One night last month federal agents descended on 61 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states, hauled away 250 illegal immigrants slinging mops on the late shift, then stopped by the retailer's ' headquarters to seize a few boxes of documents. The company says it thought everyone was legal, and that in any case responsibility for ensuring that falls to the many cleaning contractors it has hired. The seizure of the papers indicates that the government aims to prove otherwise. Whatever the feds' success in uncovering embarrassing memos at the world's biggest retailer, the case could very well expose the dirty business of putting illegals to work at big corporations. It is believed that 11 million illegal aliens work in this country. They are not all sweeping up at the corner bodega. Call it plausible deniability. A big firm needs its offices or its stores cleaned at night. Preferably on the cheap. The contractor puts in a low bid―and reassures the store owner that no laws will be violated. The contractor hires a subcontractor, who makes similar promises. The subcontractor may hire yet another firm, which employs the workers and hands out the pay. If the workers are busted, the corporate customer at the top can say it is shocked to learn that anything illegal was going on.
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