Federal immigration officials hope to add to the 249 Hawai'i employers that utilize federal databases to verify the legality of workers before hiring them to avoid criminal allegations like the ones levied against a Waipahu agriculture company in December.

Michael Aytes, acting deputy director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said while the problem is difficult to quantify, Hawai'i faces the same types of issues with illegal immigrants and workers that other states do.

Local businesses have to do everything they can to ensure a legal, competitive playing field in order to prevent American workers from being frozen out of jobs.

"Sometimes employers violate immigration laws ... it's a phenomenon around the country. We're going to have to deal with the economics that drive people to break the law if we're going to be able to address the immigration problem," said Aytes, the No. 2 immigration official in the Obama administration. "They (illegal workers) want to better their lives, and that's a wonderful thing, but they are also competing with American workers and their families."

Statistics about the number of illegal immigrants in Hawai'i are unavailable and would be nothing more than estimates, Aytes said.

But scores of illegal workers have been arrested in various raids in Hawai'i over the last 18 months, including busts at Maui restaurants and at two Downtown Honolulu construction sites.

Through March, the 249 Hawai'i employers utilizing the federal government's E-verify program have submitted nearly 5,000 queries in an effort to avoid criminal prosecution.

E-Verify works by allowing participating employers to electronically compare employee information taken from the Form I-9 (the paper-based employment eligibility verification form used for all new hires) against more than 425 million records in the Social Security Administration's database and more than 60 million records in immigration databases, according to immigration officials.

Results are returned within seconds.

TWO INDICTED HERE

Aytes said he hopes greater participation in the program can help prevent situations like the one that led to federal indictments against two men.

On Dec. 4, two managers for an agricultural company based in Waipahu were indicted on a variety of federal charges, including aiding and abetting visa fraud, as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In addition to the visa fraud allegations, David Kato, 51, and Glen Kelley McCaig, 43, who work for The Farms, are accused of abetting the misrepresentation of a Social Security number, employment eligibility fraud and providing false statements to federal investigators.

The charges came from a four-month investigation into The Farms that resulted in a raid on a Waipahu apartment complex and the arrest of 43 undocumented workers on administrative immigration violations.

Criminal charges were filed against 23 of the workers for employment fraud.

"Undocumented workers and those who knowingly employ them deprive our citizens of employment opportunities, especially during these hard economic times," U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo said when the indictment was unsealed. "They are stealing jobs and wages from our people and their families, and they must be held accountable. Those who knowingly employ illegal aliens must pay for committing serious crimes."

EMPLOYER CRACKDOWN

Kato is charged with six felony counts and McCaig with 16. If convicted of all charges, Kato could face up to 45 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine; McCaig could face 100 years in prison and a $4 million fine.

David P. McCauley, a Hawai'i immigration attorney with Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, said the indictments last fall align with the developing immigration policy of President Obama, which appears to emphasize a crackdown on employers while attempting to accommodate the 12 million illegal immigrants already living in the United States.

"Their focus is not going to be going out and seeing how many workers they can round up. They will go after employers, but they do want to achieve comprehensive immigration reform," said McCauley. "There is going to be more enforcement here in Hawai'i, less about picking up the illegals and more about deterring this kind of thing by prosecuting the employers."

The local construction industry is doing its part to dissuade employers from paying cash under the table to illegal immigrant workers.

Last year, the Pacific Resource Partnership started the Play Fair in Hawaii media campaign to encourage employers to follow employment rules and regulations.

"It's (circumventing employment laws) not fair to contractors, it's not fair to employers, and it's not fair to the workers who abide by the law," said Ron Taketa, financial secretary of the Hawai'i Carpenters Union. "The more cheaters you have, the more our members sit on the bench."