hotel workers deported

Criminal Investigation Continues

By Olivia Doerge
Adelante staff writer

After nearly five months in jail, all but two of the immigrants arrested in a federal raid in the Lake of the Ozarks have been deported, according to several of the deportees, reached by telephone at their homes in rural Oaxaca.
Twenty-eight immigrants were being held in connection with a federal investigation into Missouri’s housekeeping industry. One of the employers, National Sales and Service LLC, is a labor contractor who supplied housekeeping workers to Tan-Tar-A Resort in Osage Beach.
Three of the immigrants, speaking from their homes in rural Oaxaca, Mexico, related their experiences in the Missouri penal system. They expressed their relief to be back home with their families but are worried about their financial situations after the recent fiasco.
On Nov. 6, federal agents from the IRS and the INS rounded up 18 immigrants from the Camdenton area. One of them, a minor, was deported immediately after the raid, while the remaining 17 were taken to Montgomery County Jail.
On the day of the roundup, an IRS special agent arrived at National Sales and Service owner Leonard Snider’s house with a search warrant. Snider was suspected of “employment and harboring of illegal aliens, a failure to pay taxes, use of fraudulent Social Security numbers and Resident Alien cards, and money laundering.”
Over the course of the next 21 weeks, the immigrants were questioned regarding their employment for National Sales and Service. They were moved to different jails and joined by 11 more immigrants held in the case who were brought from St. Louis.
In a telephone interview with Adelante, Víctor Reyes Luna, one of the detainees, shared his happiness at finally being back home. But his experience came at a high cost for his family. His daughter had to drop out of high school and take a job to help support the family.
“My family has almost nothing now,” he said.
Currently Reyes is unemployed; he can’t find a job in Mexico. But he has no intention of returning to the United States without a legal work permit. Given his circumstances, a legal work permit would be impossible.
For the first three months he was in jail, Reyes says he had no idea what was going on; no one explained to him the reasons for his lengthy detention. He knew he had been picked up for being in the United States illegally, he said, “but I had no idea what was going to happen to me.”
The only times he had a translator was in court, he said. He described a lengthy depression and severe confusion. He worried about his family, but he had no way to communicate with them.
Like two of his fellow deportees, he is left with a feeling of profound gratitude for having made it through the ordeal.
“Above all, I am thankful to God,” he reiterated.
Reyes was one of 10 workers found with fake IDs and charged with felonies. All but two of the workers were deported. Cleofás Ambrocio Almaráz, who had illegally re-entered the United States a second time, received a jail sentence of six months. Melesio Enríquez Martínez was treated in a Springfield hospital for tuberculosis. He was scheduled to enter a change of plea. His change of plea was not available at press time.
On March 18 and 19, some of the detainees were scheduled to give video depositions related to the investigation. But according to a government motion, the witnesses were released because they declined to participate in the investigation. “The individuals or entities cannot be compelled to participate,” said the government motion dismissing the warrant for their arrest.
U.S. Attorney David Owen, who represented some of the workers, would only say they were no longer his clients and he could not comment on the case.
The investigation is still underway, so court proceedings are sealed to the public, and the attorneys involved with the case are not authorized to comment.
Agustina Ambrocio Almaráz, her sister Eugenia Ambrocio Almaráz and their husbands were also detained, but have now returned to Mexico and have been reunited with their extended family. The women said that during the nearly five months they were held, they weren’t able to see their husbands. Eugenia said that on the morning of the arrests she was taken in handcuffs to the jail.
The women and their husbands are unemployed. They said officials told them if they re-entered the United States illegally they would receive eight to 10 years in prison. They said they are happy to be home with their family, and have no intention of coming back to the states without permission. They expressed concern about the future.
“Yes, we’re back – but there are no jobs,” said Agustina. “We don’t know what we are going to do.”