AG Koster investigating who hired illegal immigrants in Farmington
6 hrs ago
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By: Ryan Dean

How to crack-down on companies that hire illegal immigrants? That's the question being asked in Farmington. Last month, police found around 20 undocumented workers employed at a construction site.

On Monday, Missouri Attorney General, Chris Koster and other elected leaders met with union members who are angry that illegal immigrants were able to take jobs from tax-paying Americans. The union members now want to know if the construction company who hired these workers, will be punished.

It was in February when the Saint Francis County Sheriff's Department says it found nearly 20 undocumented workers at an Hampton Inn construction site. The sheriff's department took the undocumented workers into custody but then were told by the U-S Immigration Department to let them go because the sheriff's department did not have the proper authority to keep them.

That angered many construction workers and union leaders.
The Attorney General told them the companies involved in hiring the undocumented workers are being investigated. He says if the construction companies knew these workers were illegal immigrants, they could be penalized.

"If they were illegal workers, than there are a number of remedies that we can take. We have the right to demand the employer push them off the job site, essentially fire them, or we can go after the employer and pull his business license," Attorney General Koster said.

We're told there are multiple contractors working on the Hampton Inn. Koster says so far they're pointing fingers at one another when it comes to who employed the undocumented workers.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.as ... yid=197990