26 Plaintiffs: Delia’s Tamales grew and got sued

By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal

Say it ain’t so. An Upper-Valley tradition for the past 25-plus years, Delia’s Tamales, cheated both the federal government and 26 of its employees out of Social Security money, while helping them create fake Social Security cards?

The lead attorney representing all 26 plaintiffs suing Delia’s, now operating under the name, Delgar Foods, LLC D/B/A Delia’s Tamales, is the former Edinburg mayor and city attorney, Richard Rene Alamia.

The lawsuit, now sitting in federal court, waiting for a December 2023 pre-trial hearing, which places 26 plaintiffs on the books against Delia’s Tamales, 26 plaintiffs, all represented by one attorney, Richard Rene Alamia.

The employees, according to the suit, worked for Delia’s from November 2000 to May 2023. During that time, Delia’s helped them get fake Social Security numbers so they could legally work for the growing tamale company.

When Social Security would try to match the numbers to the employees, based on payroll deductions, they discovered the discrepancy and “by law, (the withheld SS money) would be sent back to Delia’s Tamales.”

As the employees got closer to retirement, claims the suit, Delia’s would find some pretense to let them go, and if they protested, the company’s head honcho and its attorney would threaten them with the feds, as in, “If you tell on us, we’re going to call ICE and tell them that you are in this country illegally.”

The lawsuit also claims that Delia’s is guilty of age discrimination, and other claims.

I ran the claims made in this lawsuit by two CPAs, all of whom said, there is no way that Social Security would simply send the SS money back to Delia’s. Rather, they’d send a letter advising the owners that there was a problem matching the SS numbers, they appeared bogus, and please provide either a new number for the said employee, or offer an explanation.

Besides, even if such a scheme were possible, this wouldn’t have gone on for 23 years without the IRS getting wind of it, since the two agencies work together — the IRS and Social Security.

There is something else about Alamia’s lawsuit, with its 26 plaintiffs named, that is hard to fathom.

On one hand, the suit claims that Delia’s took out the Social Security taxes from the workers’ paychecks, but kept “all of the deductions” for itself.

Then, the same lawsuit/complaint claims that Social Security would send monies back to Delia’s because the numbers were fake.

Anyway you cut it, this should be an easy case to prove or disprove, with a paper trail a mile long.

The other thing about this case is, by claiming that they took part in an illegal scheme — allowing Delia’s to give them fake Social Security cards, and going along with the charade — the 26 plaintiffs themselves are basically admitting to criminal fraud at the federal level, which isn’t a place where you want to be.

Delia’s Tamales

For its part, Delia’s is a Rio Grande Valley success story. Approximately 30 years ago, Delia Lubin needed to provide money for her family, so she started making tamales with one of her sisters out of her home kitchen. They then went door-to-door and business-to-business selling them.

They were so good, in fact, that by 1998, her business had outgrown her home kitchen, so Delia Lubin opened her first restaurant in South McAllen.

Twenty-five years later, she has six Delia’s Tamales locations in the Valley, with a $15-million production plant under development in San Juan. She also has a tamale location in San Antonio.

To say that the woman and her family have made a success out of life, out of business, would be an understatement.

Which begs the question — for the allegations laid out in Alamia’s lawsuit now filed against Delia’s to be true, you have to ask yourself: would a woman this smart in commerce, be so stupid as to get into the business of manufacturing fake Social Security cards just so she could hire workers who lacked the legal right to work in the U.S.? Then, before they were set to retire, fire them without cause, with a company attorney by your side, thus creating a lot of angry ex-workers?

The pre-trial hearing in federal court is set for this December.

Stay tuned.