Suspects charged in immigration case

Two Kalispell businessmen are accused of harboring, employing illegal aliens

Two Kalispell men were charged in federal court Wednesday in Missoula with harboring and employing illegal aliens.

Benigno "Benny" Figueroa and Eloy Figueroa made their initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Jeremiah C. Lynch.

On Monday, the men had been booked into the Flathead County jail.

According to a complaint filed by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, this is a repeat offense for the Figueroas.

On Sept. 27, 2005, the complaint said, bureau agents apprehended seven men working for Figueroa Framers at the Monterra Condominiums construction site. The development is on Montana 40, just southeast of Whitefish.

All seven were Mexican citizens illegally in the United States, Special Agent Frank Noble said in the complaint, and were deported. Two of them were convicted on federal felony charges for re-entry after deportation.

The Figueroas were told at the time that they had broken the law and were offered help to check credentials for future workers, according to the complaint.

In a separate incident in March 2006, Whitefish police, the Northwest Drug Task Force, and Immigration and Customs arrested a dozen illegal aliens working at the Monterra construction site. Those workers reportedly were employed by Washington-based Storm Construction, which is building the Monterra subdivision.

The Figueroas were not implicated in those arrests.

On Feb. 14, Flathead sheriff's Sgt. Lance Norman contacted Noble after getting a report about stolen merchandise at a home on Lore Lake Road near Kalispell. The homeowner, who rents his basement apartment, said the merchandise was stolen from his upstairs residence. The complaint further said that the two women and some children in the basement apartment spoke Spanish, and Norman needed help communicating with them.

The homeowner told officers that he rents the apartment to framing-company owner Eloy Figueroa, so he can house employees. The women said their husbands worked for Eloy Figueroa, according to the complaint.

The next morning, Noble said that he and two other special agents went to the construction site for Somers Bay Villas on U.S. 93 in Somers, where Figueroa Framers has a framing contract with Denman Construction.

They found three men at the job site who Noble said did not respond to questions asked in English. They spoke with Noble in Spanish and confirmed they were Mexican citizens without valid documents to be in the U.S. Two were husbands of the women from the day before, the complaint said.

Eloy Figueroa arrived at the site and said he had hired the men in California to help him meet a framing-contract deadline. He said an immigration lawyer was trying to obtain work permits for the three, then added, "What can I say, I got caught," according to the complaint.

Agents took the three Mexicans to the Immigration and Customs office in Kalispell where, according to the complaint, they confirmed their illegal immigrant status.

On Feb. 16, the workers told Noble and a Border Patrol officer that Benny and Eloy Figueroa knew the men were in the United States illegally but had assured them their lack of work permits would not be a problem. The Figueroas also had said they would try to get work permits for them, the men said.

One of the men said he had worked for Figueroa Framers in December 2005.

All three said Eloy Figueroa drove them to work each day, according to the complaint. One of them lived with Eloy Figueroa and the other two lived in a downstairs apartment near Kalispell.

Both the Figueroas are released on special conditions, pending further court scheduling.

If convicted of these charges, they each face possible penalties of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years supervised release.