Bellingham firm faces criminal charges over illegal workers

Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges Monday against a Bellingham manufacturing company where 28 people were arrested during a February immigration raid.

Yamato Engines Specialists was charged with conspiring to encourage undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States between 2006 and 2009. Prosecutors also charged two employees with allowing undocumented workers to file false employment forms with the government.

The raid at Yamato attracted national attention and was the first since President Obama took office. Obama had signaled a desire to stop arresting workers in mass immigration raids and instead focus on prosecuting the companies that hired them.

Calls to Yamato Engine and to lawyers for employees Shafique Dhanani and Shirin Dhanani Makalai were not immediately returned Monday.

Of the 28 people arrested, 24 were given temporary permission to work in the United States while they help with the investigation. Three were released for humanitarian purposes, and a fourth agreed to leave the country. The majority of the men and women arrested were from Mexico, while others were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

At the time of the raid, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said the workers obtained the jobs using fake Social Security numbers and other counterfeit documents.

Makalai and Dhanani are members of the family who owns the company.

In February, Makalai said she did not knowingly hire illegal immigrants. She said the raid came after months of cooperating with ICE on an audit, which included providing employee rosters to federal authorities.

In July, the agency began notifying hundreds of businesses around the country of plans to audit I-9 forms, which are used used by an employer to verify an employee's identity and to establish that the worker is eligible to accept employment in the United States. Makalai has said that her company had cooperated through all audits.