Thread: SC agency finds 35 illegal workers at school sites

Pickens school trustee says district will work with state on illegal workers issue
By Mike Ellis
Anderson Independent Mail
Posted August 28, 2010 at 10:08 p.m.

PICKENS COUNTY — Well before state officials reported this week that illegal immigrants have worked on job sites in the School District of Pickens County, Margaret Thompson had raised the issue with officials of the district.

Five subcontractors employed 32 illegal workers since new laws came in effect July 1, according to a report by the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation Office of Immigrant Worker Compliance.

Jim Knight, head of the state’s immigrant workers office, said in the report that the investigation in Pickens County began in November. Because the law only began applying to businesses with fewer than 100 workers in July, he said, he expects more illegal workers to be identified in the continuing investigation.

Pickens is in the midst of a seven-school, $365 million building program.

B.J. Skelton, a Pickens school district trustee, said Thompson went to a school board meeting several months ago to raise questions about the possibility of use of illegal workers.

Skelton said the board reiterated to Thompson at the time that it “would not tolerate any illegal immigrants on the job, and we would work through (labor, licensing and regulation) to square that away.â€

They had the same thing in southwest Miami Dade County. When ICE rounded them up and ran them they found 5 or 7 of them had criminal records and if they were Americans they would never be allowed on a school site. I posted that article a while back.