Immigration Probe Targets Ill. Company

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Tim Counts speaks to reporters in Springfield, Ill., Tuesday, April 4, 2007, during a news conference concerning the ICE worksite enforcement operation in Beardstown, Ill., Tuesday where Federal immigration agents executed a criminal search warrant, multiple criminal arrest warrants and administrative arrests at a central Illinois business. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman) (Seth Perlman - AP)

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Executives at a cleaning company were arrested Wednesday on federal charges that they hired illegal immigrants and helped them steal the identities of U.S. citizens.

Gerardo Dominguez, the plant manager for Quality Service Integrity Inc. in Beardstown, and Maria del Pilar Marroquin de Ramirez, the company's personnel administrator, were charged with aggravated identity theft, among other offenses.

Authorities charged 25 other QSI employees with identity theft, and as of Wednesday afternoon had arrested 11 of them. The executives and the employees were to appear in federal court Thursday.

Another 49 workers were taken into custody as illegal immigrants.

An investigation found that the identities of U.S. citizens and permanent residents were "illegally obtained and used to employ illegal aliens at QSI," said Lindsay Murphy, assistant special agent-in-charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Authorities say one informant, who wore a recorder, told plant officials his documents were fake. Dominguez and others allegedly told him and other informants to get better documents and provided them with information for false identities.

QSI is a contractor that cleans a Cargill meat-processing plant. About 100 QSI cleaning employees who worked at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant cooperated with immigration officials, spokesman Mark Klein said.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone arrested Wednesday had attorneys.

A message left at QSI's headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn., was not immediately returned.

In Amarillo, Texas, 11 former workers arrested during a raid of the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant pleaded guilty to federal felony charges Wednesday.

Charges against them stem from a December immigration raid at the Swift plant in the Panhandle conducted as part of an investigation into the use of Social Security numbers by illegal immigrants to gain employment.

Raids at Swift & Co. plants in six states led to the arrests of more than 1,200 immigrant workers. No charges were filed against Swift.