Legal Workers Replaced By Illegal Immigrants In Hotel

[zuluweta 250]

Feds: Hotel Owners Replaced Legal Workers With Illegal Immigrants

By Roxana Hegeman, Miami Herald, March 8, 2015

When a suburban Kansas City couple bought two Clarion hotels, they systematically replaced lawfully employed workers with immigrants not authorized to work in the United States, cutting labor costs by 40 percent.

Not only were the illegal workers paid a lower wage, but the owners of the hotels one in Overland Park, Kansas, and the other in Kansas City, Missouri also did not pay the employer's share of Social Security. They didn't pay worker's compensation, unemployment insurance and other employee benefits, or withhold federal or state income taxes from paychecks, court documents show.

Hotel owner Munir Ahmad Chaudary will be sentenced Monday in a federal case that highlights the U.S. Justice Department's prosecutorial shift away from workplace immigration raids to targeting employers who knowingly hire people who are not in the U.S. legally to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said the case should "serve as an alarm" that there are consequences to such conduct. Not only will those employers lose their property, but their liberty, he said.

On the day their trial was set to begin in July, the couple pleaded guilty to conspiracy to encourage immigrants to reside unlawfully in the United States. Rhonda R. Bridge was sentenced last month to 21 months imprisonment. The government is seeking a 27 months for Chaudary at his hearing in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas.

The government has also seized their hotels, worth an estimated $5 million to $6 million total, along with their bank accounts under forfeiture laws.

Defense attorney Branden Bell urged the court to spare Chaudary from prison, portraying the Pakistani immigrant in a court filing Thursday as a "tireless worker and a terrible boss."

"He came to America with lots of ambition and little money, and set out to build a life for himself," Bell wrote. "Creating small businesses with nothing more than his sweat, he went from owning a small pizza restaurant to two hotels. These businesses were his life's work; the singular endeavor that he poured his heart and labor into. Now they are gone; he has nothing."

Bell also argued his client's crime was not violent, and that employing people who are not in the U.S. legally is common.

The shift in enforcement priorities in immigration-related cases is based on the experience the Justice Department had a decade ago, when the government conducted large workplace roundups of people who are not in the U.S. legally, most notably at meatpacking plants in the Midwest, Grissom said. Those raids ripped apart immigrant families, often leaving behind children who came home from school to find their parents gone.

"It wasn't a very humane way to address this problem, and it wasn't a very efficient way to address this problem," Grissom said.

By targeting unscrupulous employers, the Justice Department says it's aiming to remove the incentive for immigrants who are not authorized to work in the United States to come to the region seeking jobs.

Link to article here:

http://qa1.miamiherald.com/news/business/article1647096.html

[Póg mo 1,749]

Feds: Hotel Owners Replaced Legal Workers With Illegal Immigrants

By Roxana Hegeman, Miami Herald, March 8, 2015

When a suburban Kansas City couple bought two Clarion hotels, they systematically replaced lawfully employed workers with immigrants not authorized to work in the United States, cutting labor costs by 40 percent.

Not only were the illegal workers paid a lower wage, but the owners of the hotels one in Overland Park, Kansas, and the other in Kansas City, Missouri also did not pay the employer's share of Social Security. They didn't pay worker's compensation, unemployment insurance and other employee benefits, or withhold federal or state income taxes from paychecks, court documents show.

Hotel owner Munir Ahmad Chaudary will be sentenced Monday in a federal case that highlights the U.S. Justice Department's prosecutorial shift away from workplace immigration raids to targeting employers who knowingly hire people who are not in the U.S. legally to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said the case should "serve as an alarm" that there are consequences to such conduct. Not only will those employers lose their property, but their liberty, he said.

On the day their trial was set to begin in July, the couple pleaded guilty to conspiracy to encourage immigrants to reside unlawfully in the United States. Rhonda R. Bridge was sentenced last month to 21 months imprisonment. The government is seeking a 27 months for Chaudary at his hearing in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas.

The government has also seized their hotels, worth an estimated $5 million to $6 million total, along with their bank accounts under forfeiture laws.

Defense attorney Branden Bell urged the court to spare Chaudary from prison, portraying the Pakistani immigrant in a court filing Thursday as a "tireless worker and a terrible boss."

"He came to America with lots of ambition and little money, and set out to build a life for himself," Bell wrote. "Creating small businesses with nothing more than his sweat, he went from owning a small pizza restaurant to two hotels. These businesses were his life's work; the singular endeavor that he poured his heart and labor into. Now they are gone; he has nothing."

Bell also argued his client's crime was not violent, and that employing people who are not in the U.S. legally is common.

The shift in enforcement priorities in immigration-related cases is based on the experience the Justice Department had a decade ago, when the government conducted large workplace roundups of people who are not in the U.S. legally, most notably at meatpacking plants in the Midwest, Grissom said. Those raids ripped apart immigrant families, often leaving behind children who came home from school to find their parents gone.

"It wasn't a very humane way to address this problem, and it wasn't a very efficient way to address this problem," Grissom said.

By targeting unscrupulous employers, the Justice Department says it's aiming to remove the incentive for immigrants who are not authorized to work in the United States to come to the region seeking jobs.

Link to article here:

http://qa1.miamiherald.com/news/business/article1647096.html

That's okay, Republicans tell me all the time that people should have more ambition than working minimum wage jobs.

[zuluweta 250]

That's okay, Republicans tell me all the time that people should have more ambition than working minimum wage jobs.

Sounds fine if it was your choice to leave a minimum wage job but not where you are systematically replaced by your employer so they could hire an illegal immigrant asking for less pay and no benefits.

[Póg mo 1,749]

Sounds fine if it was your choice to leave a minimum wage job but not where you are systematically replaced by your employer so they could hire an illegal immigrant asking for less pay and no benefits.

No, because I have also been a told that if employers are forced to pay more, because the pool of labor is reduced, then they will simply relocate to overseas.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

There's Obama going after the job creators. Shame on him!

[zuluweta 250]

No, because I have also been a told that if employers are forced to pay more, because the pool of labor is reduced, then they will simply relocate to overseas.

Welcome to the free market?

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

I am glad to see someone paying a penalty for hiring illegal workers. I don't want to see jail time for anybody for this.. But I would like to see: The illegals working should be bared from ever having any sort of legal status (a lifetime ban) and deported. The hotel owner if he is not yet a citizen should be deported with a lifetime ban. If he is a citizen his assets should be seized and sold off to pay off an overly draconian fine and banned from ever having anyone working for him again.

[Boiler 43,359]

Islamaphobia.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Possibly! Though totally pointless to this thread..

but like they always say: If you can't make a cogent argument, label it.

[Póg mo 1,749]

Welcome to the free market?

I am just repeating what I have been told. Are you against free markets?

[Póg mo 1,749]

I am glad to see someone paying a penalty for hiring illegal workers. I don't want to see jail time for anybody for this.. But I would like to see: The illegals working should be bared from ever having any sort of legal status (a lifetime ban) and deported. The hotel owner if he is not yet a citizen should be deported with a lifetime ban. If he is a citizen his assets should be seized and sold off to pay off an overly draconian fine and banned from ever having anyone working for him again.

Yes, but won't hotels all close down if they are forced to pay workers more, or how will Americans be able to afford to stay in a hotel if hotel rooms rates rise?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Yes, but won't hotels all close down if they are forced to pay workers more, or how will Americans be able to afford to stay in a hotel if hotel rooms rates rise?

Just gotta get rid of that pesky minimum wage and life will be good again. For some of us, anyways.

[zuluweta 250]

I am just repeating what I have been told. Are you against free markets?

No. Are you? What does the free market have to do with illegal hiring practices of unauthorized workers?