Bittersweet Soup

Chinese brothers receive federal probation for hiring undocumented immigrants at their Double Dragon restaurants

It was business as usual at the Double Dragon II in Santa Fe on Thursday, two days after the owner was sentenced to two years of probation for hiring and harboring nearly a dozen undocumented immigrants and failing to pay them minimum wage.

The rice was still being served, the soup was still being ladled out and the place was packed for lunch, despite the sentence handed down to owner Wen Qiu Chen, 31, in US District Court in Albuquerque on federal charges stemming from his May 2013 arrest.His younger brother, Wen Ping Chen, 30, received the same sentence for the same charges in connection with his restaurant in Rio Rancho, Double Dragon I.The siblings, both of whom were born in China, are US citizens, and neither had a criminal background, which led to the “light sentence,” said Elizabeth Martinez, a spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque.Martinez said the potential for criminal activity came to the attention of federal investigators nearly three years ago and led to the execution of search warrants at the siblings’ private residences and their restaurants in Santa Fe and Rio Rancho.In all, nine people working in the pair of restaurants or living inside the brothers’ residences between October 2012 and May 2013 did not have authorization to work in the United States, Martinez said.The arrests of all nine subjects and their subsequent deportations led to a seven-count indictment levied against each brother on charges ranging from harboring illegal aliens to failure to paying minimum wage and overtime, in violation of US labor laws.The Santa Fe restaurant is located in the vicinity of St. Francis Drive and Zia Road, in a strip mall anchored by an Albertsons.The brothers will pay a fine of at least $120,000, and the younger brother was forced to forfeit a residence he owned on Aztec Court in Rio Rancho. 

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.