Roofing Firm Faces Record INS Fine for Illegal Worker Fraud

An Orange roofing contractor is facing the largest fine ever levied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for allegations that the company knowingly hired undocumented immigrants and then forged employment forms, the federal agency has announced.

INS agents served Honeycutt Tearoff, Inc. Friday with a notice of a $1.2-million intended fine after an 18-month investigation revealed the violations, said Rico Cabrera, spokesman for the Los Angeles district office of the INS, which covers Orange County.

According to the INS, the fine is the largest combination civil document fraud and employer sanctions case in the agency’s history.

Company officials could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, sanctions can be levied when employers fail to certify that employees are U.S. citizens or legal residents. According to Cabrera, Honeycutt is being fined $252,235 for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and failing to comply with INS record-keeping requirements.

The remainder of the fine is being levied for alleged document fraud, he said.

According to the allegations, company president John Honeycutt fabricated and backdated employment eligibility documents in an attempt to pass an INS inspection.

Case agents working closely with handwriting and document experts at the INS Forensic Document Laboratory in McLean, Va., found discrepancies in the documents, Cabrera said.

In the last year, the federal government collected $5.2 million in fines under the employer sanctions provision of the immigration reform law, $1.1 million of it from California and other western states.

Honeycutt can request a hearing before an administrative law judge. Some fined employers have reached settlements with the agency for a lower fine.

Earlier in the week, Disneyland paid $260,000 to settle allegations of shoddy record-keeping that violated federal immigration laws. An INS investigation last year found 1,156 violations in the employee records of more than 6,000 Disneyland employees, including evidence of counterfeit documents such as Social Security cards and green cards.

A Georgia peach firm was fined $1.1 million in 1992 for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, at that time the largest such penalty ever levied against a U.S. employer.