Delia’s Tamales: Not buying the lawsuit
Even after FBI agents “raided” Delia’s Tamales last Wednesday (July 24), sporting their dark blue T-shirts with FBI printed across the back in big yellow letters about 14 inches tall, with other agents wearing green tees that looked like tactical undergarments, I’m still not buying the claim that the business is guilty of anything other than failing to fully vet employees before they were hired.
I could be wrong. Only time will tell.
Also, what’s with these fed special agents now sporting big tattoos covering both arms like they’re part of some biker gang? What happened to J. Edgar’s clean-cut bunch?
The Monitor published a photo of an FBI agent outside one of Delia’s seven restaurants last week who was decked out in a bullet-resistant vest that looked like it was carrying eight extra mag clips, including a big one like it belonged to a semi-auto rifle, just to retrieve paper docs from a tamale place?
What were they going to do? Shoot a tamale trying to escape out the back door?
Instead of “raiding” Delia’s during business hours, chasing away customers, why not, you know, maybe “raid” the place in the middle of the night when Delia’s isn’t open for business and the tamales are probably asleep? No customers around when the feds showed up?
All the FBI, and/or the DOJ, had to do was call the owner’s attorney(s), tell him/her that they had a search warrant, and would they please meet them at one of the restaurants, all seven if need be, and use the nighttime hours to carry out boxes full of documents if that’s what they were after.
Oh, I get it. Hard to get a lot of publicity during the evening hours. News reporters asleep. Good lighting hard to get for close-up photo-ops of those chiseled jawlines, that sort of thing.
Instead, the feds “raided” Delia’s during business hours last Wednesday, so that customers who tried to open the front door were met with a sign taped to the glass: “We Are Closed.”
Forget the Drugs
Thing is, with historical levels of fentanyl streaming across the river, cartel cats working this side of the border using Valley stash houses to conduct business, dealing drugs, overseeing human trafficking, I mean, it’s not like federal agents have anything better to do than investigate alleged white-collar crimes inside a long-standing Valley institution — Delia’s Tamales.
Surprise they didn’t do a “perp walk;” cuff a dozen tamales (chicken or pork) and escort them out of at least one of Delia’s seven locations (six in the RGV and one in San Antonio). Just because they’re a tamale doesn’t mean they didn’t have something to do with this alleged “crime,” AKA, “violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
Apparently, too, the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” is no longer de rigueur since one of the attorneys representing former Delia’s employees who accuse the owners in federal court of all sorts of things, passing off fake Social Security cards, etc. told a local news outlet:
“We feel almost complicit, in the fact that we’ve been eating and ordering Delia’s tamales for years. And little did we know.” (Source: ValleyCentral.com.)
Know what? You still haven’t proven any crime, civil violation was committed. Maybe the next time you get some required continued-ed hours, you can ask the law prof to refresh your memory — innocent until proven guilty, a bedrock of American jurisprudence.
After all, this isn’t Mexico, where you’re guilty until proven innocent.
Wrong side of the border, amigo. You’re still in the U.S.
The Allegations
This story first broke last October when a federal lawsuit came to light, with former Edinburg Mayor and City Attorney Richard Rene Alamia representing 26 plaintiffs, all former employees of Delia’s Tamales (Delgar Foods LLC).
Since then, other attorneys have signed on to this deal, with the sweet smell of money in the air, which seemed to be a civil action until the FBI showed up last week.
The former employees, according to the suit, worked for Delia’s from November 2000 to May 2023. During that time, Delia’s allegedly 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.” (Source: the lawsuit.)
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.
A lot of things about this lawsuit seem out of joint.
Such as: by claiming that they (the former employees) 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, are they not?
This May, another allegation came to light during a court hearing: Delia’s was maintaining two sets of books: one was used to track under-the-table pay-outs to illegal employees, while another was used for legit payroll receipts.
Delia’s Tamales
For its part, Delia’s is a Valley success story. Approximately 31 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.
Granted, they don’t have those Cadillac pensions that the FBI agents and assistant U.S. attorneys enjoy, but they had something else: a good reputation and a thriving business.
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?
Granted, it’s been said that Delia herself is no longer as active as she once was running her tamale business, and other family members are now mainly running the show, but still, to cast a pall over this woman’s business by “raiding” it during business hours, chasing away customers, closing it down for hours, is that the right way for the FBI to have handled this case?
If, however, the business is guilty of any wrongdoing, then justice will play out, but until then, Delia’s Tamales is still innocent until proven guilty.