Troopers had relied on illegal workers
Yet they may enforce immigration laws
By Jonathan Saltzman and Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | July 2, 2006
Governor Mitt Romney is pushing to give state troopers the authority to enforce federal immigration laws so they can arrest those who are here illegally. But records indicate the State Police has relied for years on a company to clean its barracks and headquarters that has employed scores of undocumented immigrants.
A Globe review of payroll data from National Facility Services of Boylston found that more than 80 percent of the 192 unionized maintenance workers employed there in 2004 had questionable or bogus Social Security numbers.
The company has received more than $2.2 million in state contracts since 2000, and is under contract to clean State Police headquarters in Framingham and 18 barracks and other facilities around the state. National Facility Services said it has cleaned State Police facilities for at least a decade.
In response to the Globe findings, a lawyer for the company conceded that undocumented immigrants may have been employed at National Facility Services in the past, but said the firm has since tightened its policies and is complying with the law .
The company, whose owner has given campaign donations to Romney and other politicians, has also received contracts to clean the state Department of Fish and Game, the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Massachusetts Turnpike Fast Lane office in Auburn, and other government buildings, according to company records and the state comptroller's office.
The company also maintains the Internal Revenue Service center in Andover.
The Globe analyzed the data last week after Romney proposed seeking the controversial agreement with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deputize state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants.
The Globe ran the Social Security numbers of the National Facility Services workers through three private databases that compile valid numbers.
Of the 192 workers reviewed, 162 appeared to have bogus or questionable numbers.
The most common explanation for irregularities with Social Security numbers is that the workers are undocumented, specialists said.
At least 18 of the workers on the records reviewed had Social Security numbers that belonged to dead people, including three deceased people born in the 1800s. :scared
One undocumented worker from Brazil, who spoke to the Globe on condition of anonymity, said National Facility Services is well-known within the Brazilian community, and that many of his co-workers also are undocumented.
The worker said he went to work immediately at the company after arriving here six years ago, using a Social Security number passed on to him by a friend who was moving back to Brazil.
The worker told the Globe he was among those assigned to clean State Police barracks in Grafton and Holden.
``The owner, he has never questioned us about our numbers," said the worker, speaking in Portuguese
Charles T. Jasiak , president of the company, declined to comment.
Raymond P. Howell , spokesman for National Facility Services, issued a statement yesterday that the company is ``collateral damage in the political battle over illegal immigration."
He added, ``Illegal aliens have historically been a large part of the commercial cleaning industry, but National has been a model and leader in fighting that trend."
Richard Goodkin , a lawyer for the company, acknowledged that checks on prospective employees by an old management team ``probably weren't done as professionally as the cleaning was done."
But, he said, a new management team that took over in 2003 has upgraded the screening and that ``probably close to 100 percent" of its current workers are legal.
He declined to provide a current roster of workers with Social Security numbers, saying the information was confidential.
The Globe review relied on a roster of employees from 2004 and weekly payroll information from early 2005.
``Any company that hires people who are hourly workers, not salaried, should be doing the best they can to make sure they're following the letter of the law, and sometimes they wind up being victimized by job applicants that provide documents that aren't bona fide," Goodkin said.
He added, ``This is a good company, good people doing what they're supposed to do, and they're getting caught in the middle of Mitt Romney's presidential ambitions."
State Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Sharon Costine said the department would look into the Globe findings.
If undocumented workers are cleaning police barracks, she said, ``it shouldn't be happening."
State Police conduct criminal background checks on every janitor who cleans for the police. But those checks do not verify their immigration status, Costine said.
Mariellen Burns, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which pays National Facility Services about $1,000 a month to clean the Fast Lane service center in Auburn, echoed Costine, saying if undocumented workers are being used, ``we are going to take appropriate action as far as doing business with them."
A spokeswoman for the IRS declined to comment Friday, saying officials were not available because of the coming Independence Day holiday.
State Senator Jack Hart, sponsor of a bill to require state contractors to authenticate that their workers are here legally, said the State Police ``ought to get their own house in order."
``These workers are cleaning the offices of those who, under the Romney proposal, are supposed to enforce the law that they're breaking," said Hart, Democrat of South Boston. ``You couldn't write a script any better."
Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Romney, declined to say whether the governor would take any action, or if it would inquire further into the company.
He said the governor is committed to seeking the agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deputize the state troopers
``For anyone who has any doubts, this should dramatically illustrate why it is important for the State Police to have the power to detain people who are in the country illegally," he said. ``It's another lesson on why it's absolutely critical that America secure its borders."
But Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the findings confirm that undocumented immigrants do important work everywhere.
``If there's one person who should realize that immigrants, documented and undocumented, bolster our economy, it's the governor, who has years of experience and wealth from the private sector," he said. ``The irony from my perspective is that the governor is scapegoating immigrants, but then is turning around and realizing that his offices would not be clean without them."
A 1986 federal law made it a crime for companies to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants and requires employers to examine documents such as green cards or Social Security cards that allow employees to work in the country.
But the law only mandates that the documents ``appear to be genuine," and says that employers do not need to be ``document experts."
Those loose standards enable some employers who rely heavily on undocumented workers -- including construction companies, agricultural businesses, and the building maintenance industry -- to make such hires while saying they comply with the law.
Government agencies that hire those companies, in turn, typically say it is the responsibility of the contractors, not the agencies, to make sure workers are legal.
Last month, a Globe story disclosed that on nine recent state and municipal public works projects -- from dormitory construction at the University of Massachusetts to the building of a new Middlesex County Jail -- more than a third of 242 workers on weekly payroll lists appeared to lack legitimate Social Security numbers.
The story set off calls on Beacon Hill for screening of workers who are paid with public funds.
National Facility Services has received notice in the past of irregularities regarding its employees' Social Security numbers.
Last year, the Social Security Administration wrote the company informing it that 30 janitors who worked in 2004 had numbers that did not match the agency's records.
One of those workers had cleaned the State Police facility in Framingham.
Goodkin, the lawyer for National Facility Services, said the company addressed the irregularities within three months by obtaining proper documentation from the workers or by firing them.
Last month, he added, the company also began participating in a voluntary federal program that enables employers to check Social Security numbers with a database run by the Social Security Administration.
Jasiak has been a generous donor to politicians .
Since 2002, he has given to eight Republicans -- including Romney, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, and Daniel Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority who ran for state treasurer in 2002.
The only Democrat Jasiak has donated to is Worcester County Sheriff Guy William Glodis.
The building maintenance industry -- a competitive business where companies seek to outbid one another by cutting labor costs -- has seen a huge influx of immigrants in the past two decades, and many of them are undocumented, according to specialists who have studied the trend.
Yet they may enforce immigration laws
By Jonathan Saltzman and Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff | July 2, 2006
Governor Mitt Romney is pushing to give state troopers the authority to enforce federal immigration laws so they can arrest those who are here illegally. But records indicate the State Police has relied for years on a company to clean its barracks and headquarters that has employed scores of undocumented immigrants.
A Globe review of payroll data from National Facility Services of Boylston found that more than 80 percent of the 192 unionized maintenance workers employed there in 2004 had questionable or bogus Social Security numbers.
The company has received more than $2.2 million in state contracts since 2000, and is under contract to clean State Police headquarters in Framingham and 18 barracks and other facilities around the state. National Facility Services said it has cleaned State Police facilities for at least a decade.
In response to the Globe findings, a lawyer for the company conceded that undocumented immigrants may have been employed at National Facility Services in the past, but said the firm has since tightened its policies and is complying with the law .
The company, whose owner has given campaign donations to Romney and other politicians, has also received contracts to clean the state Department of Fish and Game, the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, the Massachusetts Turnpike Fast Lane office in Auburn, and other government buildings, according to company records and the state comptroller's office.
The company also maintains the Internal Revenue Service center in Andover.
The Globe analyzed the data last week after Romney proposed seeking the controversial agreement with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deputize state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants.
The Globe ran the Social Security numbers of the National Facility Services workers through three private databases that compile valid numbers.
Of the 192 workers reviewed, 162 appeared to have bogus or questionable numbers.
The most common explanation for irregularities with Social Security numbers is that the workers are undocumented, specialists said.
At least 18 of the workers on the records reviewed had Social Security numbers that belonged to dead people, including three deceased people born in the 1800s. :scared
One undocumented worker from Brazil, who spoke to the Globe on condition of anonymity, said National Facility Services is well-known within the Brazilian community, and that many of his co-workers also are undocumented.
The worker said he went to work immediately at the company after arriving here six years ago, using a Social Security number passed on to him by a friend who was moving back to Brazil.
The worker told the Globe he was among those assigned to clean State Police barracks in Grafton and Holden.
``The owner, he has never questioned us about our numbers," said the worker, speaking in Portuguese
Charles T. Jasiak , president of the company, declined to comment.
Raymond P. Howell , spokesman for National Facility Services, issued a statement yesterday that the company is ``collateral damage in the political battle over illegal immigration."
He added, ``Illegal aliens have historically been a large part of the commercial cleaning industry, but National has been a model and leader in fighting that trend."
Richard Goodkin , a lawyer for the company, acknowledged that checks on prospective employees by an old management team ``probably weren't done as professionally as the cleaning was done."
But, he said, a new management team that took over in 2003 has upgraded the screening and that ``probably close to 100 percent" of its current workers are legal.
He declined to provide a current roster of workers with Social Security numbers, saying the information was confidential.
The Globe review relied on a roster of employees from 2004 and weekly payroll information from early 2005.
``Any company that hires people who are hourly workers, not salaried, should be doing the best they can to make sure they're following the letter of the law, and sometimes they wind up being victimized by job applicants that provide documents that aren't bona fide," Goodkin said.
He added, ``This is a good company, good people doing what they're supposed to do, and they're getting caught in the middle of Mitt Romney's presidential ambitions."
State Police spokeswoman Lieutenant Sharon Costine said the department would look into the Globe findings.
If undocumented workers are cleaning police barracks, she said, ``it shouldn't be happening."
State Police conduct criminal background checks on every janitor who cleans for the police. But those checks do not verify their immigration status, Costine said.
Mariellen Burns, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which pays National Facility Services about $1,000 a month to clean the Fast Lane service center in Auburn, echoed Costine, saying if undocumented workers are being used, ``we are going to take appropriate action as far as doing business with them."
A spokeswoman for the IRS declined to comment Friday, saying officials were not available because of the coming Independence Day holiday.
State Senator Jack Hart, sponsor of a bill to require state contractors to authenticate that their workers are here legally, said the State Police ``ought to get their own house in order."
``These workers are cleaning the offices of those who, under the Romney proposal, are supposed to enforce the law that they're breaking," said Hart, Democrat of South Boston. ``You couldn't write a script any better."
Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Romney, declined to say whether the governor would take any action, or if it would inquire further into the company.
He said the governor is committed to seeking the agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deputize the state troopers
``For anyone who has any doubts, this should dramatically illustrate why it is important for the State Police to have the power to detain people who are in the country illegally," he said. ``It's another lesson on why it's absolutely critical that America secure its borders."
But Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said the findings confirm that undocumented immigrants do important work everywhere.
``If there's one person who should realize that immigrants, documented and undocumented, bolster our economy, it's the governor, who has years of experience and wealth from the private sector," he said. ``The irony from my perspective is that the governor is scapegoating immigrants, but then is turning around and realizing that his offices would not be clean without them."
A 1986 federal law made it a crime for companies to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants and requires employers to examine documents such as green cards or Social Security cards that allow employees to work in the country.
But the law only mandates that the documents ``appear to be genuine," and says that employers do not need to be ``document experts."
Those loose standards enable some employers who rely heavily on undocumented workers -- including construction companies, agricultural businesses, and the building maintenance industry -- to make such hires while saying they comply with the law.
Government agencies that hire those companies, in turn, typically say it is the responsibility of the contractors, not the agencies, to make sure workers are legal.
Last month, a Globe story disclosed that on nine recent state and municipal public works projects -- from dormitory construction at the University of Massachusetts to the building of a new Middlesex County Jail -- more than a third of 242 workers on weekly payroll lists appeared to lack legitimate Social Security numbers.
The story set off calls on Beacon Hill for screening of workers who are paid with public funds.
National Facility Services has received notice in the past of irregularities regarding its employees' Social Security numbers.
Last year, the Social Security Administration wrote the company informing it that 30 janitors who worked in 2004 had numbers that did not match the agency's records.
One of those workers had cleaned the State Police facility in Framingham.
Goodkin, the lawyer for National Facility Services, said the company addressed the irregularities within three months by obtaining proper documentation from the workers or by firing them.
Last month, he added, the company also began participating in a voluntary federal program that enables employers to check Social Security numbers with a database run by the Social Security Administration.
Jasiak has been a generous donor to politicians .
Since 2002, he has given to eight Republicans -- including Romney, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, and Daniel Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority who ran for state treasurer in 2002.
The only Democrat Jasiak has donated to is Worcester County Sheriff Guy William Glodis.
The building maintenance industry -- a competitive business where companies seek to outbid one another by cutting labor costs -- has seen a huge influx of immigrants in the past two decades, and many of them are undocumented, according to specialists who have studied the trend.
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