The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) cracked down this week on restaurant operators suspected of bringing in immigrants for what the agency termed forced labor, securing a guilty plea from a California couple and issuing indictments for nine individuals in the Midwest.
The crimes ascribed to the two groups went far beyond hiring alien workers with shaky documentation of their authorization to work in the United States.
The California couple, Nery and Maura Martinez, admitted that they convinced a relative in Guatemela and her two daughters, both minors, to come to the U.S. on temporary visas, and then trumped up a debt they were owed by the trio. According to the DOJ, Martinez and his wife told the three women that they couldn’t leave until the debt was repaid, even if their visas expired, and put them to work for no pay in the couple’s Latino restaurant for 17 months.
When their relatives balked, the Martinezes threatened to reveal to immigration authorities that the three had overstayed their visas.
The couple now faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years and a fine of $250,000.
“These defendants used the promise of America to lure the victim and her children to the United States in search of a better life, only to turn around and use that hope to exploit their dreams under cruel conditions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “There is no place for such cruel conduct in our society.”
DOJ said it is still rounding up the group that includes the nine suspects affiliated with restaurants in Missouri and Kansas. The indictments allege that the nine are part of a 19-person ring that has been smuggling in immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador since July 2003 and farming them out to dozens of Midwestern restaurants controlled by one member of the criminal enterprise, Jose Luis Bravo. His company, Bravo Group, operates restaurants under the names El Charro, El Charrito, Playa Azul, Itza, LLC, Cantina Bravo and El Chango.
Bravo also owns a restaurant distribution company, Specialty Restaurant Distribution, that also allegedly employed smuggled-in workers. The company supplied about 45 Mexican restaurants in several states, according to DOJ.
The department has also brought indictments against eight current or former managers of Bravo’s restaurants.
The ring tried to keep authorities from detecting the alien workers by maintaining no records and paying no payroll taxes for those individuals.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security eventually raided one of Bravo’s restaurants after a tip was passed along by the Kansas Department of Labor.
The indicted members of the alleged smuggling ring have been charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a statute most often used to combat organized crime organizations.
DOJ said Wednesday that five members of the alleged smuggling ring are still at large.
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