http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10242295Published Saturday | January 26, 2008
BY CINDY GONZALEZ AND CHRISTOPHER BURBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS
Federal agents Friday arrested eight allegedly undocumented workers at Omaha Steel Castings Co., said a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The workers, all men from Mexico, will be offered a hearing before an immigration judge, said Tim Counts, the agency spokesman.
Counts said no action was taken against the company or its management. The investigation, he said, is ongoing.
Phil Teggart, general manager of Omaha Steel Castings at 4601 Farnam St., declined to comment Friday.
Counts said the workers were in violation of administrative immigration offenses. He said they had not been named in past criminal citations or court deportation orders.
Omaha Steel Castings was a subject in a story in Thursday editions of The World-Herald. An immigrant worker, Jose Aguilar, had been arrested in November at the plant. He had an outstanding order of deportation, and he said he had been offered more time in the United States in exchange for his help building a case against the employer.
An immigration agency official earlier said the agency would not comment on investigative activity.
Teggart said then that he knew of no broader investigation of his company, which has been in business for 102 years. He said more than 30 percent of the company's employees were Hispanic and that Omaha Steel has had a fine working relationship with immigration officials.
Counts said the workplace raid Friday "had nothing to do with retaliation."
"We conduct investigations based on leads and intelligence," he said.