Thread: Nine Bragg contractors face scrutiny

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article?id=237906

Published on Thursday, July 20, 2006

Nine Bragg contractors face scrutiny


By Julia Oliver
Staff writer

Nine Fort Bragg contractors are under investigation for hiring the 58 workers who were detained Tuesday trying to get onto post with false documents, according to a Fort Bragg spokesman.

Tom McCollum said he did not know the names of the contractors that are under investigation or what agency was conducting the investigation.

Twelve companies are currently working on major construction projects on Fort Bragg, and the post has a total of 56 construction projects under way, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington D.C., said that all but one of the 58 construction workers would be deported.

The workers were taken to a detention center in Cary on Tuesday. Fifty were in custody at the Johnston County Jail on Wednesday afternoon. Eight were released on an order of supervision and given a court date, according to immigration and customs spokesman Marc Raimondi.

Some of the detainees were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, Raimondi said.

They included a suspected gang member, a sex offender, three immigration fugitives and two people who had re-entered the country after deportation, Raimondi said.

Two officials at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, which would bring any charges against the detainees, did not return phone calls Wednesday.

On Tuesday, federal agents targeted construction workers who tried to enter Fort Bragg at the Knox Street and Randolph Street gates between 6 and 7:30 a.m.

The agents checked the workers’ documents against several databases, including lists of criminals and terrorists.

After Tuesday’s operation, El Pueblo, an immigrant advocacy organization in Raleigh, received calls from people looking for their family members who had been detained.

Irene Godinez, who works at El Pueblo, said the agency received half a dozen calls from within North Carolina by Wednesday afternoon.

“From what we know, the guys who are being detained have already been appointed lawyers,” she said.

Proper screening
U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, wrote Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a letter about the issue Wednesday.

Hayes urged Rumsfeld to put pressure on contractors and subcontractors to verify the legal immigration status of their workers.

“I believe the problem fundamentally resides with the contractors and proper screening of their employees,” he wrote.

Eric Bretzel, owner and president of ECI Construction Inc., which has two contracts on Fort Bragg worth about $12.7 million, requires two pieces of identification from his employees: a social security card and a photo ID.

He has about 10 direct employees on Fort Bragg and might have hundreds of subcontractors working there at any time, he said. None of his employees was caught in Tuesday’s operation, he said.

Bretzel said screening for false identification has always been hard. But he hopes a new Social Security Administration program that allows companies to verify Social Security numbers will help. His company has signed up for the program, and it is expected to start soon, he said.

“Unfortunately, there has been no easy way to check until recently,” he said.

Staff writer Julia Oliver can be reached at oliverj@fayettevillenc.com or 323-4848, ext. 280.

Prosecute everyone of them found guilty of hiring illegals - big fines and jail time.

Well the shame is that this happens over and over and over. Not one of these contractors. As far as I know have been jailed. Even the ones working Illegals in Secured Area's.

“I believe the problem fundamentally resides with the contractors and proper screening of their employees,” he wrote.

Exactly, when I was in the military the contractors vouched for their personnel and very little additional checking was done if any. It was in their contract. Lets see some of them lose their multi-million dollar contracts and a ban on getting awarded future contracts and lets see how well the check their employees.

They included a suspected gang member, a sex offender, three immigration fugitives and two people who had re-entered the country after deportation

Well isn't that just special.

Ms. Oliver:

Thank you for your story about the illegal alien arrests at Fort Bragg. I hope to see more enforcement of our existing laws soon.

When you write articles that focus on employers trying to screen their employees, could you please inform all of your readers about the easy way to do that in future articles?

Here is the information you and they need regarding the SAVE Program. It's free.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=C ... age&pid=21

Thank you for your help on this matter.

William Gheen
Americans for Legal Immigration