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IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Mexican man accused of kidnapping and killing a student from Iowa had been known for years on the dairy farm where he worked under another name: John Budd. The alias appeared as Employer of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a cattle farm owned by a well-known Republican family, wondered if its leaders knew of any warning signs that he was illegally in the country.
The name under which Rivera was hired and paid in the last four years has been confirmed by three people with a professional background. They spoke under cover of anonymity because they were not allowed to disclose the information during an ongoing criminal investigation. One of the persons stated that Rivera's professional identity under the name of John Budd appears in official government documents.
The employer, Yarrabee Farms, refused to confirm or deny Rivera's professional identity. Lori Chesser, an immigrant lawyer who advises the farm, said companies can not discriminate against workers based on how they look or how their names sound.
Farm officials said Rivera had presented a photo ID and a Social Security number when hired in 2014, and they thought he was the person represented in these documents until 39 to his arrest last month.
The farm respected the legal requirements to review the documents and determined "that they seemed authentic on their face and related to the person who was presenting them," said Chesser. "To question a name or other characteristic would be contrary to the anti-discrimination provisions of the law."
During his four years at the farm near the small town of Brooklyn, Iowa, Rivera "was called and responded to the name he used in the recruitment process," said Mr. Chesser . He lived in a farm trailer for the benefit of his job, as did half of his ten workers.
The farm did not use the government's voluntary E-Verify systemThe farm manager, Dane Lang, is apologized for having made a mistake in claiming to have used E-Verify in a first statement on the arrest of Rivera on August 21, a few hours after allegedly driving the Police at Mollie Tibbetts's body in a corn field nearby.
It is unclear whether E-Verify would have detected red flags with the identity claimed by Rivera, but the farm said it used a different government service to confirm that the name and social security number matched.
Police say Rivera followed and confronted Tibbetts while she was released on July 18th after that stabbed to death. He was imprisoned $ 5 million bond waiting for the trial on a first degree murder chargewho carries a prison sentence for life. The federal government has also applied for immigration, which means that it could be deported if it was acquitted.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on whether the agency was investigating Yarrabee Farms, which said it had received dozens of angry phone calls after Rivera 's arrest.
Tibbetts' father, Rob Tibbetts, urged the public do not bring the death of his daughter into division and Racial debate on immigration.
"The person who is accused of taking Mollie's life is no longer the reflection of the Hispanic community while white supremacists are all white," he wrote in an article published last weekend.
He wrote that his daughter-in-law – "who loved Mollie very much" – is Latina, and Mollie's "dear" nephews are Latino. "That means I'm Hispanic," he writes. "I am African, I am Asian, I am European, my blood flows from all corners of the Earth because I am an American, and as an American, I have a principle: to respect every citizen of the world. and actively engage in the pursuit to form a more perfect union. "
The case set off outrage and vows of action of lawmakers.
"It is the duty of this senator and all other senators to act to prevent other tragedies like this," said Republican Senator Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.
At a campaign-style rally in August, President Trump said that "should never have happened".
"Immigration laws are a shame," he said.
Former Rivera lawyer Allan Richards said at the time that the president should not make the case political.
"If you spend half the time talking about an alleged innocent until the facts are known, that would be a big help," he said.
Employers generally do not suffer the legal consequences of hiring a worker under false documents until they have been involved in obtaining them and had no other obvious reason to suspect that they were fraudulent. said Bob Teig, retired federal attorney in Iowa.
"In the absence of unusual circumstances, it would be difficult to show that they knew more than what was said to them," Teig said, adding that it would be "somewhat racist" to assume that a John Budd could not be Hispanic.
If anyone else knew Rivera like John Budd is not clear. The 24-year-old had a Facebook page under his real name and his account showed many friends in central Iowa. He has a girlfriend and a girl, said his former lawyer.
Rivera did not possess any identification issued by Iowa under any name, nor any known criminal history nor any interaction with the police. It is not known who owned the car that he would have used to encircle Tibbetts.
Former Rivera lawyer Allan Richards has accused the farm and other employers in the field of "turning a blind eye" to the fact that many of their workers are in the United States illegally and employed under false documents. He said that Rivera arrived in the United States when he was about 17 years old and had the equivalent of a secondary education.
Erica Johnson, a lawyer who runs the American Friends Service Committee's immigration program in Iowa, said the case highlights the "precarious position" of immigrant and immigrant workers. from their employers.
"We have an immigration system that does not take into account the labor needs or economic realities of Iowa businesses and farms," she said. "So, what are you doing, do not you justify the racial profile of people and take the information that they give you because you need workers?"
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