A federal grand jury will consider immigration-related criminal charges against two of the 33 workers arrested last week in a raid of the construction site for the new federal courthouse in downtown Richmond.

After preliminary hearings yesterday in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck found probable cause to send the charges against the two Mexican nationals to a grand jury. She ordered both men held without bond.

Hugo Dominguez Cano, 33, is charged with re-entering the U.S. after being deported in March 2006, according to a federal affidavit.

The second worker, Juan Perez-Hernandez, 23, is charged with possessing a counterfeit alien-resident card.

So far, none of the 31 remaining workers arrested last week on administrative charges of violating federal immigration laws and being in the U.S. illegally has been charged with more serious federal crimes.

According to charging documents, Cano told federal immigration agents he entered the U.S. illegally through Arizona in March 2007 after being deported.

After checking immigration records, authorities learned Cano was arrested in Topeka, Kan., on Feb. 21, 2006, for entering the country illegally eight days earlier. A judge ordered him deported, and he was sent back to Mexico on March 1, 2006.

Perez-Hernandez had a resident alien card with his name and photo when he was arrested last week, according to his charging document.

A check with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revealed that the alien-identification number on the card was not registered to Perez-Hernandez, but to a female resident alien from Mexico, the affidavit says. He admitted he entered the U.S. through Arizona in February 2006 and purchased the fake alien-registration card for $80 in Washington about a year ago.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Farris L. Moore testified yesterday that agents went to the federal courthouse site at 701 E. Broad St. last Wednesday to screen all workers there after determining the employment records of various contractors working at the site did not match Virginia Employment Commission records, Moore said.

The U.S. attorney's office yesterday declined to release the names of the contractors who hired the workers.

Ernestine Fobbs, a spokeswoman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Washington, also declined to release the employers' names. "Typically we do not do that, unless there's some valid charges that the U.S. attorney's office has been pursuing," she said.

Shannon Eckart, a spokeswoman for Turner Construction, the parent company of Tompkins Builders Inc., the project's general contractor, also declined to provide the subcontractors' names. She said none of the arrested workers was employed by Turner or Tompkins.

The 31 remaining workers apparently still are in federal custody and are being processed for deportation, Fobbs indicated.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond law school, said it appears that federal authorities are stepping up illegal-immigration enforcement nationwide. He questioned whether authorities here plan to pursue the employers who hired the workers.

"I assume there are pretty substantial penalties for employers, which to me, sends a stronger message," Tobias said.
Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or mbowes@timesdispatch.com.