Visa inspection results in arrest of worker in Lubec

A Honduran man who has worked at businesses in Harrington and Lubec was charged on February 6 in U.S. District Court in Bangor with visa fraud. Miguel Villanueva had produced false documentation when he applied to work at Worcester Wreath and ISF Trading Inc., a company based in Portland that exports sea urchin roe to Japan.

William Hoyt, special agent, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), says in his affidavit that on January 5 he and another special agent, Kenneth Cogan, visited the plant that ISF Trading has been leasing in Lubec to conduct an inspection of the Employment Eligibility Form I-9s. They spoke with the Water Street business' quality control officer, Chet Batson, who provided information containing photocopies of the documents provided by the employees to substantiate their eligibility to work in the U.S.

"Among the I-9s I recognized the names of two individuals, Miguel Villanueva and Vicente Callejas," writes Hoyt. "I knew from another investigation that those individuals had been previously terminated in November or December 2007 from Worcester Wreath for having invalid work documents."

After asking to speak to Villanueva and Callejas, Batson told the ICE agents that Villanueva wasn't working that day and that he was in his room at the Quoddy Dolphin motel. However, Callejas was at ISF Trading Inc. that day, and Batson would bring him to the office so the agents could speak to him.

"Batson returned to the office and told us that Callejas needed to remove his apron and boots and that he would be up in a couple of minutes," recalled Hoyt. "We waited several minutes, and Callejas did not appear. We then went to the processing area of the plant and discovered that Callejas had run out the back door."

The two ICE agents then went to the Quoddy Dolphin, where they knocked on the door of Villanueva's room, and he let them in. "We identified ourselves to Villanueva as ICE agents," reports Hoyt. "Villanueva told us that he was a citizen and national of Honduras and that he had no valid United States immigration documents. He further stated that he was not inspected by an immigration official when he entered the United States."

When Hoyt asked if Villanueva had the documents he'd used to obtain his job at ISF Trading, the Honduran answered that he did, retrieved them from a suitcase and handed them to Hoyt, telling the special agent that he knew the documents were false. "I recognized them to be the same documents from the Worcester Wreath employment files and the ISF Trading Inc. file. Villanueva stated that he had worked at ISF Trading for three years."

Agents Cogan and Hoyt subsequently took Villanueva into custody and transported him to Piscataquis County Jail. The next day, January 5, when Cogan called the Department of Homeland Security Law Enforcement Support Center to conduct a check on Villanueva's permanent record card, it was discovered that the alien number did not belong to Villanueva but to another individual.