No papers? No problem
Sunday, July 23, 2006
BY RALPH R. ORTEGA

To the laborers sitting in the waiting room of a temp agency in Elizabeth, she is simply "La Se ñora." She's the woman to see for a warehouse or manufacturing job at plants just a short drive away.

Even at agencies that hire temporary workers, it is against the law to hire people who entered the country illegally. Federal laws re quire employers to verify a worker's status with identity and work authorization documents, such as a Social Security card, before they hire someone.

But in May, Dilcia "Dee" Mem breno at Nielsen Staffing Services -- La Señora --made an exception. She hired me, even after I told her I had no proper documentation.

I was sent to work eight hours at a L'Oréal warehouse in South Brunswick. And my lack of papers soon became moot, because, with the help of immigrant coworkers I met there, I was able to buy a bogus Social Security card and green card for $140.

"It is what we do for each other," said the man who brokered the deal with a document seller. He was not involved in manufacturing the fakes, or profiting from their sale. "I am not into that," he said.

In New Jersey, industrial temp agencies have become the main link between newly arrived illegal immigrants and their first job, usually in a warehouse, assembly line or packing facility. For the companies where the immigrants work, the agencies provide an eager, flexible work force that can be increased or decreased on a daily basis. For newly arrived im migrants, the agencies provide a crucial foothold -- a way to find work quickly with no contacts, with a choice of night shifts or day work.

Here, as on the farms of the Midwest and in the packing plants of the South, the employment of illegal immigrants hinges on a wink-and-nod relationship between companies and the im migrant workers. The law prohibits employers from knowingly hir ing illegal immigrants. But under the current system, it's almost impossible for the government to prove employers knew they were hiring illegal immigrants.

"We have a situation where the employers feel they can violate the law with impunity. And they're right, they can," said Steve Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immi gration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors tougher immigration enforcement.

"America has failed to make even the most basic attempt to prevent the employment of illegal aliens," Camarota said. "Everybody who studies the issue agrees the centerpiece of any immigra tion enforcement strategy has to be work-site enforcement -- mak ing sure that each person who gets a job is legally authorized to work."

With little effort
This is the story of how I was able to get a job and be paid for it without showing a temp agency any documentation of my eligibility to work. Then, with little effort, I bought fake documents, which received little scrutiny.

Speaking Spanish, I offered only the information that was asked of me. No one pressed me about whether I was a citizen or if I knew English.

The process demonstrated the ease with which illegal immigrants slip into the workforce of New Jersey and the willingness of the economy to absorb them. It's a clandestine operation where tough questions would benefit no one.

Immigrant advocates deplore the situation. "The American people want cheap products, and companies want cheap products, and the only way to do this is to pay low wages and cut corners," said Rich Cunningham, director of New Labor, an immigrant labor advo cacy group in New Brunswick.

Job first, then papers
Three days before I was hired, I had walked the streets of Elizabeth asking where to get papers. I spent hours on Elizabeth, Morris and El mora Avenues -- thoroughfares crowded with immigrants and dotted with Central and South American businesses.

Try New York City, where fake documents can be purchased on the street, sometimes within hours, several immigrants told me.

Others said I was going about it wrong. First, they said, get a job without documentation, then ask my immigrant coworkers for help.

Taking this advice, I walked into Nielsen Staffing on May 16 and explained to a 19-year-old employee, who I knew only as Jennifer, that I was trying to obtain documents. She suggested that if I was interested in working, I could re turn any weekday at 5:15 a.m. to speak to "La Señora" -- Mem breno.

"Make sure you are here on time. There are many people," Jennifer said.

I returned with no identification just after 5 a.m. two days later. Membreno had just asked a coworker to get her a coffee and pastry from one of the local Spanish bakeries. I spoke to her in a ner vous whisper, saying I needed to work, but that I didn't have papers.

"Well, you can go to work today, and you can bring me the papers afterwards," said Membreno. I ex plained again that I had no documentation.

"We will take care of papers later," she said and gave me a job application. I gave her my name and address, but no telephone number.

"Have a seat and wait for your name to be called," Membreno ordered.

A short while later, she called out 13 names. Ten women and three men leaped up and ran to a van behind the building. "I need one more," Membreno said, just as the van was about to pull out. "You go with them, run! Before they leave without you."

I sat on the rear bench. Most of the passengers slept as the van hit the New Jersey Turnpike going south. We got off at exit 8A, driving into an industrial park past warehouses for Tommy Hilfiger and Liz Claiborne before arriving at L'Or éal. Two other vans carrying immi grant workers had already arrived.

"Welcome, we are so glad to have all of you here this morning," the plant's Spanish- speaking production manager, Richard San chez, told 53 workers assembled in a lunch room before the start of the 6:30 a.m. shift.

I chatted with a couple of young men who said they were from Puerto Rico. They had arrived just weeks earlier, and were living in New Brunswick. One of them, who identified himself only as Junito, 22, became interested in helping me get my papers, but was unable to reach his seller on a cell phone.

Arturo Inclan -- a Mexican who had been sitting next to me in the van -- also came over to offer assistance with documents. "My name is Arturo," he said, extending his hand. We were called into work before we could speak any further.

Sanchez led our group to the plant floor to package hair-coloring and shampoo products. I ripped open boxes with my hands and lifted heavy pallets with only a 15-minute break before a noon lunch.

"How can we get the papers?" I asked Inclan, who was eating instant noodles from a plastic container. "I know a guy who sells them back in Elizabeth, and if he cannot help, there is a Chinese man in Newark who makes papers for $50 each," he said.

Inclan said he made the contacts after entering the United States illegally six years ago. The thin 35-year-old, originally from the state of Michoacan in Mexico, supports a wife and two children back home.

Before moving to Elizabeth in November, Inclan said, he had lived in rural Pennsylvania, working for a slaughterhouse supply ing duck to Chinese restaurants. Inclan said he longed to return there, because he felt it was safer than living in New Jersey, where he was convinced immigration officials were on the prowl.

When we returned to the floor, it was another three hours of work before quitting time at 3:30 p.m. Inclan and I returned to our van, but discovered it was overloaded -- the driver was taking 23 back to Elizabeth in a van that should have held only 15. Most were mothers rushing to get home to start dinner and care for children.

"That's the way women are. They all have to get home first," said the driver, Osvaldo Ciarlo. Passengers called the agency, and forced Ciarlo to wait until another van came. This delayed our arrival back in Elizabeth by two and a half hours.

Inclan promised to call me once he made contact with a document seller. Three weeks later, he called, apologizing for the delay, and complaining that two sellers had turned him down. "They said it is not a good time. It is too easy to get caught," he explained.

But there was also good news. Inclan said he had found a third seller willing to do business.

'It is done'
On June 5, I met Inclan on Elizabeth Avenue, and we walked over to a bench in a small park where I gave him a picture of myself and $120 cash. Less than a week later, he called me on my cell phone. "Rafa, it is done. You will have your papers," said Inclan, after meeting with "a friend of a friend" he described as the seller.

I met Inclan again at 6:30 p.m. on June 19, outside the Nielsen Staffing office. He was clean- shaven, and no longer wore his baseball cap with patches of the Statute of Liberty and an American bald eagle.

"Life is good," Inclan said, beaming over a choice 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. work shift that he had landed at a different temp agency. He was also moonlighting at a restaurant and small school, where all he had to do was bag trash and mop floors.

We walked back to the park bench, where I paid him another $20.

Inclan pulled out a bogus Social Security card that had my surname misspelled as Orteja. "Sign the front, and put it away," he said, showing me the signature on his own fake Social Security card. He then slipped me a fraudulent green card, or resident alien card, based on an older design the federal government is currently phasing out.

"If there's a problem with the Social Security number, if for some reason it is not acceptable, just let me know. You can get another one," he said.

We shook hands, and said good- bye. "Do not be a stranger, Rafa. You can always come back here and work at the agency," Inclan said. "I will talk to La Señora for you."

I went back to the agency two days later, to claim my paycheck.

"I have papers now," I said to Jennifer, the young woman I had met there more than a month earlier. I handed her my fake Social Security card, and she noted the number.

If she noticed the misspelled name or the lack of a signature on the card, Jennifer made no mention of it.

My check was waiting for me at the agency on June 23. The gross for eight and a half hours was $59.50. After taxes and a $6 deduc tion for transportation, I was left with $43.44.

No surprise
Membreno was with Jennifer when I returned to the office later to identify myself as a Star-Ledger reporter. "I cannot comment. I am just the manager, and she is an employee," Membreno said.

Sanchez, the plant manager at L'Oréal, said he was not surprised I was hired without documentation. "Why would I be surprised? I've been in this business for so long," he said.

The 42-year-old father of two said he moved from Colombia to the U.S. in 1985, and that he started in the business working on the floor of a warehouse like L'Or éal's -- but under far worse condi tions.

Sanchez said he didn't concern himself with workers' status. "The agency is in charge of verifying the status of the workers," he said.

Kenneth Nielsen, the agency's owner, said that Jennifer had been on the job for only two weeks and that she should have required me to fill out a federal I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form.

The form requires an employer make a record of the documents presented by workers seeking employment, and it must be completed within three days.

"She didn't follow procedure. We have no excuse for it," Nielsen said.

He also said that Membreno rushed me to work to satisfy the staffing demands of L'Oréal. "Try to understand the pressure of the situation. Here she is, she needs one more person to go, and you're it," Nielsen said.

The agency supplies L'Oréal with 21 "regulars," workers who were given steady employment after proving themselves, said San chez. Additional hands are hired according to production demands on a daily basis, he added.

Sanchez said that if he were allowed, he would hire all the employees full-time.

"My life is easier because of these people," he said.

A spokeswoman for L'Oréal corporate offices in New York released this statement: "L'Oréal expects all of its temporary employment agencies to abide by their contracts with the company. Our agency agreements clearly call for equal opportunity for all employees, fully completed I-9 information and Social Security number verification, among other stipulations. L'Oréal has worked with Nielsen for more than a decade, and has never had a problem with them in that time."

Inclan also agreed to talk about what he had done once I told him I was a reporter. Inclan said he disliked the secretive nature of procuring documents.

"When I got here and made my contacts, it was very frightening," he said. "You give people you do not know your money, never knowing if you will see those persons again."

He claimed no motive for assisting me other than compassion.

"We are all united as immi grants in this country," he said. "People want to get rid of us. But we are here only because we want to work and because we want a fighting chance."

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