Thread: Milford, MA: Illegal aliens arrested in raid

Sunday, December 9, 2007
Illegal aliens arrested in raid
Feds nab 15 in Milford
By Aaron Nicodemus TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

MILFORD, MA— Fifteen Ecuadorian immigrants, including the owner of a local contracting company, were arrested Friday in an early morning raid.

Daniel Tacuri, owner of Same Day Roofing and Construction, will face charges of hiring illegal immigrants in U.S. District Court tomorrow. The other 14 people arrested in the raid, 12 men and two women, will face charges of being in the country illegally, according to Paula Grenier, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Antonio Tacuri, brother of Daniel Tacuri, spoke Spanish and was interviewed through an interpreter. He said eight to 10 ICE agents, with guns drawn, broke through the door of the three-family apartment building at 21 Jefferson St. about 5 a.m. Friday.

“They came through and shined flashlights in people’s faces. They went into each room, they told everyone to lie down on the floor, they say not to move,â€

next story. here come sjohn kerry and teddy kennedy saying these raids are immoral, not necessary and seperating kids from parents...

whatcha bet???

isnt this the same place where the factory was raided back in march
and kerry and kennedy went ape$hit

OH NO !!! Were their any lactating and nursing mothers ??? Oh my god, if there were...what about the humanity of it all ?!?

Milford roofer accused of recruiting illegal immigrants


Associated Press - December 12, 2007 8:24 AM ET

MILFORD, Mass. (AP) - The owner of a Milford roofing company, who is himself an illegal immigrant, has been accused of recruiting other illegal workers.

Immigration officials say 32-year-old Daniel Tacuri housed the workers in an apartment building he owns. 1 of them was allegedly a 13-year-old boy.

Agents arrested 14 people during a raid on Tacuri's house last week.

Officials say Tacuri was arrested in 1998 in Texas after crossing the border illegally, but skipped an immigration hearing and became a fugitive.

Tacuri said he was an American Indian who built Same Day Roofing and Construction despite dropping out of school in Ecuador in first grade.

He said all the people who lived with him were relatives.

A federal judge is expected to decide on bail in the coming days.

www.eyewitnessnewstv.com

Zeezil - that's too cute.

Isn't it way past time that our President simply announces to these people - get your affairs in order and begin your journey home?

Wouldn't that be the humane thing to do? Why not tell them up front and let them get ready and go on their own. That way there would be no horror for the children, no arrests, no trauma.

Aren't the ones who advocate they not leave and make them subject to arrest, the uncaring, callous, inhumane ones?

Dream turns nightmare
Arrests of immigrants rattle Milford
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | December 29, 2007

MILFORD - Daniel Tacuri made a name for himself in this town.

With only a first-grade education, he slipped across the border illegally and eventually started his own roofing business, often hiring immigrants like himself from poor villages in Ecuador. He was raised in a dirt-floor cabin, but in Milford he owned a home worth more than $350,000 off Main Street, along with a small fleet of four vans, a truck, and a jeep.

Before dawn on Dec. 7, federal agents burst into Tacuri's home and arrested him and 14 others for being here illegally, according to relatives. A total of 21 immigrants were arrested following a months-long investigation, but only Tacuri is facing federal criminal charges, for allegedly employing and sometimes housing undocumented immigrants.

The arrests sent a shiver through a town where the Ecuadoran population has swelled from a few people to about 2,000 in recent years. And it has revealed conflicting portraits of Tacuri, one of the pioneering immigrants whom others followed to Milford.

Authorities say Tacuri built his business by exploiting illegal immigrants, including one as young as 13. At its peak, they said, he had 80 employees, some of whom rented rooms in his house. A few workers told authorities that Tacuri did not withhold taxes or pay them overtime.

But his lawyer and family say Tacuri, 32, was a typical immigrant who found success through hard work. He never had more than a dozen employees, some legal and some not, and he did not hire minors, they said. Only relatives lived in his house.

His lawyer, Jeff Ross, said Tacuri is a Cañari Indian, a refugee who fled discrimination and mistreatment of indigenous groups in his native land. Once in the United States he tried to apply for legal residency through a notary, who apparently swindled him, Ross said. Then he applied again in 2005.

"This guy came here seeking the American dream," Ross said. "He tried to do the right thing and got bad advice along the way."

Tacuri, who is being held at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island, was born and raised in the Cañari province, an area known for its verdant fields and pleasant breezes as well as the government's neglect of indigenous groups. As a child, bullies stomped on Tacuri's bare feet because he was too poor to buy shoes, his family said. His mother worked the fields and raised four boys alone. Her boys became farmers, too.

In October 1998, Tacuri was among thousands of Ecuadorans who were heading north to work. They were driven by severe inflation, natural disasters, and political turmoil in the South American nation, according to David Kyle, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis and author of a book on Ecuadoran immigrants. He said the United States is a powerful attraction for Ecuadorans, who adopted the US dollar as the official currency in 2000.

Tacuri's family said he paid about $7,000 to a smuggler to cross the US-Mexico border, but was caught in Texas. Authorities said he told them he was from Guatemala. Eventually, a judge ordered him deported. Ross said Tacuri never received notice of the court hearing or the order.

By then, he had moved to Newark with thousands of other Ecuadorans and applied for residency the first time. He worked as a roofer for Brazilian immigrants and sent money home to build a house for his mother, plus one for himself, and send his 11-year-old daughter to school.

Four years ago, Tacuri followed his bosses to Milford, where Brazilians are a larger immigrant group, and soon managed to open his own business. Last year, he registered Same Day Roofing with the Secretary of State's office and bought his own house. As his business grew so did his responsibilities. Each month he sent home hundreds of dollars to his extended family. If people here needed cash or a part-time job, he helped them, too.

"He liked to help people," said his brother Antonio, who is also facing deportation. "He remembered how we suffered when we were poor."

Even the town police saw him as a community leader, and regularly reached out to Tacuri for help educating Ecuadorans about the town's rules. But in May, after increasing concerns about his business, police officer Joseph Sherus reported Tacuri's operation to immigration officials.

Chief Thomas O'Loughlin said police do not enforce immigration laws, but they reported Tacuri to federal authorities on numerous occasions on concerns that they were exploiting low-wage workers. Also, he said, town officials had cited him two months earlier for using his home as an illegal boarding house.

"I don't begrudge anyone that works hard and earns a good living. But they made a lot of money," O'Loughlin said. "They were earning money on the backs of other young Ecuadoran men."

Maria Tacuri said her husband did not become rich. Inside Tacuri's house, his main luxuries, a big-screen TV and stereo, stand near a small Christmas tree in a sparsely furnished living room. She said her husband liked Milford, a town of more than 25,000, for its peaceful environment. They baptized their son Jonathan, now 4, in St. Mary's Church.

"He never had problems with anyone," she said.

Wilson Valdez, owner of Unienvios, a variety store on Main Street, said the arrest of someone as prominent as Tacuri is unnerving for immigrants. Some are getting ready to leave, which he said could hurt the town.

"Where do they buy things? They buy them here in Milford," Valdez said. "They support the economy here."

www.boston.com

Immigrant accused of harboring, employing illegals


By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff
GHS
Mon Jan 14, 2008, 10:14 PM EST

MILFORD -
A federal grand jury has indicted an Ecuadorean man on charges that he hired more than a dozen illegal immigrants, including four children, for his roofing business.

Daniel Tacuri, 32, was also indicted on charges that he harbored 20 illegal immigrants at his 21 Jefferson St. home that he had carved up into an illegal rooming house.

If convicted, Tacuri, who is an illegal immigrant, faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine on each of the 20 harboring counts, said Christina DiIorio-Sterling, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said yesterday.

He faces up to a six-month prison term and $3,000 fine if convicted on each of the 18 counts for hiring the illegal immigrants, she said.

Tacuri is also looking at a $250,000 fine and five years in prison for one count of making false statements - the last of the counts a grand jury returned Jan. 9, DiIorio-Sterling said.

Those penalties can be handed down at the judge's discretion, she said.

Federal authorities have also moved to seize the Jefferson Street house, four Chevy vans and a Ford F-150 pickup truck, all registered to Tacuri.

"I've been interviewing people involved in the case, going over the charges that were issued in the indictment, that's my main focus right now," Jeff Ross, Tacuri's lawyer, said yesterday. "We're working very hard on the case."

Tacuri was arrested along with 14 other illegal immigrants during a predawn raid at his home Dec. 7, following an investigation by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

"We're going to look very carefully at the evidence the government has against us," said Ross, a partner at Boston's Ross & Associates. "There are some factual discrepancies in the indictment, on its face."

No upcoming court dates were posted as of yesterday, but DiIorio-Sterling said pretrial motions and hearings are up next for Tacuri.

"He's going to need to plead, or decide to go to trial," she said.

Prosecutors say Tacuri became an immigration fugitive after getting caught entering the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1998. He told officials he was a Guatemalan native and failed to show up for his deportation hearing.

He is also known as Daniel Tacuri Llivichuscha and Daniel Tacuri-Cila.

The single count of making false statements brought against Tacuri during indictment stems from him "knowingly and willfully (making) materially false and fraudulent statements" while applying for status as a temporary resident in 2005, according to court documents.

Tacuri and his wife, Maria, also an illegal immigrant, have a 4-year-old son, Jonathan, who is a U.S. citizen.

Milford Police tipped ICE off in May about their belief Tacuri was housing and employing illegal immigrants here at Same Day Roofing Construction Corp.

ICE agents trailed Same Day employees, watching people leaving 21 Jefferson St. in the early mornings in Tacuri's vehicles, which had magnetic business signs and were topped with ladders, according to a court affidavit.

One day in October, agents followed about four employees in a white Chevy van, which is registered to Tacuri, from his home to a poultry business in New Hampshire where they were photographed doing roof work, the affidavit read.

Another carload was tracked from Tacuri's home and business to Rte. 495 South. State police stopped the van for motor vehicle violations in Foxborough, finding the driver was unlicensed. ICE agents arrested the six illegal Ecuadorean immigrants in the van, including a 13-year-old, the affidavit read.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman last month ordered Tacuri be held without bail after hearing arguments from Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini and defense lawyer Matt Cameron, of Ross & Associates. Tacuri is being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, R.I.

Ross said his client plans to appeal the no-bail ruling.

http://www.milforddailynews.com/homepage/x477464868

Immigrant accused of harboring, employing illegals
By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff
Wed Jan 16, 2008, 11:34 AM EST


Daniel Tacuri

MILFORD - A federal grand jury has indicted an Ecuadorean man on charges that he hired more than a dozen illegal immigrants, including four children, for his roofing business.

Daniel Tacuri, 32, was also indicted on charges that he harbored 20 illegal immigrants at his 21 Jefferson St. home that he had carved up into an illegal rooming house.

If convicted, Tacuri, who is an illegal immigrant, faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine on each of the 20 harboring counts, said Christina DiIorio-Sterling, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said yesterday.

He faces up to a six-month prison term and $3,000 fine if convicted on each of the 18 counts for hiring the illegal immigrants, she said.

Tacuri is also looking at a $250,000 fine and five years in prison for one count of making false statements - the last of the counts a grand jury returned Jan. 9, DiIorio-Sterling said.

Those penalties can be handed down at the judge's discretion, she said.

Federal authorities have also moved to seize the Jefferson Street house, four Chevy vans and a Ford F-150 pickup truck, all registered to Tacuri.

"I've been interviewing people involved in the case, going over the charges that were issued in the indictment, that's my main focus right now," Jeff Ross, Tacuri's lawyer, said yesterday. "We're working very hard on the case."

Tacuri was arrested along with 14 other illegal immigrants during a predawn raid at his home Dec. 7, following an investigation by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

"We're going to look very carefully at the evidence the government has against us," said Ross, a partner at Boston's Ross & Associates. "There are some factual discrepancies in the indictment, on its face."

No upcoming court dates were posted as of yesterday, but DiIorio-Sterling said pretrial motions and hearings are up next for Tacuri.

"He's going to need to plead, or decide to go to trial," she said.

Prosecutors say Tacuri became an immigration fugitive after getting caught entering the United States near Brownsville, Texas, in 1998. He told officials he was a Guatemalan native and failed to show up for his deportation hearing.

He is also known as Daniel Tacuri Llivichuscha and Daniel Tacuri-Cila.

The single count of making false statements brought against Tacuri during indictment stems from him "knowingly and willfully (making) materially false and fraudulent statements" while applying for status as a temporary resident in 2005, according to court documents.

Tacuri and his wife, Maria, also an illegal immigrant, have a 4-year-old son, Jonathan, who is a U.S. citizen.

Milford Police tipped ICE off in May about their belief Tacuri was housing and employing illegal immigrants here at Same Day Roofing Construction Corp.

ICE agents trailed Same Day employees, watching people leaving 21 Jefferson St. in the early mornings in Tacuri's vehicles, which had magnetic business signs and were topped with ladders, according to a court affidavit.

One day in October, agents followed about four employees in a white Chevy van, which is registered to Tacuri, from his home to a poultry business in New Hampshire where they were photographed doing roof work, the affidavit read.

Another carload was tracked from Tacuri's home and business to Rte. 495 South. State police stopped the van for motor vehicle violations in Foxborough, finding the driver was unlicensed. ICE agents arrested the six illegal Ecuadorean immigrants in the van, including a 13-year-old, the affidavit read.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman last month ordered Tacuri be held without bail after hearing arguments from Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadine Pellegrini and defense lawyer Matt Cameron, of Ross & Associates. Tacuri is being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, R.I.

Ross said his client plans to appeal the no-bail ruling.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/milford/homepage/x1925662249