By Kathleen Berger
KSDK — An outraged U.S. Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson was in Farmington Friday to join a union protest over the release of undocumented workers. The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department took 14 people into custody at a construction site on Saturday, but let them go at the request of the U.S. Immigration Department.
Six days after the incident, framers for Thomas Construction out of Osage Beach were hard at work. They’re building a Hampton Inn in Farmington, the location where the Sheriff’s Department found 14 undocumented workers on the job. And local union workers make it clear where they stand. They’re protesting across the street and Emerson joined them.
Emerson says she’s pushing for tougher laws and enforcement. She says US Immigration’s focus is too one-sided, focusing on potential terrorists, not undocumented workers.
“How do we know if one of the 13 or 14 the Sheriff picked up wasn’t going to fit that profile,” Emerson said. “We don’t know if they’re terrorists and they said let them go. And they are taking your jobs, and no more can they do that.”
One St. Louis County union representative says several hundred of his members are out of work.
“I hear from people everyday. They can’t make their mortgage, can’t make their car payments. It hits home,” said Dan Willey, a spokesman for Labors Local 110.
The local unions are just as angry with Thomas Construction.
“He’s a bad public citizen; he’s bringing these illegal aliens in here on a tool trailer,” Willey said.
And St. Francois County Sheriff Dan Bullock says he’s upset that he had to be the one to set the undocumented workers free.
“It will also entice other contractors and corporations who will say, ‘hey they didn’t do nothing to these guys here, I’ll get some here for myself,’” Bullock said.
Thomas Construction has been quiet until Friday. The company says it had no idea undocumented workers were getting paid to work on their job site, and say they’re outraged by the news.
The company says one of its subcontractors hired the workers and now that subcontractor has been fired.
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