Federal authorities recently filed criminal charges against the owners of an upscale restaurant in Baltimore for harboring undocumented immigrants.  The Baltimore Sun reports that Kawasaki ’s, a sushi eatery, paid these immigrants less than $2 an hour and housed them in garbage filled rooms above the restaurant, where they were provided with no clean water.  Federal authorities seized over $1 million in assets from the restaurants owners, including luxury automobiles and real estate.  

In the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested 716 employees and employers on criminal charges stemming from immigration, such as knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants and money laundering, an increase from 25 in 2002.  Administrative violations, which generally involve the apprehension of illegal immigrants at work sites, increased to 3,667, up from 485 in 2002, according to ICE figures.  

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According to the Associated Press, Golden State Fence, a San Diego company will pay a $5,000,000 fine for hiring illegal immigrants after two of the company’s execurives pleaded guilty to knowingly hiring the workers. The executives, Mel Kay and Michael McLaughlin, also will pay fines of $200,000 and $100,000, respectively. The two could face at least six months in prison. The company had sales of $150,000,000 in 2004 and includes among its projects, building part of a 14 mile fence along the US-Mexican border in San Diego .  

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According to Wichita Business Journal, a Wichita, KS, company have reached a deal with federal prosecutors over an alleged scheme to employ undocumented immigrants.  In an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), its owner and general manager will pay fines totaling $210,000.  Bob Eisel, owner and president of Bob Eisel Power Coatings Inc. and Kenric Steinert, general manager, were named in a 28-count indictment, and have been charged with routinely employing Mexican nationals, knowing that they provided false identification.