[Rhodes22-list] Chinese Food (Immigration Law)

[Brad Haslett]

You can bet that the cost of Chinese food in Wally's neighborhood is going
up!  I have mixed emotions about this article but you can bet your arse that
we won't tempt fate.  Brad

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Restaurateur gets jail time Chinese restaurant owner hired Mexican illegal
immigrants

By Jamie Satterfield
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
<http://license.icopyright.net/3.5413?icx_id=37263>

A federal judge on Monday rejected the "everybody else is doing it" defense
argued by an attorney on behalf of a restaurateur who staffed his business
with illegal immigrants.

"This is happening every day in Mexican restaurants," attorney Charles
Torres argued on behalf of Pun Wun Chan. "As an immigration practitioner, I
see these types of situations every day. It's hard for me to take it as a
serious crime because it's a constant ongoing (thing)."

U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan sided with Assistant U.S. Attorney Will
Mackie, who told the judge, "I don't think there's any justification because
others may do this."

Varlan sentenced Chan, 51, to a year in prison for conspiring to harbor,
house and employ as many as two dozen Hispanic illegal immigrants at his
Number One China Buffet restaurant on Papermill Drive from December 2003 to
January 2005. That restaurant has since been torn down.

"He appears to have led a law-abiding life up to this point," Varlan said.
"However, it is clear the defendant attempted to sidestep some of the rules
in place in order to increase his personal financial gain."

Chan was born in Malaysia but became a naturalized citizen of the United
States. Torres said Chan had enlisted the services of an employment agency
in Georgia that advertised in a Chinese newspaper circulated in Knoxville.

"All this agency (hires) is aliens," Torres said. "My client was wrong to
use this agency and hire illegals. My client should have known better."

Citing a recent article in a Washington, D.C., newspaper, Torres contended
that even the federal government has hired illegal immigrants.

"This country is somewhat dependent on this type of thing," he said of the
employment of illegal immigrants.

Mackie countered that what Chan did was to take advantage of illegal
immigrants, who would be too afraid of discovery and deportation to report
labor law violations or other mistreatment.

"This is a case of exploiting a downtrodden, oppressed people," he said.

Varlan did spare Chan's wife, Kim Yin Yap, from a prison term after attorney
Bryan Delius argued that she was under the dominion of her husband.

"She acted almost totally under the direction of her husband," Delius said.

He also noted that with Yap's husband headed to prison, Yap would be the
sole caretaker for the couple's 9-year-old daughter.

"The court will take into consideration the need for care for Ms. Yap's
daughter," Varlan said in placing Yap on three months of house arrest
followed by two years on probation.

This is the second case prosecuted federally involving the staffing of
Chinese restaurants by illegal immigrants. Similar probes by the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency of other area businesses are
ongoing, court records indicate.