McDonald's Franchises Fined $1 Million for Giving Fake Social Security Numbers to Immigrants
In its battle against the untold millions of "illegal immigrants" living and working in the United States, the US Department of Homeland Security, under the Bush Administration, has advanced its purpose clearly: to find, arrest and deport all undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
To this end, federal immigration officials have initiated a two-pronged strategy: working closely with local law enforcement officers to carry out the identification, arrest, detention and deportation proceedings; and placing financial penalties and other sanctions on businesses to discourage hiring of undocumented workers.
But the reality is, immigrants are so important to the American economy that businesses will do just about anything they can to skirt these immigration enforcement strategies.
The Associated Press reports that 11 McDonald's restaurants in the United States have been caught attempting to make illegal immigrants "legal"; that is, they attempted to hide their undocumented status by giving the workers false social security numbers.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids on the 11 McDonald's restaurants in the Reno, Nevada area last September, which resulted in the arrest of 58 undocumented immigrants. The raids brought the discrepancies in the social security numbers to their attention.
In federal court in Nevada, the franchise owner of the 11 restaurants, Mack Associates, pleaded guilty to felony immigration charges for its awareness that executives were committing the illegal actions. Mack Associates pleaded guilty to one count of encouraging an illegal immigrant to live in the United States, as well as one count of helping an illegal immigrant remain in the country.
The penalty imposed by the Department of Justice was a $1 million fine, in addition to a probation period until the fine is paid.
One current and one former executive for the company were also implicated for their role in the matter, and both face up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for their involvement.
Of the 58 immigrants arrested during the raids, 30 have been deported, while the remaining workers remained in the U.S. awaiting the outcome of the trial.
