Springfield restaurant owner pleads guilty to hiring undocumented employees

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Lorenzo Castro-Manzanarez, owner of several Mexican restaurants in Springfield, has pleaded guilty to charges related to employing illegal immigrants.

Castro-Manzanarez admitted to transporting and harboring illegal immigrants, as well as providing them with employment using fraudulent identification documents.

Rina Edge, an immigration attorney in Springfield, told Ozarks First situations like these can sometimes be considered 'labor trafficking.'

"People are recruited in their home countries for a job in the United States, and they do it under the auspices that, 'hey, we're going to get you a visa and everything is going to be legit,'" said Edge. "Then they have them pay a large fee in order to get to the United States. Then once they do that and they get here, then they use that fee or a debt to require them to work in order to pay it back."

On the other hand, the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance (SMIA) told Ozarks First the term "labor trafficking" is a wide-cast net.

"It's very important to not complete the actions of one person's with an entire community," said SMIA. "There are many cases where people are just trying to help out their fellow human beings and a system that is incredibly unjust."

SMIA told Ozarks First it's important to center the workers humanity in situations like these. An individual may find themselves in this situation due to coercion, misinformation and exploitation, or out of necessity.

"In cases like this, where perhaps maybe an employer is accused of hiring or harboring undocumented workers, we must recognize that the workers are often navigating survival and not criminal intent," said SMIA.

SMIA also stressed what they referred to as the structural realities in circumstances like these.

"There is a lack of a legal pathway," said SMIA. "There can be labor exploitation in an economy that depends on undocumented labor while criminalizing it."

Ozarks First spoke with the manager at El Poblano, who confirmed the restaurant will remain open for the foreseeable future.