Honeymoon Is Over, INS Warns Employers

Saying they are prepared to aggressively enforce sanctions against hiring illegal workers, federal immigration officials Monday released the names of three employers fined for violating the new immigration reform law and announced a stepped-up recruitment drive to hire additional Border Patrol agents.

“The honeymoon is over,” Harold Ezell, regional commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said at a press conference Monday in Los Angeles. “We intend to show that this law is not a paper tiger. We will continue to educate employers, but in this region we will enforce the sanctions aggressively.”

The three penalized companies are Irvin Industries of Santa Ana, fined $8,000; Pacific Coast Laundry of Los Angeles, $6,000; and Travel Lodge of Costa Mesa, $5,500. In addition, 78 other employers in the Los Angeles area are under investigation and may be fined, said Ernest Gustafson, Los Angeles district director of the INS.

Eric Dumont, president of Pacific Coast Laundry, said his company had been working with immigration officials to try to comply with the law. He said the company will contest the fine.

‘I Think It Stinks’

“I think it stinks,” Dumont said.

” . . . We thought we were proceeding the way we were supposed to. We certainly weren’t maliciously trying to circumvent what they’re trying to do.”

Representatives of the other firms were not available for comment Monday.

In addition to the three Southern California firms fined Monday, officials said another 20 employers in the INS western region--California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and Guam--will be fined a total of $90,000 by the end of the week.

INS officials have acknowledged that they hope publicity about the enforcement of immigration laws will move recalcitrant employers to comply with the law.

Under provisions of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, employers face stiff fines and civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring illegal aliens. First offenses could result in fines of $250 to $2,000 per illegal worker. Repeat offenders risk fines as high as $10,000 per worker and six months in jail.

After passage of the immigration reform law two years ago, the government gave most employers a grace period that ended June 1 to educate themselves about the sanctions. During that period, the INS was required to issue warnings for first offenses.

The government is also preparing to step up patrols of border areas to prevent more illegal aliens from entering the country.

Dale Cozart, chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, said the agency hopes to hire an additional 1,100 agents to work along the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The number of investigators in the Los Angeles district has almost tripled and will top 200 by midsummer, said John Brechtel, assistant district director for investigations.

Officials also said Monday that they have investigated more than 50 cases of fraudulent document vendors in the area and said employers who refer workers to such vendors to “relieve themselves of liability with the INS” may face criminal conspiracy charges.