Trailer manufacturing company and owner convicted of hiring illegal aliens (Tucson Citizen)

Trailer manufacturing company and owner convicted of hiring illegal aliens
by Hugh Holub on Jul. 08, 2011

PHOENIX – Arizona Trailer Manufacturing, Inc., a company based in Buckeye, Ariz., and its president and owner, Richard Taylor, also of Buckeye, were sentenced on Wednesday to two years of probation and to collectively pay a $30,000 fine for engaging in a pattern and practice of knowingly employing illegal aliens. Sentencing took place on July 6, 2011, in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Anderson.

“This is a unique case because both the owner and the company itself were sentenced and fined for knowingly employing illegal aliens,” said U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke. “When employers find out that their employees are unauthorized to work in this country, they can’t continue employing them. This was an ongoing pattern that we have put to an end.”

“This is yet another example of ICE executing a criminal investigation into an employer who contributed to the magnet driving illegal immigration in the United States by knowingly violating our laws,” said Matt Allen, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Arizona.

In mid-2007, Taylor learned that 10 of his company’s employees were Mexican citizens who lacked authorization to work or reside in the United States. Under federal law, an employer must terminate an employee after making such a discovery, but Taylor chose to continue employing them. In fact, Arizona Trailer and Taylor later submitted work-authorization applications to the U.S. Department of Labor and to U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services on behalf of all 10 employees. In most of those applications, Arizona Trailer and Taylor falsely certified that the alien was not a current employee, was living in Mexico, and that authorization was appropriate because there were no qualified U.S. workers to fill the job vacancy.

The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Lanza.

CASE NUMBER: 11-3184M-PHX-LOA