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| Wal-Mart Raids Catch 300 Illegal Workers |
| 2003-10-23 |
| LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Federal agents raided Wal-Mart’s headquarters and 60 of its stores across the country Thursday, arresting more than 300 illegal workers in an immigration crackdown at the world’s biggest retailer. The workers were members of cleaning crews hired by outside contractors, but federal law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Wal-Mart had direct knowledge of the immigration violations. They cited recordings of meetings and conversations among Wal-Mart executives, managers and contractors. "We have seen no evidence of this from the INS, and, if that turns out to be true, we will cooperate fully with law enforcement officials," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said. Of course the INS does not exist anymore.... its the BCIS now. The workers were arrested as they finished their night shifts at Wal-Mart stores in 21 states. Agents also hauled away several boxes of documents from an executive’s office at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville. Must have been his/her collection of junk mail... Yeah! thats it! Certainly not evidence! An employer can face civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or failing to comply with certain employee recordkeeping regulations. Wal-Mart Stores had sales last year of $244.5 billion. The company has about 1.1 million employees in the United States, and it uses more than 100 third-party contractors to clean more than 700 stores nationwide, Williams said. "We require each of these contractors to use only legal workers," she said. Or at least tell us they are legal... Plausable deniability and all that... The law enforcement sources said the investigation grew out of earlier probes of Wal-Mart cleaning crew contractors in 1998 and 2001. And Wal-Mart still didn’t get the message?? All the arrested workers were in the country illegally, said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They were detained at local immigration offices. Those who had no criminal record were released with instructions to appear before immigration judges. After which they promptly scurried off in 300 different directions.... Wal-Mart is not the first big company to be targeted in an immigration investigation. Six managers at Tyson Foods, based one town away from Wal-Mart in Springdale, were charged in an immigrant-smuggling case in 2001. One defendant shot himself to death a few months after being charged, and two managers entered guilty pleas early in the case. A jury acquitted the poultry company and three other managers. Maybe they can give a recommendation on a lawyer to Wal-mart.... Ulysses A. Yannas, an analyst with the investment firm Buckman, Buckman and Reid, said it is too much to expect Wal-Mart to keep track of all of its vendors’ workers. But he said the investigation could present a problem for the company. Lets see... they can track millions of inventory from tens of thousands of suppliers but cannot track which of its vendors workers are legal immigrants? Aren’t they afraid the illegals might steal stuff? I mean it is not as if they are law-abiding or anything.. they are ILLEGAL "It is a question of what else it might bring out. These are long, drawn-out processes," Yannas said. Top Wal-Mart officials learned of Thursday’s sweep when store managers began calling headquarters for guidance in dealing with the raids. Keep your trap shut... they got nuttin! Courtney said agents searched the office of one of Wal-Mart’s executives. Williams, the spokeswoman, said they spent several hours in the office of a "mid-level manager" at Wal-Mart’s headquarters and carried away several boxes of She said she did not know if any other Wal-Mart administrative offices were searched. I can say no more! The arrests were made at stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. |
| Posted by:CrazyFool |
| #2 Hmmm, gearing up for the election are we? I once did personnel for a hotel who hired illegals (shock!). You knew who they were because when the INS came through they'd scramble like dogs on linoleum, hiding closets, bushes, etc. My boss didn't care, so they'd be back at work later that day. I tried to make the process as "legal" as I could, but all they really needed to present me with was a realistic looking driver's license and a social security card. You can go to any street corner and get them. I wasn't supposed to question the documents, as long as they look legal. We were covered if we had the valid "proper forms" in their personnel files. Now, I didn't stay too long at that job, for obvious reasons, but it does cause me to wonder; if hiring staff is not supposed to question the valid looking ID's (that's racist) and if you ever call them in and say, "um, the SS dept says your number isn't valid", then they just say, I must have given you the wrong one, I'll go home and get it....(ie: I quit). Then, shortly, a different guy would come in apply for that job; funny how much he looks like the guy who just quit. I suppose Wal-Mart is probably getting nailed because their cleaning service's hiring department was in a pickup truck and their payroll was a roll of fresh green bills. But, excuse me for suspecting that this Wal Mart sweep is nothing more than a glitzy political move. Maybe GW wants to show conservatives that he is cracking down on illegal immigration or maybe it's Democrats wishing to hurt GW's efforts to attrack the Hispanic vote. Who knows? Since it's in Arkansas, I'd guess the latter. Or more likely, the IRS figures this is a good way to get a big hunk of cash from Wal-Mart for unpaid taxes. But, if the Government feels that the only real "crime" being committed by Wal Mart is that they didn't properly employ their illegals, how is this anything but a meaningless sham? |
| Posted by: B 2003-10-24 9:01:39 AM |
| #1 Did they get that little yellow smiley face bastard from the commercials? Please tell me they did. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-10-23 10:34:33 PM |