Michigan Dairy Farm, Owners Plead Guilty To Immigration Violations, to Pay $2.7 Million

LANSING, Mich.—A Michigan dairy farm and its owners pleaded guilty to charges of employing illegal immigrants and agreed to pay over $2.7 million in fines, according to a plea agreement filed June 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (United States v. Verhaar).

Seventy-eight workers, constituting almost 75 percent of the workforce at Bad Axe, Mich.-based Aquila Farms LLC between 2000 and 2007, were illegal immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement said June 28.

Owners Johannes Martinus Verhaar and Anthonia Marjanne Verhaar hired some of the workers on multiple ...