Guess what. Restaurants hire illegal immigrants. Why prosecute one man out of thousands?
That was the reaction of New Haven attorney Diane Polan Tuesday when asked about the guilty plea entered earlier in the day in federal court by her client, Andrew Adames of Oxford.
Adames, 43, owns the restaurant chain Senor Pancho’s, with locations in Litchfield, Monroe, Prospect and Southbury.
Adames pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of unlawful employment of aliens, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Nora R. Dannehy’s office.
He now faces a maximum of five years in prison. Adames has also agreed to pay the government $150,000.
The government said Adames employed at least 10 illegal immigrants in his restaurants between January 2008 and January 2009.
Adames doesn’t deny the charges — but, given the broken immigration system in the U.S. and the lack of action by the feds to fix it — Polan questioned why a case was brought against the Oxford businessman in the first place.
“The U.S. government is trying to fix our broken immigration system on the backs of restaurant owners like Andy Adames,” Polan said. “It is a tragedy.”
Adames, a Mexican-American who is a U.S. citizen, has a wife and children and has been in the restaurant business for some 20 years, Polan said.
“He, like virtually every other restaurant owner in this state — Mexican restaurant or not — is employing undocumented people. The government has decided to make an example of him,” she said.
Polan said Adames hired the illegal immigrants because they were hard workers and dedicated employees.
“He was not taking advantage of them,” she said.
The government apparently learned about Adames’ hiring practices when agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) came into contact with some tenants to whom Adames rents apartments. The nature of the contact was not clear to Polan, but she said the tenants also worked at Senor Panchos and at least one was an illegal immigrant.
That kick-started the federal investigation.
Polan said the case underscores the need for comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S.
“This (conviction) is not going to fix our system. It’s just going to brand people like my client as federal felons. It’s not going to solve the problem.”
Adames still owns the restaurant chain. Polan said she is confident a judge will impose a lenient sentence, given his standing in the community.
Judge Peter C. Dorsey is scheduled to sentence Adames Sept. 18 in federal court in New Haven.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas P. Morabito prosecuted the case, which was investigated by ICE and the U.S. Department of Labor.
