Thread: Truck operator sentenced for using unauthorized drivers Nogales International Apr 24,

Truck operator sentenced for using unauthorized drivers

• Nogales International

• Apr 24, 2019 Updated 1 hr ago

One of two local trucking company operators who were charged with illegally using Mexican drivers to haul loads was sentenced to a year of probation and required to forfeit two trucks and pay a $20,000 fine after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor offense. The other is set to receive a similar sentence in May.

Jimmy Watson, Sr., 58, of JSJ Enterprises, was sentenced Monday at U.S. District Court in Tucson for a conviction on one count of unlawful employment of aliens. Luis Rivera of L&R Trucking and Sunset Trucking is scheduled to be sentenced May 6 after he pleaded guilty to the same offense.

As part of their plea agreements, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to drop eight additional felony counts against each man for harboring illegal aliens for profit. The government also agreed to seek no jail time for the defendants.

According to the factual basis of their plea agreements, Watson and Rivera each hired eight people who were unauthorized to work in the United States. They also took steps to conceal the employment of the suspects. Watson is accused of committing the offenses from April 23, 2018 through July 17, 2018; Rivera from March 20, 2018 through July 3, 2018.

As part of his plea deal, Rivera agreed to forfeit two Freightligner tractors with a combined estimated value of $40,000 to be credited against his fine. Watson, whose initial plea deal called for him to pay a $50,000 fine, had his agreement rewritten so that he would pay $20,000 and forfeit a 2000 Freightligner tractor along with a 1998 semi-trailer.

The cases arose out of a dispute over so-called “cabotage rules,” which prohibit foreign drivers from picking up U.S. cargo and delivering it within the country. The rules are part of the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement, but the Border Patrol didn’t start enforcing them with vigor at the Interstate 19 checkpoint until the start of 2018 after offering advance warning in late 2017.

Some local trucking company operators, including Rivera and Jimmy Watson, Jr. of JSJ, complained at the time that they couldn’t find enough U.S. citizens to replace their Mexican drivers, who are restricted by their B-1 Temporary Business Visitor visas to delivering a trailer loaded with Mexican-origin merchandise only to its final destination.

A federal investigator told the Tucson Sentinel that once enforcement went into effect, Border Patrol agents at the I-19 checkpoint saw a "pattern" of truckers with B-1 visas heading north into the U.S. interior after picking up loads at produce warehouses in Nogales and Rio Rico, even after trucking companies had been warned to stop the practice.

The Arizona Daily Star, citing an affidavit filed with a search warrant in the case, reported that the scheme involved U.S. drivers hauling loads through the checkpoint at about the same time that a Mexican driver would pass through in a pickup truck or sedan. The U.S. driver would then pull into parking lots at the Desert Diamond Casino, truck stops or motels and trade places with the Mexican driver, who would then haul the load into the interior.

Watson, Sr. was indicted on Oct. 3, 2018 and Rivera on Sept. 5, 2018.

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