Delaware Attorney Lawyer

The Delaware State Police Trooper includes the name of the game. “Is that you?” He asks and compares the image of the identity card of the poultry plant with the person in front of him. Also at the first answer is a company “Yes.”

Cpl. Edwin Justiniano ask judge, who knows that a perfect match between the person and the image is often more an imperfect science. “Is that you?” The soldier of the cavalry, Puerto Rican, in the form of Brooklyn, NY, presses in Spanish. “Yes” is the answer. But this time, delivery is less certain. Questions in crawled The declaration is a key modification: “Yes, it is because it is, I am when I work.”

One person, two or more names. The identity crisis is a direct consequence of two forces at play here: the Latin immigrants desperately labour and a poultry industry desperate for workers. Both have a culture of identification of fraud and multiple identities in the Delmarva Peninsula. A name the passport is valid for a job that pays minimum wage, the objective of the new immigrants, lack of proper documentation and arrived by the thousands in the last ten years working in chickens and plants of Delaware is the Maryland and Virginia.

Dual identities have created confusion in this small but growing community, where Guatemalans now more than a third of the population of the 4140th in the city and elsewhere in the county of Sussex, false names have been communicated respect and the police in the state, police barracks, the county jail, a court Docket infectious disease in magazines and even in stations childbirth. Some pregnant workers using false names have passed a fraud on the identity of their newborns are not considered as risk exposure, indicating their name in a real hospital.

Although many immigrants in the Community or which provide for payment obligations identity valid for a danger as appropriate, the practice has a profound impact on their tax returns, medical care, pensions, including criminal cases . A social worker said the criminal charges against an abusive husband were dismissed after the defense to argue effectively, the woman could not believe, because she had lied about his name. And inside plants, the practice of borrowing identities means that the poultry industry knowledge May arrivals adolescent himself, you spend as adults - as two cases examined by government troopers.

Interviews with workers’ representatives and local public and suggest federal officials, but cases of fraud can be significant, given the large and liquid manpower on the transformation of 12 plants on the Peninsula and employ more than 10000 workers - one third of them Hispanic.

“It is a U-Bahn, and there is a market for the construction of identities,” said George Town’s police chief, William S. dir party. “I can not give you a percentage, as for many people in Georgetown in the basket, but they are out there.”

Officials of immigration in Delaware, the investigation to determine such as identity fraud, but the evidence at this stage is quite worrying. “It may very well be something serious progress”, said Bill Horn, special conditions of supervision of officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Bureau of Dover.

The adoption by the INS is that the practice of the country. An indicator, officials said, is the case, occasionally a worker in Delaware, cited by the Internal Revenue Service for not reporting income in a country, workers have never visited, let alone worked in

Several identities are secret to George Town. It is sometimes asset and a lucrative market for paper, a good name is not less than $ 500 People rent their identity, as well as other jobs in competing countries poultry plants. Take the identity of parents from each other.

By yourself as someone else, often a series of manoeuvres that have all their culmination when buying identification of your image, but the name of someone else. There are times, but if workers simply use the documents of someone else, because it is assumed that the human resources manager can not tell the difference between Hispanics. “When he sees a bit like him, it,” said Raymond tames, Guatemalan immigrants, worked at several plants of poultry since 1994 and is now under Perdue. “They need workers.”

The poultry industry, said he abides diligently with all regulations and public authorities to actively combat the recruitment of undocumented workers. Plants have a permanent contract with the INS, so that officers without notice access to facilities and free movement of people peruse discs.

At the same time, the industry pointed out that there are political differences between the two federal agencies: the Office of Migration and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, examines allegations of success that Hispanics are sometimes invited More than the necessary documentation for employment.

Plant Manager said government rules make it impossible to prevent undocumented workers with valid documents apparently finally on the payroll. But if that happens, industry, said it is the exception rather than the rule.

On the road, where identification is valid constant employment, as well as a valuable commodity, the perception is different. “Everybody knows it happened,” said Luis Rodriguez, a Mexican family, which operates the most successful in Latin affairs of the city, Joe’s Market. “Knowledge of chicken plants. You need workers. If it is not to rent these people are offering, it will do? Americans? They think the Americans should go there ?…. I don ‘ t think so. ”

Not even the leak important these last ten years was enough to easily a chronic lack of manpower. “I bet you can each plant on the shore, give 100 employees, and it could assimilate,” said Charles C. “Chick” Allen III, president of Allen Family Foods Inc., the Delmarva has three slaughterhouses. ” there are products that can not be, because manpower is not there. ”

The lack of legal workers and a high level of turnover of the industry - Allen has a core of workers, but a fifth of its workers are constantly River - are at the root of the problem of fraud ‘ identity. The impact of this lack of manual labor are Delmarva felt well beyond, and not only by the poultry industry but also many other sectors desperately reliable workers.

It is a dilemma of staff working intermediary Richard Gaona knows well. Try how he could Gaona underway between men and women to hold jobs. He agreed to extend its appeal to a labor from Mexico, where his messages are broadcast by radio in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The green table inside of Gaona’s office in McAllen, Tex., displays his distress. The fish farm in Alabama wants to send 20 workers. The Turkey processor in South Dakota, 10 Delmarva chicken? Fifty permanent openings, all farms area mounting.

The responsibility for the recruitment of workers, the employer east of law, but Gaona is the first and most important. He saw the Mexican try so Nicaraguans themselves for the benefits of the legislation on asylum. He saw false documents, as for herself seems better than the real thing.

Her life revolves around the sending of workers to the proper documentation. If a worker factory rejects documents, as soon as it happens, loses Gaona Finder’s Fee and money he spent sending workers north.

From 10 workers signed Aire mounting for this summer, three unsuccessful attempts at drug administered Gaona and three were suspected of documents. Four have traveled northward, all Mexicans and all fit, working in poultry for only a few months.