Chicago Area Company Charged With Hiring, Harboring, Illegal Aliens

Bill Pan
By Bill Pan
October 23, 2019US News
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Chicago Area Company Charged With Hiring, Harboring, Illegal Aliens
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), officers process detained illegal immigrants at the U.S. Federal Building in lower Manhattan, New York City, on April 11, 2018 . (John Moore/Getty Images)

Four former and current operators of a sheet metal manufacturing company, based in a Chicago suburb, have been charged for knowingly harboring and hiring illegal aliens, authorities said.

A criminal complaint has been filed against Dora Kuzelka, 81; Kenneth Kuzelka, 62; Kari Kuzelka, 56; and Keith Kuzelka, 58, according to a press release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois. Each of the four face one count of knowingly harboring an illegal alien and one count of knowingly engaging in a pattern or practice of hiring illegal aliens.

The Kuzelkas, with the exception of Keith, who left the company last year, all hold executive management positions at KSO MetalFab Inc., a sheet metal fabrication company based in Streamwood, Illinois. According to the indictment, the company was ordered by Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago to fire 36 out of its 67 workers in 2017, after the federal agents found during an audit that these workers were using forged work authorization documents.

At least 18 of those terminated workers, however, were hired by MetalFab again, according to the complaint. The Kuzelkas allegedly instructed them to go to a staffing agency so that they could return to the company. Many of the re-hired workers even used the same names they previously used before the 2017 audit.

Dora, Kenneth, and Kari were arrested by the police on Oct. 18. Keith surrendered himself to the authorities later. All four defendants were released on bond, prosecutors said, according to the press release. They are scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 29.

The U.S. attorney’s office did not specify what, if anything, happened to the illegal workers.

Under federal law, knowingly harboring an illegal alien carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, while knowingly engaging in a pattern or practice of hiring illegal aliens is punishable by up to six months in prison.

In 2017, an immigration raid reportedly cost a Chicago bakery 35 percent of its workforce. Cloverhill Bakery, a Swiss company that supplies hamburger buns for McDonald’s, lost 800 of its workers who failed to show proof of their legal presence in the country to federal immigration agents.

The bakery, located in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood, is owned by Zurich-based Aryzta AG, an international food business that makes baked products for fast-food and supermarket chains. The company said its employees were supplied by a job placement agency that was going through federal audits earlier that year.

“It’s proceeding very, very slowly because it’s like having a brand new factory and a brand new workforce,” said Kevin Toland, chief executive officer of Aryzta. “That’s presenting a lot of challenges, as you can imagine.”

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