A trailer-manufacturing company in Texas has been raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the second time in four years after hiring unauthorized workers again. ICE raided Load Trail on Tuesday and arrested 160 employees who were unlawfully working in the United States. The company apparently didn’t learn its lesson as it was previously fined $445,000 in 2014 for hiring 179 illegal aliens.
According to ICE’s report, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) received a tip that the company “may have knowingly hired illegal aliens, and that many of the aliens employed at Load Trail were using fraudulent identification documents.” More than 300 federal agents were involved with the operation.
One employee claimed that agents “raided from every entrance” and that some employees attempted to escape only to be caught, according to The Dallas Morning News. Load Trail states that it has more than 500 employees, which means those arrested made up almost a third of the workforce.
The company could face exponentially higher fines this time. The standard fine for hiring illegal aliens who constitute 30 to 39 percent of a company on a first offense is $2,411 per conviction, which is approximately what the company paid the first time. The standard fine for a second time violator in the same bracket is $8,174 per conviction. Load Trail’s total fines could reach well over a million dollars.
Instead of hiring U.S. citizens, Load Trail has twice decided to employ unauthorized workers and will likely suffer the consequences yet again. Now the company is losing a large portion of its workforce and probably a substantial sum of money. This situation could have been avoided if Load Trail had put American workers before its own greed.
Katrina Berger, who is the agent in charge of the Dallas HSI office, warned other employers potentially hiring illegal aliens that they could face the same fate as Load Trail.
“We’re watching. And we’re coming.”
10 Comments
Great to see this happening to these crooks!
Illegal immigration to the US would quickly stop if E-Verify was made mandatory and the fines greatly increased for companies that don’t use it and are caught hiring illegals. Cut off the reason for illegals to come here and they will stop coming. Demand this from your elected officials! Why don’t they do this? Big business does not want it as it’s cheaper to higher illegals as well as pay any fines.
Don’t ever buy Load Trail.
Why can’t they use American workers?
Cheaper wages means more for their bottom line – in other words – greed.
Need to check Amarillo Tx , home builders & road repairs are all illegal???
#BOYCOTTLOADTRAIL
I tried to get estimates for having my yard fenced. I live in Virginia, Fairfax county. I insisted that they only use and verify that all workers are legally allowed to work in this country. I asked if either used E-verify. The last man claimed he never heard of E-verify. Seriously. So they he story above. Someone in public office is ignoring the hiring practices in this community.
Money greases the wheels of the politicans,the political machinery and favors are granted
Boy this company must like shelling out money for using illegal aliens for work after being fined $450,000.00 in 2014 for the same offence. This company should be fined so much money that they go out of business. You know what they say some people learn and some people never learn looks like this company falls into the never learn category.
The three strikes should apply. One more violation and Load Trail should be forced to cease operating.