Three non-U.S. citizen employees of the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory have been arrested by the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Services because of unreported felony convictions that
occurred before they were hired by the lab.
The arrests, which occurred over a two-week period, culminate a
yearlong investigation by the ICS into employee and citizenship
records at the Berkeley lab and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory,
both of which are operated by the University of California.
The three employees, a laborer from Mexico, a biology technician
from the Philippines and a computer engineer from Canada, have been
convicted of crimes they failed to report to immigration officials,
including cocaine possession, auto theft and domestic violence,
said ICS spokeswoman Sharon Rummery.
The three employees were not exposed to any classified material
during their tenure at the labs, said Rob Colb, a spokesman for the
Berkeley lab. They are currently on leave pending resolution of the
case.
Because they are not citizens, the three will go before an
immigration judge who will decide whether to deport them, Rummery
said.
“Once you become a citizen … you have a right to stay in
the country. If you’re here as a lawful permanent resident,
that’s considered a privilege,” she said. “Once
you abuse this privilege by committing a felony, we have the power
to withdraw that privilege from you.”
Rummery also said non-citizens are not necessarily required to
report felony convictions to immigration officials, but if
officials come across serious convictions while conducting a
background check on an immigrant, the immigrant can be
deported.
The ICS, an investigative bureau of the Department of Homeland
Security, has been combing employee records at major laboratories
around the nation over the past year to check on the immigration
status of lab workers.
At Lawrence Livermore, investigators cross-checked over 4,000
employee records with arrest and conviction databases and turned up
three matches, Rummery said. She added that she did not believe
similar investigations at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos
National Laboratories turned up any suspects.
Colb said nationwide dragnets through the laboratory work force
were common.
“The immigration service does these periodic audits to
ensure that the people who are working here are here within the
constraints of their visas,” he said.
The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is an important keystone of the
UC’s research program. It employs thousands of students and
scientists who conduct research in a wide field of studies. The
Berkeley labs have remained relatively untouched by the financial
scandals and administrative foul-ups that plagued the Livermore and
Los Alamos labs last year.