The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service on Tuesday arrested 25 undocumented immigrants, all from Mexico, in a raid on a food-processing plant in Plainfield, officials said.
The immigrants, 9 men and 16 women, allegedly were working illegally as laborers for $5.50 to $6.50 an hour at the Hinsdale Farms Ltd. plant, 602 N. Des Plaines St.
The raid resulted in the firm losing about half its work force, said Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the INS office in Chicago. The plant normally employs about 55 workers, she said.
Tuesday’s raid also was the second in five months at the Plainfield plant. On May 20, INS agents arrested 33 undocumented immigrants at the plant, Montenegro said.
“We get our leads from the community,” she said. “People call in to our hot line or write us with information about alleged (undocumented) workers. If we feel the tips are worth pursuing, we then go to the plants and examine the citizenship information companies have on file for their immigrant workers. Then, if there is sufficient evidence to warrant it, we undertake a work-site enforcement operation.”
The INS concentrates on certain businesses in the Midwest that are more likely than others to hire immigrants, Montenegro said. Those businesses include food-processing plants as well as light manufacturing centers and farms.
Whether Hinsdale Farms hired the immigrants knowing they were undocumented is still under investigation, Montenegro said. Efforts to reach the firm late Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, employers can be punished if they knowingly hire undocumented workers. Penalties range from a warning citation and fines to criminal prosecution for repeat offenders.
Often, employers are not at fault, Montenegro said.
“Most of the time, (undocumented) immigrants provide an employer with forged documents attesting to their employment eligibility,” Montenegro said. “We try to educate employers on what, more or less, to look for in these documents but, still, to the average layman these papers frequently look like the real thing.”
Those arrested Tuesday have the option of requesting a hearing before an immigration judge or voluntarily agreeing to return to Mexico, Montenegro said.
Tuesday’s raid was the fifth carried out by Chicago-area INS agents since the beginning of the 1998 federal fiscal year on Oct. 1. In the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the INS in the Chicago area conducted 66 raids, resulting in the arrests of 1,300 undocumented workers.
The INS has been criticized by immigrant-rights groups and some Latin American officials who contend that the agency doesn’t always treat undocumented workers humanely.
The critics allege that the agency sometimes coerces arrestees to return to their native country and that sometimes it doesn’t allow them to tell their families. The INS has said the allegations are without merit.
