Manager pleads not guilty following immigration raid at Lindon plant

The human resources manager for Universial Industrial Sales Inc. pleaded not guilty today in federal court to charges of harboring illegal aliens.

Alejandro Alex Urrutia-Garcia, 39, of Provo, faces two counts of encouraging illegal aliens to remain in the United States unlawfully. The charges each carry up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fines, if convicted.

The indictment was one of two unsealed today in U.S. District Court on the heels of an immigration raid that netted more than 50 arrests at the Lindon manufacturing plant.

The company is charged with 10 counts of harboring aliens between January 2003 to December 2006 for "commercial advantage," and faces $500,000 in fines, or twice the amount of any pecuniary gains, for each count.

U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, said the investigation, which utilized confidental informants and undercover agents, was still ongoing.

"It's hard to say who knew, neccessarily what," Tolman said. "There may be others."

Tolman said the charges stem from his office's effort to target employers who are "willfully blind" to their workers' immigration statuses, "especially to gain some economic advantage on their competitors."

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah, Urrutia-Garcia is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was released from prison Thursday, pending a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. A four-day trial was scheduled to start April 14.

Telephone messages left at Universal were not returned. The Lindon-based company employs more than 100 individuals, according to its Web site. It manufactures a variety of highway products, such as guard rails, bridge rails and sign structures.

Late Thursday morning, family members and friends of the arrested employees trickled in, hoping for details about what happened.

Elias Villalpando, 27, worked for UIS for five years, but quit three years ago.

Standing in the snow, he said he knows many employees there who are good, hard working people just trying to make a living.

"They have to do something to bring food for their families," he said. He said that many of the men arrested were from Jalisco, Mexico.

Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah, did numerous interviews outside the company's headquarters, including a phone interview with a Spanish-language radio station.