As the owner of a local, construction company that follows the rules and doesn’t hire illegal immigrants, Derek Boudreau, 38, of Centreville’s Sequoia Farms community just had to speak up.

After reading several comments by people sympathetic to illegal immigrants in two, May 8 articles in Centre View, he wanted to present an entirely different view from someone with firsthand knowledge of the detrimental impact illegal immigrants can have on business and on the country, as a whole.

"Illegal immigration has a tremendous impact on the construction industry and people’s wages," said Boudreau. "Illegals break criminal laws on a daily basis — they break building-code laws, business laws, federal laws and county ordinances."

Boudreau owns Living Water Design & Build of Centreville. His company builds decks and home additions and finishes basements, and Boudreau would also like to someday develop low-income housing for Fairfax County. He began as a laborer and worked his way up to become a Class A builder and master carpenter, and he’s appalled by and angry about the type of work he’s seen many illegals do.

"Homeowner after homeowner comes to me, looking to repair something illegal immigrants did — it’s always the same issue," he said. "I see the most unsafe, really stupid and worst building practices done by illegals who know very little about building codes — and that’s very dangerous. But there’s no enforcement, so structures are incorrectly built and the results are horrendous — ceilings buckle, roofs sag and decks fall apart."

Things are different when county building inspectors are on the scene. The problem, said Boudreau, is that "not everybody gets a building permit before doing an addition or a deck, etc. You’re supposed to, but not everyone does."

For example, he said, a Great Falls homeowner hired a group of El Salvadorians to rebuild an old deck for him. It was 1,300 square feet and the men tore it down. "But when they discovered they didn’t know how to handle modern, deck-building materials, the homeowner called me, and I had to rebuild and reframe it."

Boudreau said illegal immigrants know how to do tile work, drywall, painting and basic house framing, but have problems with jobs requiring engineering. He said an illegal immigrant in Prince George’s County, Md., "masqueraded as a licensed builder" but lacked the skills to finish a deck job and built it improperly. "It was on the second story of a townhouse," said Boudreau. "So it was dangerous for people to stand on without falling 10 feet to the ground."

Furthermore, he said, "People who hire people at day-labor sites have no responsibility for them and don’t have to pay insurance or Workmen’s Compensation for them. It’s totally illegal for a contractor to pick up a day laborer, but we continue to let it happen. These contractors can then bid [jobs] at a lower price [because they have less expenses], but contractors legally paying their bills, insurance, licensing, business and federal taxes and general liability insurance have to bid higher. And it can push them out of business or tempt them to go illegal."



LAST NOVEMBER, Boudreau’s company was one of five bidding to finish a 2,200-square-foot basement of a million-dollar house in Fairfax Station. He bid $77,000, three other companies bid higher and one bid $49,000. He said it was because that company uses illegal immigrants and doesn’t pay all the costs it should. As a result, said Boudreau, "I lost business, and it forces me and others to drop our prices."

"For home-improvement work, 15 percent of every dollar you pay for labor goes to Workmen’s Compensation," he said. "If you’re a roofer, it’s 30 percent because of the greater risk." So companies not paying for these things can charge less for their services.

But Boudreau said proceeds from things such as business licenses and state and federal taxes are "what allows our system to work and allows us to have police, firefighters, hospitals and roads. Third-world countries are fighting for all of that."

It also bothers him that many immigrants send money home to relatives in their countries. "While this is noble, it also leeches off American prosperity and wreaks havoc," he said. "We don’t have the money to be supporting 20 million illegal immigrants, and I see an impact on my business, customers and family because of it."

Boudreau’s wife is Hispanic, so he says this is not a race issue: "It’s an economic issue and an issue of obeying the law, and she feels just as strongly about this as I do." He also fired a salvo at members of Wellspring United Church of Christ who’ve adopted a gentler, more embracing attitude toward illegal immigrants living in the local community.

"It’s fine to be compassionate about them," he said. "But the Bible says Jesus Christ actually told us to obey the laws of the governing authorities over us — not to break the laws. So for churches to say they’re going to enable people to disobey the law is wrong. For them to offer day-labor sites for illegal immigrants to continue breaking the law is against Christ."

Instead, Boudreau believes illegal immigrants shouldn’t be able to get driver’s licenses and says government databases of the IRS, DMV and ICE should be linked to better track down those illegally in the U.S.

"I think we have to deport them and, at the same time, increase the funding for naturalization services to naturalize people who want to come in," he said. "We should give them citizenship classes. Don’t lower the bar for them and give them amnesty, but help them achieve the bar and attain citizenship legally. People need to do this the right way; otherwise, it hurts America. And right now, a significant amount of business is going underneath Fairfax County’s tax radar."