Restaurant raid underscores problems with enforcement
San Diego man says his experience is a cautionary tale to others under Trump.
SAN DIEGO — Just weeks after the French Gourmet restaurant and bakery in Pacific Beach was raided by immigration authorities, chef and owner Michel Malécot was out to dinner when he spotted a familiar face — a bus boy who had been busted for working illegally for him.
Unlike the owner of the restaurant where he was eating, and numerous other employers who depend on illegal labor, Malécot had to answer for his hiring practices — a lesson the Frenchman said cost him a fortune and should serve as a cautionary tale to others as the likelihood of increased workplace enforcement rises under the Trump administration.
In Malécot’s view, the 2008 criminal case against him, the French Gourmet and Richard Kauffmann, the restaurant’s manager and pastry chef, was intended to make him an example.
“I was the white elephant in the room,” Malécot said. Fellow restaurateurs would shake his hand and try to sympathize, “but they’d also give you that look that said: ‘Glad it was you and not me, buddy.’ ”
“It was a difficult time,” Malécot, 65, recalled recently.
A misdemeanor conviction and $396,000 in courtordered payments later, Malécot said he is now 100% compliant when it comes to hiring through use of EVerify, the government Web-based program that greenlights the eligibility of employees.
But because the program is voluntary, many restaurants don’t use it and — either knowingly or not — employ immigrants who are in the country illegally. Malécot said that puts him and other employers following the law at a disadvantage: Their competitors have a larger workforce to pull from and the potential to pay lower wages.
It’s why he said he would welcome increased workplace enforcement, a move that is anticipated as President Trump aims to stanch illegal immigration and open up more jobs to American workers.
“It should be a fair playing field,” Malécot said.
His problems started in 2006, as the French Gourmet prepared to cater a benefit dinner free of charge at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and a base security clearance check into Malécot’s staff turned up paperwork discrepancies.
One day two years later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed the restaurant, arresting 18 workers.
Malécot and Kauffmann were accused of knowingly hiring immigrants here illegally. When federal authorities earlier had sent letters warning them that Social Security numbers used by some employees didn’t match federal records, the employers were accused of telling the workers to get new paperwork and then rehiring them.
During the investigation, an audit of employee records at the French Gourmet turned up at least 91 illegal laborers from 2005 to 2008, according to court records.
Malécot’s lawyer, Eugene Iredale, said that once Malécot knew certain workers were in the country illegally, he didn’t have the heart to let them go because he had gotten to know them so well. Kauffmann also came to know many of his employees as family, spending years training some to be skilled pastry chefs.
Malécot pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and Kauffmann to a felony. The judge noted that Malécot paid fair wages to the workers and did not appear to take advantage of them.
The incident cost Malécot — who said he decided to settle because his defense had grown very expensive — $1 million to $1.5 million.
The French Gourmet currently has about 50 full-time employees and about 30 more part-timers. Ten or so of those are green card holders, Malécot said.
He used to sponsor employees from abroad and take on temporary student workers from overseas, but he doesn’t anymore, citing the complicated paperwork and expense involved.
“It’s not worth the headache,” he said.