Accountability for Hiring Illegal Aliens

On Wednesday morning of last week Arizona families awoke to news that law enforcement agencies had conducted simultaneous raids on Colt Grill in four locations in Northern Arizona and one in Alabama the day before. From AZFamily:

“Details of the investigation remain limited. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, Homeland Security and multiple other federal agencies were at Colt Grill locations in Arizona and Alabama as part of a money laundering and labor exploitation probe.

“Colt Grill has locations in Cottonwood, Prescott Valley, Prescott and Sedona in Arizona. It recently opened a location in Foley, Alabama.

“According to Arizona’s Family sister station WALA, the Foley location was also raided on Tuesday.

“Colt Grill was not immediately available for comment.

“A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security said the investigation is ongoing and did not provide any further details.

A subsequent press release from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided additional details:

“PRESCOTT, Ariz. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and multiple state, local and federal law enforcement agencies executed federal search warrants July 15 at five Colt Grill restaurants and 12 residences in two states after a three-year labor exploitation investigation and a five-count federal indictment against four individuals in Arizona. Significant assistance was provided by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office with execution of the search warrants.

“A grand jury in Phoenix returned an indictment May 27, against Robert and Brenda Clouston, both 61, of northern Arizona, and Luis Pedro Rogel-Jaimes, 33, and Iris Romero-Molina, 29, both illegal aliens from Mexican residing in Cottonwood, Arizona, for conspiracy to transport illegal aliens, conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien to unlawfully enter the United States, and pattern and practice of knowingly employing unauthorized aliens.

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“The indictment alleges that Robert and Brenda Clouston operated four Colt Grill restaurants in the northern Arizona cities of Cottonwood, Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Sedona, and one Colt Grill in Foley, Alabama. In September 2022, the Cloustons, along with Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina, made a plan that Romero-Molina would create a cleaning company, R&R AZ Cleaning, that would operate as a staffing company for the Colt Grill restaurants. Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina would then find undocumented workers to work at the restaurants, paying them through R&R AZ Cleaning with funds from Colt Grill. The undocumented workers were paid below minimum wage and were not compensated for overtime. The Cloustons, Rogel-Jaimes, and Romero-Molina benefited financially from the plan and did not pay proper employment taxes for the workers.”

I write this column with some mixed feelings. This is the first summer that we will spend in Prescott Valley to escape the blistering heat of our home in PebbleCreek (Goodyear, AZ). More so we began the transition the last week in May of this year – the same week that the indictments referenced above were handed down but apparently remained sealed. And even more so that is the same week that we dined at Colt Grill on historical Whiskey Row in downtown Prescott for the first time. Colt Grill quickly became one of our favorite spots because of good service and great barbecue. So we were one of those Prescott Valley families that was surprised by the headline and the follow up stories.

The reason for the mixed emotions was not that this involved illegal aliens, or this is another instance where the “little guy” was put upon by big government while its larger competitors escaped scrutiny for the very same sins; but rather because this was an instance in which the employer of illegal aliens allegedly got torched right along with the illegals in what appears to be a deliberate evasion of the law rather rather than negligent ignorance of the status of employees.

In the meantime, all four restaurants in Arizona remained closed and, according to the news media, some 200 people have lost their jobs. The future of Colt Grill remains unsettled but restaurants cannot last long with the doors locked.

The federal government under then President Bill Clinton initiated the E-Verify system in 1996 in light of the growing number of illegal aliens crossing our Southern border. It was a pretty simple and quick system for employers to use to verity the residency status of employees online. (Employers are just as guilty as employees if they hire illegal aliens.) But as usual the federal government was quick to issue the press releases taking credit and to issue rules signifying effort and, thereafter, to pretty much ignore it – at least ignore it in terms of active enforcement. And when the federal government largely ignored it, so did the business community. The surprising thing about it was that it was an absolute defense for employers if they used the system and got erroneous information from the government.*

It is hard to know when the Democrat Party seized upon the idea of enlarging their voter base with yet another population dependent in whole on the largesse of the government’s purse. Perhaps because, despite efforts to constrain existing groups to minority status and lives on the edge of the poverty line through federal welfare programs, women and minorities were beginning to emerge from that poverty and dependence and were demonstrating their independence from the Democrats – “dependence through poverty and welfare.” Thus they needed a fresh group of adults to restock their ranks. This time it was a pretty easy formula: relax border enforcement, encourage mass illegal immigration, blame it on the current immigration system, get a critical mass – say twenty or thirty million illegals – and declare the problem so complex that only mass amnesty was the solution. Viola an immediate jump of twenty to thirty million new voters who were grateful to the Democrats and dependent on the Democrats’ welfare programs. It was so simple and so audacious that no one would believe that a political party would do such a thing – but they did.

But in doing so they did not want to alienate the mainstreet business community so they gave them an out from hiring illegals – the E-Verify system. And that, in part, is what is at play here based on the allegations of the indictments – although according to the indictments the defendants allegedly went well beyond failing to verify legal residency of employees.

Now here is the point. I don’t know whether Colt Grill, its officers and employees are guilty of the acts charged or not. However, until employers are held to account for knowingly hiring (and often times cheating) illegal aliens, they will continue to provide inducement for continued violation of our border security and our immigration laws. The same, quite frankly, is true for the government employees who continue to provide welfare assistance to illegal aliens contrary to law, and to local governments who continue to assist illegal aliens in avoiding arrest, detention, trail and deportation.

The inconsistencies between what the government adopts as law and the instances when it chooses to ignore those laws is tearing at the very fabric of democracy. Remember democracy is a voluntary effort – a choice to obey without force. Those in government who choose to ignore the law not only hinder its enforcement but sets a tone for its citizens who now feel empowered to similarly ignore it.

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* “Erroneous information from the federal government? When did that ever happen?