Immigration raid catches 36 at Cree

Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 6:02 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

by Rob Sanchez
October 19, 2005 No. 1350

36 illegal aliens were caught at Cree, a semiconductor company that does contracts with federal agencies and the Defense department. At least 10 of those aliens were professionals who lied on their I-9 forms about their citizenship. If you recall, the DHS announced that it will not require employers to use I-9 forms for the hurricane recovery effort which means that contractors in the reconstruction effort couldn't be investigated in this fashion for visa fraud.

Nothing much was written about what types of jobs the professionals did at Cree. One was a Pakistani mathematician who had been working for another company on an H-1B visa and illegally switched employers.

Cree was not charged with a crime.

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http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2819817p-9267311c.html

Immigration raid catches 36 at Cree

By KARIN RIVES AND JONATHAN B. COX, Staff Writers

DURHAM -- An early-morning immigration sweep at Cree Inc. resulted in the arrest of 36 undocumented workers Tuesday. Most of the people arrested were employed by a contractor to Cree, which makes semiconductors.
The bust was the first at a high-tech company since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began focusing on facilities that the government considers strategic or sensitive.

Anyone with a federal defense contract could be in line for an immigration audit, authorities say. That means many employers in and near Research Triangle Park, almost all of whom have foreign-born employees, could be next.

"We have a lot of companies in [RTP] that do high-tech stuff," said Tom O'Connell, agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cary. He said the agency may expand its scrutiny of the area.

The sweep at Cree netted unauthorized immigrants from Kenya, Gambia, Congo, Togo, Israel, Pakistan, Venezuela, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. It came after a 10-month-long investigation.

All but 10 of those arrested were employed by a maintenance and cafeteria services subcontractor, GCA Services Group of West Conshohocken, Pa.

The others included professionals who allegedly lied about being U.S. citizens on their I-9, the form employers must fill out to certify that their employees are authorized to work. One is a Pakistani mathematician with several master's degrees who had been working legally for another company on an H-1B visa, but illegally switched employers, O'Connell said.

H-1B visas are issued on behalf of companies that need workers with special skills in areas such as computer programming, engineering and nursing. Several hundred thousand people hold H-1B visas in the United States, though nobody tracks how many work in the Triangle.

Cree has several contracts with federal agencies, including the Defense Department. In August, it won an Air Force contract worth $15 million for work on technology that could lead to better radar.

Cynthia B. Merrell, Cree's chief financial officer, said none of the arrested workers was associated with government contracts. GCA Services Group did not return calls seeking comments.

Cree employees were caught by surprise by the arrests, unaware of the probe that had been under way with Cree's cooperation since January.

"The last thing they expected to be at Cree this morning were immigration agents," O'Connell said.

One man tried to escape and was tackled by officers. A woman, who had been ordered deported once before, cried hysterically, he said.

Two other women, both pregnant, were fingerprinted and released with an order to show up at a deportation meeting. All detainees were expected to be transported to the Johnston County jail Tuesday night. Most are expected to be deported within weeks.

Not Cree's fault

Cree, which is not charged with a crime and was not a target of the investigation, has strict hiring policies that go "above and beyond" what the government requires of defense contractors, O'Connell said.

And yet, the company was unable to weed out people who presented false papers or lied on documents -- an indication of the challenges employers face in a state with a large immigrant population. In 2004, North Carolina had more than 600,000 foreign-born residents, census figures show.

"We had no way of knowing these documents were false," Merrell said. "Cree did its diligence to check these work documents, but some of them were forged."

Ann Robertson, a Raleigh immigration lawyer, said she spent much of Tuesday on the phone with nervous employers who had heard of the Cree arrests. They wanted to know whether she could go over their I-9 forms to make sure their workers were legitimate -- before the government would.

"It's not the employer's fault when the employee lies," Robertson said. "The documents could look just fine."

In early July, ICE agents posing as state Labor Department safety officials arrested 48 undocumented workers at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro. The men worked for construction contractors at the base.

In March, the agency picked up 27 workers for a subcontractor doing maintenance on commercial jetliners at Piedmont/Triad International Airport in Greensboro. Another sweep at a Winston-Salem company resulted in the arrest of nine men working on Navy aircraft.

Also, in early February, ICE arrested a Kenyan man working at Cree as a security guard. He was employed by Wackenhut, another Cree contractor.

Staff writer Karin Rives can be reached at 829-4521 or krives@newsobserver.com.

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