State and federal authorities are interested in some Creston workers who are apparently illegal aliens. Creston Police Chief Bill Heatherington says this began with a simple intoxication arrest when cops checked their suspect’s I.D.They discovered he didn’t have proper identification or any immigrant papers or “green card” permitting him to work, and the investigation expanded to three men who shared an apartment with him, all of them recently arrived in Iowa from Mexico. Heatherington says the men all worked at a local restaurant. The federal labor department’s already had an investigator come and interview the men, the Immigration service has talked with them via phone and will have an agent in town this week, and the state labor department’s wage-and-hour division has also expressed interest in the case. Now, unless some other local crime is reported, the chief says the case is out of police hands. Investigation will focus on the restaurant that hired the immigrant workers. The I-N-S, Social Security and both federal and state labor departments will look into what violations were committed, what sanctions may be imposed on the restaurant, and figure out how the workers got into the country. The restaurant just opened a couple of months ago and the federal investigators are looking into reports that the immigrant workers were paid very low wages.
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