Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Raising a racket against illegal immigrants' hirers

By Nicole Gaouette

Los Angeles Times


PATRICK SCHNEIDER / CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

A Mexican migrant protection officer explains the dangers of crossing to people who are headed for the border near Sasabe, Mexico, in mid-January.



Robert Vasquez: billing Mexico for $2 million

CALDWELL, Idaho — Like many communities, this fast-growing agricultural pocket of southwestern Idaho is paying a high tab for illegal immigration.

When an undocumented worker gave birth to a premature baby, the county wound up with a $174,000 hospital bill. County officials say the jail spent thousands to house another illegal immigrant at a motel to keep him from spreading tuberculosis to fellow inmates.

But where others have merely chafed at paying such costs, officials in Canyon County are trying a novel approach: The all-Republican county commission has filed a racketeering lawsuit against four big businesses in the area, charging that they knowingly and deliberately hired illegal workers.

The spectacle of the county's political leaders taking its businesses to court has touched off a bitter local debate. It also has put Canyon County, a community of about 160,000, at the forefront of an emerging effort nationally to use racketeering laws to crack down on illegal immigration by seeking damages from employers.

So far, a handful of workers and businesses around the country have filed civil lawsuits under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The targets are companies that, according to the lawsuits, have unfairly used illegal labor to cut wage levels or prices.

In Washington state, workers who filed a civil lawsuit against their employer, a fruit company, won a $1.3 million settlement in January. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear another of the immigration-related RICO cases this year.

Canyon County is the first municipality to bring a lawsuit of this kind against employers. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district court but has been appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If it succeeds, it could touch off similar actions, says the county's lawyer, Howard Foster.

"There are other county officials who are looking at this, who have called me," said Foster, an advocate of tougher immigration controls who is behind most of the RICO lawsuits.

In Canyon County, locals traditionally welcomed Hispanic migrants who moved in seasonally to take agricultural jobs. But since the early 1990s, many immigrants have been finding year-round work in other industries here, leaving some longtime residents struggling to adjust to permanent neighbors with different customs.

Yet even some who want an immigration crackdown say the county commissioners stepped over the line when they went to court against two local seed companies, a meatpacker and a large cheesemaking operation.

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"I think they should shut down the border and end services" to illegal immigrants, said Joel Bettancourt, a Caldwell grocery-store owner who describes himself as Mexican-American. "But to do the RICO Act — that's too far. Who knows who they're going to go after next?"

Some people say they are so fed up with changes they attribute to immigration — increasing gang violence, competition for manual-labor jobs, more services devoted to immigrants — that they hope the lawsuit succeeds. Letters to the local newspaper appear to be running slightly in favor of the commissioners.

"We have young guys, white and Hispanic, in here legally who want (construction) jobs — but companies give them to people who they can pay half the going wage," said Joyce Yelm, who grew up pulling beets alongside migrant farm laborers but has hardened after watching her old neighborhood become, in her words, a largely Spanish-speaking "shanty town."

Much of the controversy centers on the man who has been pushing the lawsuit — County Commissioner Robert Vasquez. A former radio commentator who lost part of a leg in Vietnam, Vasquez, 57, has long been a provocative force in the immigration debate.

The grandson of legal Mexican immigrants, Vasquez was elected to the county commission in 2002 and soon sent the Mexican government a $2 million bill for services he said his county had provided to illegal immigrants. He has asked Idaho's governor to declare the county a disaster area because of illegal immigration and to grant it emergency funds. He has proposed unsuccessful legislation to the state Legislature that would deny welfare payments to illegal immigrants.

"For every dollar for an illegal alien, it's one less dollar in my constituents' pocket," said Vasquez, who is running for Congress.

In 2005, Vasquez heard about Howard Foster.

The Chicago-based lawyer has almost single-handedly spearheaded the use of RICO statutes as a tool against illegal immigration. A member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates immigration restrictions, Foster took note when Congress toughened immigration laws in 1996 and amended the RICO statute to make knowing employment of illegal immigrants a violation.

"For the first time ever in the country, it became possible for a person to bring a private lawsuit against an employer ... for violating immigration laws," Foster said.

RICO targets a person or group for crimes committed systematically as part of an ongoing enterprise. It carries tough criminal penalties. Its civil component, which the immigration lawsuits fall under, allows plaintiffs to sue for triple damages.

In four RICO lawsuits since 1998, Foster has alleged that companies have knowingly and repeatedly conspired with labor contractors to hire illegal immigrants.

His first case, in 2000, was on behalf of a Connecticut cleaning company that sued a competitor for hiring illegal immigrants. That case was settled.

His other cases have been on behalf of employees, alleging that companies have kept wages low by hiring illegal workers. In 2001, he sued the Washington fruit company, leading to the $1.3 million settlement. A lawsuit he brought against Tyson Foods is scheduled to be heard next year.

In 2004, he filed suit against Georgia-based Mohawk Industries Inc., the country's second-largest carpetmaker. That case will be heard by the Supreme Court in April.

After speaking with Foster, Vasquez and the two other commissioners filed suit in July, charging that Syngenta Seeds Inc., a Swiss company, and Harris Moran Seed Co. of Hayward, Calif., knowingly hired illegal immigrants for many years through a local farm-labor contractor, Roberto Corral. The lawsuit alleges that the seed companies knew most of Corral's recruits were in the country illegally, but they used the contractor as a "front company."

"Many of these illegal immigrants have committed crimes resulting in criminal-justice expenses to the county. Others have become public charges by seeking medical services which the county has had to pay," the lawsuit states. It does not detail what those costs have been.

The lawsuit makes similar claims against meatpacker Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., and Sorrento Lactalis Inc., a Buffalo, N.Y.-based cheese company.

In December, a federal district court in Idaho dismissed the case on the basis of a legal principle that prohibits municipalities from suing to recoup the cost of services they provide in the normal course of business. The case is now before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A Syngenta representative dismissed the lawsuit as "baseless." At Swift, spokesman Sean McHugh said: "We believe the suit is without merit." Spokesmen for Sorrento Lactalis and Harris Moran declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit.

Thomas G. Walker, a lawyer for Corral, said his client "didn't do anything wrong. He fulfills all of the requirements under the immigration statutes."

About a month after the lawsuit was filed, Swift told its 408 Canyon County workers that the local facility, in operation since 1916, would be shut down. It said the closure was caused by restrictions on Canadian beef imports. But many residents said they saw the lawsuit as the last straw for the company.

The companies named in the lawsuit generate close to $700,000 a year in tax revenue for the county and pay millions to local growers, according to the Canyon County Farm Bureau. Syngenta has been in Idaho for 90 years and produces one-third of the world's sweet-corn seed here.

The commissioners counter by citing the costs of illegal immigration. Idaho law mandates that the county cover hospital fees for anyone who has lived here for more than six months and is unable to pay. That opens it up to bills such as the $1.25 million tab to care for an illegal immigrant who was left a quadriplegic by a car accident.

Vasquez said a recently completed welfare analysis showed that, from 1999 to 2005, claims by illegal immigrants came to $1.2 million.

Ottens, of the farm bureau, is skeptical. And her group says much of the cost of jailing illegal immigrants often is reimbursed by the state.

"We found the amount of money the county pays out is minimal compared (with) what these companies (being sued) pay in property tax," Ottens said.

Yet many residents are grateful to Vasquez for taking a stand against illegal immigration.

Construction-company owner Brad Tracy, who says he refuses to hire under the table, said it was almost impossible to compete against businesses that used illegal labor. "I've got to pay workman's comp, health insurance, fuel costs, property tax," he complained. "Then I've got to compete against people who say they have no employees, just contract labor at $10 an hour."

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