State troopers detain contracted workers at Hannibal plant
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

By Rodney Hart

and Ann Pierceall

Herald-Whig Staff Writers

HANNIBAL, Mo. —Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers detained about 20 people suspected of being illegal immigrants and contracted to work at Continental Cement this morning in Hannibal.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Lt. Nelson Elfrink said the workers were not employed by Continental Cement, but were doing work for Schueck Steel of Little Rock, Ark., at the plant south of Hannibal on Mo. 79.

The people are construction workers building Continental Cement's new $150 million kiln. Law enforcement officials reportedly received a complaint from a local legislator.

"We got some complaints that there were possibly some illegal immigrants doing work there," Elfrink said. "It's an out-of-state contractor doing the work. Our guys went down there and took some IDs and are running them through the Immigration and Naturalization Service. If they check out, they'll be fine. If they don't, we'll turn it over to INS and they'll do an investigation."

Elfrink said he did not know what kind of work the men were doing.

Continental Cement is a privately held company with the main terminal in Hannibal, and terminals in St. Louis and Bettendorf, Iowa. The corporate offices are in Chesterfield, Mo.

In March, Continental announced it was about a year away from having a new kiln in operation that will double the plant's production capacity.

The company is moving its cement-making process from a wet-kiln to a dry-kiln procedure because it's more energy efficient, said Frank Salter, spokesman for Continental Cement.

The dry kiln will make about 1.2 million tons of clinker, or concrete particles, annually, compared with 650,000 tons for the wet kiln.

In August, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt announced state measures to crack down on illegal immigration.

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