Immigration Officers Raid Utah County Sign Company
February 7th, 2008 @ 12:04pm
Team Coverage

Immigrations officers raided a Lindon manufacturing company this morning. More than 50 workers suspected of being in the country illegally were arrested.

Universal Industrial Sales is a company that makes metal freeway signs. Now, the human resource manager is under arrest, and 50 workers are going to jail for being in the country illegally.

Two indictments were unsealed today in U.S. District Court on the heels of a raid at a Lindon manufacturing plant, charging Universal Industrial Sales Inc., and its human resources manager with harboring illegal aliens .

The company is charged with 10 counts of harboring aliens between January 2003 to December 2006 for “commercial advantage.”

The second indictment charges Alejandro Alex Urrutia-Garcia, 39, of Provo, with two counts of encouraging illegal aliens to remain in the United States unlawfully. The company faces $500,000 fines, or twice the amount of any pecuniary gains, for each count.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah, Urrutia-Garcia is a naturalized U.S. citizen and the human resource director for Universal Industrial Sales. The charges carry up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.

Company officials did not immediately return phone calls for comment.

The Lindon-based company employs more than 100 individuals, according to its Web site. It manufactures a variety of highway products, such as guard rails, bridge rails and sign structures.
Late Thursday morning, family members and friends of the arrested employees trickled in, hoping for details about what happened.

Elias Villalpando, 27, worked for UIS for five years, but quit three years ago.
Standing in the snow, he said he knows many employees there who are good, hard working people just trying to make a living.

“They have to do something to bring food for their families,” he said. He said that many of the men arrested were from Jalisco, Mexico.

Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah, did numerous interviews outside the company’s headquarters, including a phone interview with a Spanish-language radio station.

“We ask for calm in our community,” he said in Spanish. “It’s important that there is not panic in our community.”

“Right now, they’re all scared,” he said after the interview. On his drive to Lindon from Salt Lake City, Yapias said, he received nearly 50 phone calls from family members of the affected employees.
A community meeting is planned tonight for those families and friends at 7 at Orem’s St. Francis Catholic Church. The event will follow mass.

“Today’s action should send a clear message to employers in Utah,” said U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman. “We expect employers to comply with immigration laws in hiring employees. Failure to comply with these laws hampers our ability to address illegal immigration issues.”

Tolman said his office understands that those taken into custody may have families. He said they will show compassion for those involved.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about 50 individuals were taken into custody as of 11 a.m. The workers are being interviewed by ICE agents and health professionals to determine any medical or sole-caregiver issues. ICE is also coordinating with other agencies, such as the Utah Health and Human Rights Project and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

ICE reports that workers taken into custody are being interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and processed. There are no federal arrest warrants or criminal charges associated with the workers at this time.

“It’s a long methodical process we go through,” said Greg Palmore, spokesman for ICE.

Randall Barker is the VP of Human Resources for A Plus Benefits, Inc.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Hiring, Human Resources, Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.