Since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took 31 alleged illegal immigrants into custody while they were cleaning floors and emptying trash in municipal offices and courthouses around Rhode Island, The Law Office of Maria J. Marley LLC has been getting phone calls.
But those phone calls aren’t from the alleged illegal workers. Nor are they from the two businesses – Tri-State Enterprises and Falcon Maintenance Co. – that had held the 48 state cleaning contracts and are now sweating out a criminal investigation. The calls are coming from other Rhode Island businesses that want Marley to do an internal audit, making sure that they’re compliant with federal immigration laws and I-9 checks, said Marley, who practices in Westerly and specializes in immigration law.
“I’ve been hearing from employers who are more than a little bit worried about Gov. [Donald L.] Carcieri’s issuance of an [executive order] telling [state contractors] that they have to be in compliance with E-Verify, the federal system,” Marley said. “It’s the state going over into federal law.”
And Marley said the E-Verify system – a controversial Web-based system, which checks Social Security numbers against federal records, that Carcieri in March required all state contractors to use (READ MORE) – is “one of the most unreliable systems, fraught with false positives.”
She said Rhode Island companies are worried that they won’t be able to tell if a worker is an illegal alien, since the only documents they can legally ask for are a Social Security card and passport.
In a statement the day after the July 15 raids, ICE Field Office Director Bruce E. Chadbourne said the agency “is committed to seeking criminal prosecution of those who fraudulently assumed identities to hide in plain sight.” That hiding-in-plain-site issue is what businesses are worried about, too, Marley said.
“If someone shows false documents, a company won’t know if they’re false or not,” Marley said recently. “But they’re terrified now because, what if they are false and they don’t know?”
Tri-State President and CEO Anthony E. DeSimone Jr. declined to be interviewed by Providence Business News after the arrests. But the company in the past has been recognized by PBN as one of the fastest-growing private firms in the state.
This year, in the annual Providence Business News Book of Lists, the company was pegged as the 59th fastest-growing private company in Rhode Island. That ranking – based on 2006 revenue – was one place above its 2007 ranking. The company reported that it grew 12.5 percent during the three-year period between 2004 and 2006, jumping from sales of $4 million to $4.5 million.
Tri-State was also on PBN’s annual list of Top Private Companies in the state. Based on 2006 revenue, Tri-State was listed as No. 92 on that list, dropping from the No. 81 spot the year before.
During 2006, Vice President and CFO David A. Civetti told Providence Business News that the revenue of one of the company’s newest ventures – Ceiling Pro of New England, launched during 2000 – jumped from $7,000 in 2003 to $35,000 in 2005. He said then that he expected the company’s revenue to hit $75,000 during 2006. “I’d like to get it up to half a million dollars,” he said.
At the time, Ceiling Pro had about 75 clients in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, he said. Those clients included Taco Bell, Boston Market, McDonalds, Starbucks, Marriot and 3M, Civetti said.
Neither Civetti nor representatives from Falcon Maintenance returned multiple calls after the raids.
During the fiscal year that ended June 31, the state paid more than $1.3 million for the cleaning services of the two firms, Amy Kempe, Carcieri’s spokesman, said recently. Tri-State earned $732,891, while Falcon earned $579,456, she said. Those contracts were terminated at 11.55 p.m. on July 25.
Falcon was incorporated on June 9, 2004 and the company’s address is listed as 160 Winsor Ave. in Johnston, according to R.I. Secretary of State records.
Tri-State was founded on April 9, 1996. The company’s parent name is DECI Inc. and its headquarters is at 1270 Mineral Spring Ave. in North Providence.
After the Rhode Island arrests, Carcieri said that “this type of illegal activity by unscrupulous employers will not be tolerated by my administration and we will take all necessary action to ensure that all state contractors abide by state and federal law, as well as the spirit of the executive order.”
He added that the recent ICE action “clearly indicates the need for a stronger, more comprehensive approach to illegal immigration in our state and country.”
The 31 employees who were detained in the July arrests hailed from Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico, according to ICE (www.ice.gov), the largest investigative branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And those 31 workers represent only a miniscule portion of an illegal immigrant population that could range anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 in the Ocean State, said William Shuey, executive director of the nonprofit International Institute Rhode Island. Several thousand illegal aliens are deported from Rhode Island each year, he said.
Moreover, although there aren’t any statistics to prove it, Shuey said it’s likely that most of those illegal immigrants are employed. “That’s why they’re here,” he said. “They’re here to work.”
“They’re doing really tough jobs that are for the most part boring and sometimes dangerous,” Shuey said. “We need them and we’ve had trouble acknowledging that as a nation.”
Austin & Stanovich Risk Managers LLC Principal William K. Austin said hiring illegal aliens is an issue that can be calculated in a company’s total risk.
“There may be legal penalties – the cost of risk – for hiring an illegal alien worker, and thus an issue not necessarily subject to personal or commercial insurance. The risk is of a legal nature because it deals with an employer’s compliance with federal or state statutes – general laws – and is not necessarily an issue of tort negligence. Insurance is for tort liability,” Austin said.
“An alien may not be in the country legally, but could still meet the test of being an ‘employee,’” Austin said. “Therefore the employee, if he or she were injured, would be subject to workers’ compensation to the extent the injury fell within a state’s workers’ compensation statute.”
The workers’ compensation statute applies to anyone that meets the test of “employee” and does not require citizenship, he said.
Until recently, however, few companies have cared about I-9 or E-Verify compliance, Marley said.
“I can’t tell you how many employers I’ve approached over the years and asked about I-9 compliance and they’ll say, ‘What are you talking about?’”
But even if an employer is diligent, she said, a fraudulent Social Security card – or one that was issued with almost any temporary work visa, including J-Visas for summer work – will check out fine in the E-Verify system. (READ MORE)
“So you have a guy in front of you, he has a valid Social Security card [that passed E-Verify] and he shows a passport, you’re not allowed to ask any more than that,” she said. “The system is so flawed.” •
