4 plant workers charged over deportation orders (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)

4 plant workers charged over deportation orders

Immigration officials arrest four employees of city business

BY EMILY BATTLE

Date published: 2/10/2009

Four employees of L.B. Technologies in Fredericksburg have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because they had been given final orders for deportation by an immigration judge.

ICE found the employees after reviewing L.B. Technologies' employment records, according to an ICE spokeswoman.

The agency subpoenaed to obtain those records after a routine fire inspection of the building L.B. Technologies leases at 404 Willis St. caused Fredericksburg officials to shut the building down and call in the federal agency. According to city police, the roughly 50 employees found at the scene when the fire marshal arrived all fled when city police showed up.

ICE determined there was probable cause to believe illegal immigrants were working at the business.

ICE, along with the General Services Administration, the Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor's wage and hour division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms continue to investigate L.B. Technologies.

The company, which makes apparel under U.S. military contracts, is run by John P. Straiton, who was convicted in 1986 of selling faulty Yugoslavian ammunition as an American product to the government of El Salvador under a U.S. military contract.

L.B. Technologies has no business license to operate in the city, and had no occupancy permit to be in the Willis Street building.

That building remains classified as unsafe, which means no one can enter without a permit from the city building official. Building Official Steve Smallwood has permitted Straiton to enter the building, but nobody else.

Business cannot resume at that location until Straiton gets permits and inspections for a number of alterations that were made to the building.

Smallwood said Straiton had not begun the permitting process as of yesterday.