WM subsidiary fined for undocumented worker violations

The Waste Management of Texas subsidiary of Houston-based Waste Management Inc. (WM) has agreed to forfeit more than $5.5 million and perform follow-up measures because of what the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency calls a documented pattern and practice of hiring illegal aliens at the company’s Afton, Texas, location.

The five-year investigation that led to the forfeiture was conducted by the ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office in Houston.

In late August, to avoid prosecution, WM of Texas entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the federal government that required the company to forfeit more than $5.5 million and to perform what ICE calls “remedial measures.”

“The non-prosecution agreement requires WM to continue its substantial remedial measures to address all past immigration violations and forfeit more than $5.5 million in proceeds gained from hiring an illegal workforce at the Afton location,” says U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick of the U.S. Southern District of Texas. “In considering whether to enter into such agreements, we must take into account the collateral consequences that a criminal prosecution would have on the company’s contracts with many municipalities across the country and the thousands of employees for the conduct of three managers at one operating unit in Houston.”

WM is one of North America’s largest providers of waste disposal and collection, serving nearly 20 million municipal, commercial, industrial and residential customers. Waste Management of Texas employed at least three managers at its Afton location who “actively encouraged and induced aliens to work illegally between 2003 and April 2012,” according to ICE.

In April 2012, HSI Houston executed search warrants at the Afton, Texas, location where authorities discovered 16 illegal aliens and at least 100 employees in company records who were verified as fraudulently documented or using an identity that did not belong to them.

Waste Management of Texas hired various staffing agencies to provide contract laborers during that period.

“Federal law requires employers hire only U.S. citizens and aliens who are authorized to work in the country,” says HSI Houston Special Agent in Charge Mark Dawson. “This company hired manual laborers with little or no regard for their legal status for almost 10 years at [its] Afton location.”

Undocumented workers in Afton were told to assume the identity of actual U.S. citizens or individuals with legal status in order to work there, according to the agency. Managers also engaged in an identity-theft scheme providing workers with names and identifiers of actual individuals with status in the United States to allow the undocumented immigrants to be employed and added to the company’s payroll.

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An elevated cab is one of several features improving operational efficiency at the Macon County Solid Waste Management agency in North Carolina. When it comes to waste management, efficiency, safety and reliability are priorities driving decisions from day one, according to staff members of the Macon County Solid Waste Management Department in western North Carolina. The agency operates a recycling plant in a facility originally designed to bale incoming materials. More recently, the building has undergone significant transformations centered around one machine: a SENNEBOGEN telehandler (telescopic handler).

A federal grand jury indicted three managers in May 2014, and all three managers were convicted and received separate sentences of 27, 87 and 94 months in federal prison.

Waste Management of Texas cooperated with the government’s criminal investigation and conducted its own internal investigation, according to ICE. The company determined that the managers in Afton intentionally thwarted pre-existing immigration compliance procedures that have since been enhanced to prevent future hiring of unauthorized workers seeking employment by fraud or identity theft.