Migrant employers (in Texas) get prison, ordered to pay fines

[Doondoo]

The owners of a far East El Paso quarry where 25 undocumented immigrants were found working in substandard conditions last April have been sentenced to federal prison, officials in the U.S. attorney's office said.

Romualdo Soto, 53, of Clint, was sentenced Friday to five months in prison followed by five months of home confinement and to pay a $10,000 fine. Soto's brother, Jose Cruz Soto, 41, of far East El Paso, was sentenced Feb. 1 to four months in prison followed by four months of home confinement and a $1,000 fine. Both men pleaded guilty last November to conspiracy to harbor immigrants for financial gain at their business, Soto Rock Hauling, a quarry in the desert near Gas Line Road that produces rocks for rock walls.

The case was the first criminal prosecution of a business for employing undocumented immigrants in the Western District of Texas in seven or eight years, officials said.

The case also had strong elements of human trafficking because the Sotos would contract with immigrant smugglers to bring the immigrants to the quarry, where they would work to pay off the smuggling debts.


http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_5294463

[Missy M]

1. Good, that's where they should be.

[951-Riverside]

2. Its a start. n/t