Illegal workers slip past Bogota mayor

BOGOTA, N.J. - Mayor Steve Lonegan, an outspoken foe of illegal immigration, acknowledges he hired two men who authorities say were in the United States illegally, but he says it was an accident.

Lonegan said he had enlisted the men Monday to help assemble political signs in the garage of a vacant home he owns in the borough.

He told the Record of Bergen County that the men had said they had proper documentation when they approached his taxpayer advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity, looking for work.

According to Lonegan, he dropped the men at the house before going to retrieve working papers for them to fill out. They were gone when he returned.

"It was the mystery of the week," he said.

It was days later, when the Record contacted him, that he found out police had gone to the house after someone reported two men walking through the home, Lonegan said.

One of the men was charged with a disorderly persons violation because the name he gave didn't match the Mexican identification card he had with him, police said. The other man, who wasn't charged, told police that they were in the United States illegally, and that a person he refused to identify had hired them to work on the signs for $80.

Lonegan said he usually hired temporary workers from an area agency, Express Personnel. When the two men asked for work, however, he had no problem hiring them as long as they were legal, he said.

"If I have work, and there are two guys willing to do the work, and they have papers, that's fine," Lonegan said.

An unsuccessful 2005 Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lonegan has been a frequent critic of illegal immigration.

He tried but failed to have McDonald's remove a billboard in Bogota that advertised iced coffee in Spanish, and sought to designate English as the Bergen County borough's official language, a move that courts rebuffed.