,184
679,325
15


Fulton
117,007
960,009
12.2



How many foreign-born residents are U.S. citizens?



County
Naturalized /U.S. citizens
Non-citizens


Gwinnett
31.4%
68.6%


DeKalb
32.6%
67.5%


Cobb
32.5%
67.5%


Fulton
27.6%
72.5%




Where foreign-born Gwinnett County residents were born:\

• Latin America: 96,983 (52.3% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Asia: 54,996 (29.7% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Europe: 16,333 (8.8% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Africa: 13,981 (7.5% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• North America*: 2,940 (1.6% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

• Oceania: 216 (0.1% of all foreign-born residents in Gwinnett)

SOURCE: U.S.Census Bureau (2006 estimates)

* Canada and some islands

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