SAN JOSE — A Northern California-based supermarket chain that caters to Latino immigrant shoppers and was founded by an undocumented schoolteacher from Mexico announced Friday that the company is being audited by federal immigration officials.
Disclosure of the audit, which could result in a mass firing, comes six weeks after San Jose-based Mi Pueblo Food Center joined E-Verify, a voluntary and controversial computerized system that screens the immigration status of new employees.
The move prompted community and union groups to call for a boycott beginning Mondayof Mi Pueblo's 21 stores throughout the Bay Area, the Central Valley and the Monterey Bay region. Meanwhile, union representatives who have sought for years to organize the chain's 3,200 employees accused Mi Pueblo of joining the program in retaliation against workers sympathetic to the cause.
Company officials would say at the time only that they were under "tremendous pressure" by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to use the system. But on Friday, Mi Pueblo spokeswoman Perla Rodriguez said it was time to "share the truth" about the audit, launched in mid-August by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The company said it needed to hire an attorney and inform employees before going public.
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