The bust occurred within minutes of the local police serving an arrest warrant for Chance Coran, 25, the job site superintendent. Company officials say Coran was arrested for driving under the influence nearly three years ago. They say the local police had no cause to re-arrest the site superintendent and he was released within minutes of his arrest.
The undocumented workers were removed from the site by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Agents identified 23 of those arrested as Mexican nationals. The other man arrested was from Peru.
"We are usually pretty careful about getting a couple of forms of identification,” said John Claro, general counsel for Naylor Concrete. "But with all the counterfeiting that's going on, you don't really know what's going on.
"There's a real difficulty in our industry, of getting people who are skilled and willing to work,” Claro said.
Naylor is a national contractor that at times employs hundreds of workers, from California to Florida. Some of its jobs involve detailed tile and concrete work. Often, Hispanic construction workers come to the site skilled in this work. Many of the company's employees are Hispanic.
"These are not just people that come in and we pay them minimum wage. All the jobs on the site pay at least $14 per hour, then the company also helps pay for their living expenses while they are on the job. They are not the kind of workers that cause trouble,” Claro said. "You really can't find American workers to do tile work. We just don't have the artisans. But in Mexico, they still do that work. They grew up with it.”
Agents were informed
Mexican Consul Andres Chao Ebergenyi said officials from the Little Rock consulate began speaking to those arrested immediately after the raid.
"Their human rights were respected,” Chao said. "They just want to wait (as) the immigration process continues to deportation.”
In a statement, Temple Black, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New Orleans, said ICE got a tip that illegal immigrants worked for Coran. Agents decided to carry out the raid at the same time local officers went out to arrest him.
ICE recently has cracked down on illegal immigrants with access to areas such as airports, military installations and nuclear power plants.
Temple Black, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at New Orleans, said ICE agents would investigate whether Naylor broke any laws in hiring the illegal immigrants.
The Naylor Concrete raid comes just two weeks after an immigration raid on a north Arkansas Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant. Agents arrested 21 suspected illegal immigrants in that raid.
"We haven't heard anything from anyone yet,” said John Claro, Naylor's attorney. He added the company had not been notified about any fines or additional criminal investigation.
"Employers are caught in a Catch-22 type of situation. You can't do too much investigating based on them being Hispanic, if their papers look all right, because that's discrimination,” Claro said.
