'Desktop' immigration raid shakes Vernon factory
No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra (immigration police) through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn't a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers.
A "desktop raid" is how the workers' representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario. Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided "invalid or fraudulent" Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31.
Good for this Company to actually stand up and do the right thing. If you didnt come here the legal way than its no ones fault but your own if you lose a job because someone finaly caught up with you.
Posted by: t | June 12, 2009 at 08:19 AM
How were these people not arrested and deported? They are committing fraud! Does this mean it's ok for people to start writing bad checks? Can someone tell me which other laws are
ok to ignore?
Posted by: Louweegie272 | June 12, 2009 at 08:46 AM
It is the American way to hire from other countires and any expense. This way higher profits and unreported working hors lead to cheap labor. The haters create this mess.
Posted by: Marcos | June 12, 2009 at 09:10 AM
260 jobs that could have and should have been filled by American citizens. Thank god for these "desktop" raids that are helping remove these criminal invaders.
Posted by: m | June 12, 2009 at 09:43 AM
Most of this hard working immigrants have families and they do what any U.S. citizen don't do, even in a time of crisis, the dirty, long hours and low paying jobs that keep many companies alive.
Posted by: Alfonso Farfan | June 14, 2009 at 08:10 AM
thiis is one of the best things I have ever read in the LA Times and this writer should be one of the citizens that loses his job to an illegal alien and than maybe his tune would change some, the sorrow I feel is for the Americans that are out of work and should have been doing these jobs in the first place and we have a President and congress that refuses to make e verify part of law so that only American and legal workers will get a job in the USA anyone that is not for this is no more than a traitor
Posted by: Jimmy | June 15, 2009 at 04:12 AM