The audit of Quality Pork Processors has developed into an arduous process, said one of the state’s top Immigration and Naturalization officials.

Wednesday, September 01, 1999

The audit of Quality Pork Processors has developed into an arduous process, said one of the state’s top Immigration and Naturalization officials.

Mark Cangemi, the assistant district director for investigations with the state’s INS office in Bloomington, said the audit of QPP’s personnel forms is "not even one-third over."

"It’s a slow, methodical process," said Cangemi of verifying the QPP’s I-9 forms.

The I-9 forms require potential employees to provide documentation that proves their eligibility to work in the United States.

QPP, the hog kill-and-cut facility that supplies Hormel Foods Corp.’s Austin plant with its pork, employs approximately 1,000 workers, every one of whom is required to fill out an I-9.

The INS agent assigned to perform the audit has been "voracious" in verifying QPP’s I-9 forms, said Cangemi.

When asked if QPP officials were being cooperative, Cangemi said, "They’re not being uncooperative.

"We’re dancing the dance. They have to protect their interests. They’re giving us the corporate line – that there’s not supposed to be illegal aliens in the plant. But we’ll come up with some."

The audit of I-9 forms will "verify our suspicions," said Cangemi, who said the most difficult documents to verify are those on which a person uses a false identity.

When it is determined someone has used another person’s name on the I-9 forms, the INS agent must then find out who the imposter really is, and who the name belongs to, often times a deceased person.

So far, no interviews with suspected illegal aliens have been performed. Cangemi said that step in the audit comes later on.

While in Austin on Friday, Gil Gutknecht addressed the issue of illegal aliens in the work force.

"It’s a huge issue," said the First District U.S. Representative, who added there has been talk on Capitol Hill about "making it easier for people who come into the country to work in the food industry to get green cards."

Such a move would require lawmakers to "sit down with the unions," Gutknecht said.