2003 Warrant says Wal-Mart aware of cleaners' status

Wal-Mart management knew people who cleaned dozens of their stores in 2003 were illegal aliens, some of whom lived in poor conditions and, in one case, slept in the back of a store, a federal affidavit released Wednesday said.

The affidavit was used to secure two search warrants in October 2003 to raid Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s home office in Bentonville as part of Operation Rollback — an investigation that led to the arrests of 245 illegal aliens working at 61 Wal-Mart stores, including five stores in Arkansas.

U. S. District Magistrate Judge Beverly Stites Jones in Fayetteville unsealed the two search warrants Wednesday at the request of a New York attorney representing more than 200 of the former employees in civil lawsuit against the Bentonvillebased nation's largest retailer.

"The corporation's fingerprints are on this from the highest levels," said attorney James Linsey, whose firm represents former workers worldwide. "They wanted to keep their stores clean and not pay a lot of money."

Linsey said the information from the search warrants — which had been sealed since they were obtained — will be used to refile the lawsuit in New Jersey district court. The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart knew the cleaning companies they worked with employed illegal aliens and did nothing to end the work.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in New Jersey dismissed part of the lawsuit that said alleged Wal-Mart conspired with the cleaning contractors by allowing the illegal aliens to work in their stores.

Immigration2005b · Sat, 11/05/2005 - 03:34 · · Importance: 1