22 illegals detained after bus stopped. Zappala Farms, AGAIN.
I shouldn't single out this farm BUT they have a history with illegals. Not like other farms don't but it makes me wonder about people like this.
Dear Zappala Farms, do you give a damn about this nation or our laws? Just curious.
Twenty-two people from Mexico and Guatemala were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents after the farm bus on which they were riding was stopped at a DWI checkpoint in Oswego County Friday night.
State police reported the bus, owned by Zappala Farms in Fulton, was stopped about 9:25 p.m. at the checkpoint on Route 3 in the town of Granby. Agents from the U.S. Border Patrol determined during questioning that there were 22 illegal aliens on the bus.
They were all taken into custody without incident and transported to the U.S. Border Patrol station in Oswego for processing.
It's the second incident this year involving farmworkers associated with Zappala Farms being taken into custody by federal officials. On May 23, immigration officials searching for a fugitive stopped a van in Granby and arrested 16 farmworkers they said were in the country illegally. When officials took those workers to the Zappala farm to collect their belongings, agents found six more illegal aliens.
The farm's owners claimed they had followed all of the Department of Labor's requirements in hiring those workers. Translation: We know, or had reason to believe, they were probably illegals but we don't care. We just want CHEAP labor. And as long as they've got whatever minimum amount of paperwork we're not going to do a damned thing more to verify if they're legal or not.
And I found this about Zappala
SYRACUSE, NY -- Zappala Farms, an onion farm located in Cato, N.Y., has agreed to pay civil money penalties totaling $17,320 to the U.S. Department of Labor to resolve a case that began with a van accident in Upstate New York on July 5, 1995 that claimed the lives of three migrant farm workers and seriously injured another fourteen.
NOTHING said about whether or not any of the "migrants" were, also, illegals.
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For all you people out there that are slamming the Zappala's for getting hit again. It isn't a case of whether or not they care about the laws and regulations. The whole outlook on the situation is the facts and the regulations that our government has set on what you can and what you cannot do when it comes to labor discrimination. No, they probably aren't going about the situation as they should but, at least they aren't like other farmers or any corporation who intentionally know these immigrants are illegal and pay them under the table so that they aren't claiming them on their taxes at all. Right now the government is out to get them and they are. If they made it easier to get through the system they wouldn't have to hire illegal immigrants. The government programs that they do provide cannot supply farmers with enough helpers because there is such a demand for them. It isn't even for the sake that you don't have to pay them alot. You have to pay them at least minimum wage and to be truthfully honest with you working for farmers making peicework rates they make more than a person getting paid minimum wage because they actually work, unlike 70% of the United States population of Americans. I would like to see Americans out there doing the work that they do. My suggestion on helping society out is instaed of sending all the illegal immigrants back we can send all the dead beats that we have in the US to mexico or wherever they are from and keep the good workers that actaully put out the production.There are also many other people out there that are just plain jealous of the fact they have what they have.
Comment by Oswego, Ny— 2007/10/16 @ 11:49 PM — (Reply)