20 arrested at Memphis logistics company; processing took place at immigration office, state charges filed

Twenty people face felony charges for allegedly using fraudulent documents to get jobs at a logistics company in southeast Shelby County, and many will have court appearances Thursday morning.

Arrestees were processed at an immigration office before they were taken to jail, a Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman said. But he insisted it was a state case and the feds only helped.

The THP made the arrests Tuesday morning at a Memphis unit of Seattle-based Expeditors International, THP spokesman Sgt. Chris Richardson said.

The employees were hired through a temp agency. He said he didn't have the name of the agency. However, arrest affidavits named the agency as Memphis-based Provide Staffing Services LLC.

Efforts to reach representatives of Expeditors International and Provide Staffing Services were unsuccessful.

Various reports have swirled in the news media and Facebook about the role of federal immigration authorities in the arrests, and though all sides agree the state and federal agents cooperated, their exact roles are disputed.

A news release issued by THP on Tuesday didn't mention federal immigration agents at all.

Richardson said the THP's Criminal Investigative Division acted on a tip, led the case and the federal agents only helped with tasks such as identifying the suspects. "This had nothing to do with immigration . . . This is a simple arrest of felons, period."

Tom Byrd, a spokesman for the federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said early Wednesday afternoon that none of the 20 people arrested currently face immigration charges. “At this point it’s a state case," he said.

He said the federal agency was helping THP: “We do have expertise in document fraud. We actually train a lot of the Tennessee law enforcement agencies on how to detect fraudulent documents.”

Mauricio Calvo, head of the advocacy group Latino Memphis, described a much different federal role.

He said he and a staff attorney interviewed 16 of the arrestees in the Shelby County jail at 201 Poplar on Wednesday, and that they all described being processed first at an immigration office on Virginia Run Cove, then transported to the jail.

Asked about this, Richardson said federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations - a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - processed the 20 people at the immigration office before taking them to jail. He said the THP needed the space and the federal agency's access to databases to identify the suspects.

Calvo, the immigration advocate, said he believes federal immigration officials orchestrated the arrests in cooperation with the state agency as part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration.

"Now obviously these people are being technically charged with fraud and this is drastically going to affect their options in immigration court. I have to say, that’s very creative."

In general, immigrants facing felony charges have a much harder time fighting deportation in immigration court.

He said the arrests appeared aimed at spreading fear among Hispanics.

Richardson, the THP spokesman, said the people were arrested for felonies, nothing else. "It had nothing to do with them being Hispanic. They just happened to be Hispanic this time."

Calvo also said two men arrested made bail from the Shelby County jail, and that immigration officials have already picked them up.

Reached late Wednesday, Byrd, the ICE spokesman, said it's possible some of the detainees were brought to an immigration office. He said he would have to check on the reports that ICE already took some of the men into custody.

Like Richardson, he repeatedly described it as a state case.

Two of the first charging documents filed against suspects identified them under the fictitious name Jane Doe as well as an alternate name: Hilda Hernandez and Raquel Delin, ages 37 and 32, respectively.

Each is charged with two counts of forgery and two counts of criminal simulation.

The affidavits list their last known address as 6005 Freeport Avenue, Suite 102. That's the address of a Memphis office of Expeditors International near the Mississippi state line.

The affidavits say that on Nov. 3, THP received information that several people had used fraudulent documents to obtain work with Provide Staffing Services. Each woman is accused of presenting a permanent resident card with a fraudulent number.

A permanent resident card, or green card, is a document that proves an immigrant has the right to live and work permanently in the U.S.

Records related to male detainees were filed hours after those of the women. Many have court dates scheduled for Thursday morning and many were also charged as "John Doe" and held on $25,000 bond. Many were likewise charged with two felony counts of forgery and criminal simulation.

The newspaper found records related to these men: Edgar Lopez, 42, Eligio Lopez, 37, Artemio Moreno, 44, Oscar Tepole, 32, Fernando Ramos-Jacobo, 27, Pedro Cordero, 40, Wilibaldo Arenales, 35, Ramon Paz, 46. Jose Moreno-Martinez, 25, Angel Martinez, 36, Marlon Martinez, 36, Sixto Rodriguez-Landaverde, 42, Angel Calmo, 24, Leonel Sanchez, 37, and Jose Garcia, 35.

Calvo said the people he interviewed didn't admit to using fake documents but said that he doesn't see using fake documents to get a job as a serious crime.

“The answer is these people have no choice. In lack of an immigration reform that makes sense, we are forcing people to break the law to do the right thing.”

Richardson with the Tennessee Highway Patrol said employers must be able to conduct background checks on the people they hire. "What if they apply and get a job at a day care taking care of someone’s kids? They may be a felon in their real life."

He also said some of the people arrested appeared to be using fake documents with made-up numbers, while others were using real information that belonged to other people and could harm their records. "This is not a victimless crime."

In 2007, The Commercial Appeal interviewed Mexican immigrants who said they had used fake identification to get jobs at local warehouse and distribution businesses.

Many local staffing agencies were accepting low-quality fake identification as they hired immigrants, many of whom were in the U.S. illegally, Argentinian anthropologist Marcela Mendoza and other researchers at the University of Memphis wrote in articles published between 2003 and 2006.

Larger companies' decisions to use temp agency workers allowed them to get cheap labor and avoid responsibility for hiring unauthorized immigrants, the researchers concluded.

Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.