Wal-Mart to Review All Workers After Immigration Raids

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday that it would review all 1.1 million workers on its U.S. payroll and would fire any who are not legally employed.

The announcement was made one day after federal investigators seized documents from a Wal-Mart executive’s office and arrested 250 people on Wal-Mart store cleaning crews on suspected immigration violations.

Two federal officials said Friday that investigators had recordings that might indicate Wal-Mart executives had knowledge of immigration violations by the contractors the company hired to clean its stores.

Most of those arrested worked for subcontractors.

But 10 of those arrested were Wal-Mart employees, the Bentonville, Ark., company said Friday.

Those employees, who were picked up in Kentucky and Arizona, previously had worked for a subcontractor and were hired by Wal-Mart when it brought that work in-house, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.

“Each store will be reviewing their employee records,” Mona Williams said.

The company uses its own cleaning crews for most of its 3,412 stores in the United States, she said, but contracts with 110 companies to clean about 700 of its outlets.

None of the 61 stores raided Thursday was in California.

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Times staff writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.