A company with a troubled past and millions of dollars in Triad-area construction contracts was fined more than $400,000 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year.
Burlington-based Triangle Grading & Paving has racked up the largest ICE fine total in North Carolina going back to at least 2009, according to information ICE provided through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Winston-Salem and Department of Transportation officials said they didn't know about the company's immigration-related fine until contacted by the Winston-Salem Journal, despite having numerous contracts with the company and the well-publicized deaths last year of two Latino men who worked for Triangle Grading & Paving in Durham.
The N.C. Labor Department fined Triangle $16,000 after that incident, in which Luis Castaneda Gomez of Durham and Jesus Martinez Benitez of Clayton went inside an 11-foot-deep manhole, lost consciousness because of a lack of oxygen and suffocated.
Triangle is fighting this fine. But the Labor Department's citations said Triangle didn't perform tests to make sure the men could enter the manhole safely, didn't have a supervisor on hand and didn't provide appropriate respiratory protection or rescue equipment.
ICE would not explain the reasons for its fines, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. But spokesman Vincent Picard said ICE fines could be for hiring illegal immigrants or helping illegal immigrants falsify documentation, as well as several other immigration-related violations.
Triangle Grading & Paving also would not speak about the fines. "The case has been answered, and negotiations for settlement are in progress," Executive Vice President Jack Bailey wrote in an email answering a request for comment.
Triangle has a long record of public construction projects in North Carolina, at least partly because it frequently is a low bidder, government documents show. State law requires agencies to accept the lowest qualified bidder, and the same rules apply to cities.
The Department of Labor has inspected Triangle Grading and Paving sites 34 times since 1997 and cited the company 25 times, according to records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Wooten Gough, founder of the Triad-based immigrant advocacy group El Cambio, said having undocumented workers who are paid less helps companies to submit low bids.
Triangle Grading & Paving has won 18 contracts from the state's Department of Transportation office since 2000. And it will stay on DOT's list of qualified contractors despite the ICE fines, DOT spokesman Steve Abbott said.
The DOT reviews its list of contractors each year, and "although safety records will be considered at that time, immigration fines would not be a factor," Abbott said.
The ICE fines might affect Triangle Grading & Paving's relationship with Winston-Salem, which has hired the company seven times since 2006, including for the ongoing construction of the Brushy Fork Greenway.
"Our attorneys are researching the ICE fine to determine if the violation that led up to it would warrant any action to remove them from the city bid list," said Winston-Salem Assistant City Manager Greg Turner. Triangle will continue working on the greenway, Turner said.
State Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, called Triangle Grading & Paving's ICE fine "very disturbing news."
"Unfortunately as other states tighten their illegal immigration laws, more of these stories will appear. We hear about them weekly from law-abiding businesses across North Carolina who are trying to compete fairly," Folwell said.
Gough said, "We rely even more so than we realize on the labor of immigrants, even more so undocumented immigrants."
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