Following a federal investigation that included an armed raid and an undercover agent at the powder coating and sandblasting company earlier this year, a former manager of an El Cajon company entered a guilty plea on Wednesday for hiring unauthorized workers.
According to court documents, John Washburn, the former general manager of San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings, entered a plea deal that would spare him from jail time in exchange for a year of unsupervised release.
Washburn entered a guilty plea on Wednesday to one misdemeanor count of employing undocumented immigrants after initially facing a criminal allegation.
The El Cajon company was invaded by armed federal officials in March, which led to the sentencing.
According to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office, Washburn acknowledged as part of the agreement that he had spoken with other managers about workers who had poor documentation, which means they lacked legitimate documents confirming they were permitted to work in the United States.
An illegal employee who assisted federal investigators in recording audio and video within the business and an undercover agent who pretended to be an undocumented employee were both part of the investigation, according to the original complaint against Washburn.
Company
Home Depot, a hardware store chain, has been the target of multiple immigration raids around the Los Angeles area. In the most recent crackdown, police are focusing on day laborers.
The complaint claims that the immigrant employee who was assisting federal authorities had been working for the company under a false identity and was only two or three weeks away from gaining lawful immigration status.
According to one audio that the worker was able to obtain, Washburn acknowledged that he knew that a number of individuals lacked the necessary paperwork to operate in the United States.
According to the complaint, Washburn allegedly said, “As long as you can show me something, I don’t care,” when a worker inquired about bringing in a buddy who was looking for job.
According to court records, San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings frequently served as a subcontractor for military organizations, including during the March raid.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the company’s lawyer.
Three employees who were allegedly undocumented were also residing in the company premises, where a conference room had been transformed into living space complete with cots, a television, a small refrigerator, a microwave, and a clothing rack, according to the lawsuit.
Federal agents interviewed employees who claimed they were not being charged rent and had been permitted to remain in the conference room.
A few weeks before to a noticeable expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activities throughout Southern California, the March operation in El Cajon took place. It appears that employers like Washburn have not been the target of the ICE raids and detentions that have occurred in recent weeks, which appear to have been centered on the incarceration and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
There have been reports of masked ICE officers conducting raids at Home Depot parking lots, car washes, schools, busy immigrant neighborhoods, and most recently, the area around Dodger Stadium. Southern California saw days of protests and arrests as a result of the raids.
Company
In Los Angeles, rank-and-file workers have been impacted by immigration sweeps, not the company owners who employed them. Experts discuss who ICE targets and why in this article.
Since the operations started in June, immigration officers have detained 330 individuals in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt last week.
About 15 of the 50 employees at the company at the time seemed to lack the legal right to work in the United States, according to the lawsuit against Washburn.
Questions concerning the status of the undocumented workers uncovered in the March operation were not immediately answered by ICE officials.
