Man is fined for hiring illegals
Published: April 24, 2008
A Manassas man pleaded guilty in federal court this week to hiring illegal immigrants who were not authorized to work in the U.S.
Felisberto Magalhaes, 55, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to a misdemeanor charge of a pattern or practice of hiring illegal immigrants.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson sentenced him to one year of unsupervised probation. He also ordered Magalhaes to pay $122,000, the amount prosecutors believe he earned by hiring illegal immigrants.
The maximum punishment for the misdemeanor charge is six months in prison, a fine of $3,000 per illegal immi-grant hired and one year of supervised probation, according to federal law.
Magalhaes was associated with CMC Concrete and Stonewall Concrete, both Manassas-based businesses, according to documents on file in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
On March 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials conducted a raid at CMC Concrete, at 8577 Sudley Road, and took into custody 34 illegal immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador, federal officials said at the time.
Federal officials believe that Magalhaes hired hundreds of illegal immigrants over a two-year period beginning in early 2006.
According to the court documents Magalhaes knew that many of the people he hired, some of whom presented false Social Security cards and green cards, were not legally allowed to work in the United States.
Since 2006, Magalhaes hired 257 illegal immigrants who used false Social Security numbers. More than 100 of the false Social Security numbers were issued to no one and 150 were issued to people other than the employees who used them.
The 34 construction workers detained in the March raid are undergoing deportation proceedings, federal officials said at the time.
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.
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Reader Reactions
OMG they DO OWN both those businesses! How do you like that? How does one immigrant start and successfully run his own business when American small businessmen are struggling and failing? You take advantage of your own people!!! AND you donate to the republican party (over 1500) but you cowardly do it in your wife’s name!
http://www.city-data.com/elec/elec-MANASSAS-VA.html search under Magalhaes, Maria
This country is selling out its own citizens! And our politicians are first in line to collect! WOW - can you say “for the people by the people”?
Well I’m glad to hear this man was fined, but why didnt he get the maximum punishment? This is not a first offense - this is just his “first time caught” and I am sure he and his company have made a lot more than the $100K they are fining him.
By the way does this man Felisberto Magalhaes, own the company? Why isnt the company being fined and why do they still have a business license? Probably because the owners of this company dont have a last name like Magalhaes.
Now I could be wrong - but my guess is this man Felisberto Magalhaes, is just the middle-man being used by the company’s owners to do their dirty work. It’s the people who own this company who should be jailed and fined as well as this one person.
and we need many more of these kinds of crackdowns to even begin to scratch the surface.
The really sad part is that wealthy American’s created the disasterous situations in these immigrants home countries that cause them to leave in the first place. That’s right all you Reagan lovers - let’s put the blame where it belongs - NAFTA and it’s supporters are to blame for the starvation and abject poverty in South American countries that is causing this mass exodus. Seated next to them in the guilt row are Big Businesses and their henchmen (aka lobby attorneys) who whine about the price of American labor and the need for more H1B visas while simultaneously shipping hundreds of thousands of American jobs overseas.
Oh yeah - let’s not forget THE BIG ONE -the one who shamelessly steals from America to make itself and it’s shareholders rich beyond all resonable business practives - the devil also known as Wal-Mart and every person who spends even one penny in that devils den.
What wayhigh (literally?) fails to understand is that illegal aliens are desireable to crooked businesses due to their illegalness. They are hired simply to circumvent labor and tax laws and pocket the profit. Make these businesses pay taxes on them and -poof- they’re suddenly out of a job and the crooked business is looking for more illegals aliens to hire and exploit. You’ve just compounded the problem.
OK for the last time. To the person who said they are going to bolster our social security. THEY ARE NOT PAYING INTO THE SYSTEM. How ignorant can you be? They get their pay under the table. I explained in my first posting how they work the system. You have one legal foreman who is overpaid. He cashes his check then he pays the illegals. Now how are they helping our system. Oh did you see the article in the news how much the school district in Prince William is going to save this year after loosing the english as a secon language students? $6,000,000 
To wayhigh…“Instead of ensuring that we deport illegals, how about coming up with an actual solution that benefits our country?“
Here’s an actual solution that benefits our country. It’s called enforcing the laws regarding illegal immigration. Oh wait, we’re starting to do that!
Enforcing our laws protects the American Dream. It protects your’s, too. It protects everyone who has come here legally to be an American.
By the way, I have excellent reading comprehension. That is why I understand the whole point of your rant was your last sentence. If you are frustrated now, wait until you are paying with your tax dollars for health, social, and other services for illegal immigrants.
I am proud Prince William County has sent this important message to the rest of the nation. Action will work. The fact is we can’t send all the undocumented/illegals back to their home counties- yet! The next reasonable step would be for our national goverment to enact legistration to require all of these people to come and “check in”-so we know who they are and where they are. Attempt to see how big the problem is. Allow them 12 months to do this or face immediate deportation. All those undocumented workers that do step forward should be allowed some reward-maybe considered temporay workers for awhile. Only those that step forward and agree to go back to their country and legally return to the US should be allowed to apply for citizenship. I don’t feel citizenship is what these people want anyway. Its jobs and money to send back home to their families. The problem is growing everyday, as more and more of their off spring are born here. That issue needs to be resolved too, US citizenship is much to valuble to give away feely to law-breakers.
Wayhigh the legal immigration rate was raised in the 90’s and early 2000’s. It has brought nothing but more trouble. We need to cut the legal immigration rate to better assimiliate what we have. We should encourage illegal immigrants to stand up for their rights in their home countries, and send them home. The US should not have to foot the bill for the world’s criminals and poor. Sounds heartless doesn’t it??? Why should i have to fork out $9000 a year to pay for an illegal when i am barely getting by under the poverty line. Chris Cummings
From NYTimes.com, “In the fine print of the 2008 annual report on Social Security, released last week, the program’s trustees noted that growing numbers of “other than legal” workers are expected to bolster the program over the coming decades.“
You ignorant trolls need to quit your whining and stop embarassing our country. These people are HELPING our country. Even your own government has realized that they’re helping. They pay into a system they can’t ever obtain the benefits from and I bet THEY aren’t complaining about taxes.
Your plan sounds great. Only one question dont we have that plan for legal citizens?? Oh yea we do. For those people who choose to enter this country legally they are given the same rights that I have and are given programs to help them when they get here. So, your plan is great and in fact we have it. See the problem is that they dont want to do the legal thing they want a free ride and make the american people pay for it. I am tired of hearing that we stole thier land and took from them. I personal did nothing I dont feel that it was right but what can I do about it now. We did it it’s done and now We have an established country and we have laws and we welcome the imigrants as long as they come legally.I mean what if I wanted to become a citizen of another country would I or would I not have a process to go through? Why is this a difficult concept? What argument is here? I’m very confused as to what the argument for the illegals is? They deserve to be here without following the process? I’m sorry but they dont. If I break the law than I should be punished but if they do it’s okay?? What sense does that make please someone anyone explain to me why I should fight for ILLEGAL people being in this country?? In the mean time I believe I will just support the consitution and our laws!
Wow. Welcome to parochial land and shut your mouth until you sound just like the rest of us… bah!
I’m all for arresting a person or persons violating laws. Unfortunately, this is one case in which I think the laws are written and applied poorly.
Instead of ensuring that we deport illegals, how about coming up with an actual solution that benefits our country?
If it were me, I’d consider doing the following:
1. Create a larger legal immigrant worker program.
2. Make the program well regulated and require workers to only work for companies registered in the program.
3. Enforce taxation on the workers in the program.
4. Deny social security or other long-term benefits to immigrant workers that are part of the program.
5. Allow a percentage of taxes paid into the program to count retroactively towards their retirement when citizenship is established.
6. Only when an actual program exists for these people that gives them a way to work legitimately and they’re found to still be in violation should we spend time and money on deportation.
For those of you with poor reading comprehension, what I’m proposing here is a method for those immigrant workers to give something back by bankrolling the ailing social security system even more than they are now.
Thanks for reading. You may now get back to killing the American dream with your xenophobic tendencies.
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