nothin ICE Fines Gourmet Heaven | New Haven Independent

ICE Fines Gourmet Heaven

Melissa Bailey Photo

Downtown’s high-end corner markets lost three employees, and agreed to pay a $5,891 fine, after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined it had hired workers without proper documents.

Gourmet Heaven, which has stores on Broadway and Whitney Avenue, was one of 12 Connecticut companies fined by ICE during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2012, according to an ICE press release issued Thursday.

Store owner Chung Cho (pictured above) said three employees in New Haven, as well as two at another store in Providence, Rhode Island, left about two months ago because of the ICE probe.

They left by themselves,” he said.

The workers had been using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) instead of a Social Security number, he said. They had been paying taxes, but they had incomplete” paperwork to prove they had legal permission to work, he said. Confronted with the lack of paperwork, the employees left, he said.

Cho said he has paid the $5,891 fine.

The fine arose from an audit into whether Gourmet Heaven’s employees had legal permission to work, said Bruce M. Foucart, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Boston.

The audit was based on a tip, Foucart said.

His office then issued a subpoena asking for Gourmet Heaven’s Form I‑9 documents. Form I‑9 requires employers to review and record the individual’s identity and employment eligibility document(s) and determine whether the document(s) reasonably appears to be genuine and related to the individual.”

Every single company, every single employer, needs to maintain I‑9s, supported by identification,” Foucart explained in an interview Thursday afternoon.

Gourmet Heaven employs 15 to 16 people at its two New Haven stores, according to Cho. The first store (pictured), on Broadway, opened in March of 2001.

The audit concluded that a handful” of workers had suspect” documents, Foucart said. He didn’t give a number.

In both states, the stores had to let people go because we told them that they weren’t authorized to work in the United States,” he said.

They’ve got a lot of people without papers,” confirmed a former longtime worker. 

When it comes across suspect documents, ICE runs the employee’s name to see if the person is wanted on any warrants, has a criminal background, or has a deportation order pending against them. Nothing like that came up on the Gourmet Heaven workers, Foucart said. ICE did not initiate removal proceedings against them, he said.

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