Romney's lawn firm draws new scrutiny

Two public agencies said yesterday they are reconsidering their relationship with a landscaping company following a Globe story yesterday reporting that illegal immigrants were employed by the company, which also maintains the grounds of Governor Mitt Romney's Belmont home.

The city of Chelsea said it will review its contract with Community Lawn Service with a Heart, which maintains parks and school grounds in the city. The Massachusetts Port Authority said the company will not be allowed to renew its contract with the authority next year to maintain vacant lots in East Boston unless it can demonstrate it complies with federal immigration law.

"We expect every company that does business with Massport to comply with state and federal law," said Richard Walsh, a spokesman for Massport.

Meanwhile, Romney, through a spokesman, declined to say whether he will continue to use the Chelsea-based company, which has maintained Romney's 2 1/2-acre property on Marsh Street for a decade. Romney said Thursday through his spokesman that he did not know anything about the workers' immigration status.

The Globe story reported that illegal Guatemalan immigrants make up a significant presence at the tiny company. Reporters interviewed four current and former employees of the company. All but one of the workers said they were in the United States illegally.

In the statement from his spokesman Thursday, Romney said that he dealt only with the owner of the company, Ricardo Saenz, a legal immigrant from Colombia. The statement also said the governor planned to look further into the Globe report, and a Romney aide called Saenz Thursday to ask for details on his workers' status.

Saenz declined to comment yesterday. Earlier in the week he had denied that any of his workers were in the country illegally.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said in Spanish to a reporter, saying the subject was difficult for him.

Federal law requires employers to examine documents, such as green cards or Social Security cards, that establish a worker's identity and eligibility to work in the United States.

Saenz told the Globe that he did not need to see the documents of his employees, because he knew that they were legal.

City Manager Jay Ash said Chelsea officials will "certainly be looking into" the possibility that local tax dollars may have gone to illegal immigrants. The city has a contract with the lawn service through next April to cut grass at seven public schools and a separate contract with the same firm to cut the lawns at City Hall and a public park.

Ash said he does not believe the city had a legal obligation or even the right to check whether Saenz's employees were legally working in the country.

The Globe story stirred intense reaction from all sides of the immigration debate yesterday. Romney has grown more vocal in his opposition to illegal immigration as he eyes a White House bid in 2008. He supports construction of a new 700-mile fence along the country's border with Mexico and stationing National Guard troops there until it is finished.

An advocate for immigrants yesterday called the governor a hypocrite.

"Over the past four years, Governor Romney has railed against undocumented immigrants relentlessly," Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant Advocacy Coalition, said in a statement. "To our knowledge, Governor Romney has never offered a solution that respects undocumented immigrants as hard-working individuals striving to achieve the American dream, like the individuals who manicured his lawn for the past 10 years."

A Democratic National Committee spokesman, Damien LaVera, said that "Romney was too busy using immigration to cozy up to the right wing of the Republican Party to bother tending to his own backyard first."

But others defended the governor and said the Globe story said less about Romney and more about the nation's failed immigration policy.

"We have a situation of pervasive tolerance of illegal immigration," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

"As a consequence, because the federal government has failed to take even the most basic steps necessary to control immigration, consumers are in the position of constantly coming into contacts with illegals."

Manuel Macias, an East Boston attorney who specializes in immigration law, said that someone who hires a contractor to perform services on his property has no obligation to make sure the employer's workers are in the country legally.

"If you hire a contractor, it's their responsibility, if they have employees, to [abide] by state and city laws, from workman's comp to immigration requirements," he said.

Globe correspondent Connie Paige contributed to this report. Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com., Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.