A Michigan waterpark is under investigation for allegedly bussing illegal immigrants from Chicago to work at the facility, where a dispute about pay over the weekend uncovered bigger issues.
The manager of the waterpark hotel Splash Universe in Dundee called police around 6:50 p.m. on Saturday to report a female employee threw a phone and hit him in the head, but once officers arrived, none of a group of five employees spoke English, WTVG reports.
After calling in a Michigan State Police interpreter, a 30-year-old woman “told the interpreter that she was an undocumented immigrant who was brought to Splash Universe by the manager with the promise of receiving $90 per day for working at the hotel, along with room and board.
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“She said they had worked nine days and had yet to receive payment,” a police report read.
Another 25-year-old woman used Google Translate to tell the officer she was pregnant and had not eaten in two days.
“She also told me that the argument had started specifically after they were told that they were only going to be paid $5 per hour, instead of the $90 a day they were originally promised,” the report read. “She also told me the manager threatened to call (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) if they did not do what he told them to do.”
Dundee Police interviewed the manager, who said he didn’t want to pursue charges against his assailant. The officer asked for documentation for the employees. While the manager insisted the employees were legal to work, he could not provide documentation, WTOL reports.
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Splash Universe said in a verbal statement to WTOL “everybody who works here is fully documented, completely authorized, they have socials and work authorization.”
The manager told police he picked the employees up from a shelter in Chicago, promised to pay them $90 a day, and denied the claims about $5 an hour. A front desk clerk at Splash Universe told police the hotel owners brought the employees in on two chartered buses from Chicago.
Dundee Police contacted ICE, which confirmed three employees who had IDs were in the country illegally and told the responding officer it appeared the hotel was trafficking immigrants, according to WTVG.
The hotel owner told WTVG the workers came from the consulting firm Illinois Department of Human Services to be trained on general contracting. Three of the workers were fired for poor performance, the owner said.
The fired employees were eventually paid $450 in cash at the behest of Dundee Police, before the officer bought them meals at McDonalds and dropped them off at a Toledo Greyhound station.
A social worker at Social Club Shelter in Chicago confirmed all of the workers were illegal immigrants with no family in Michigan. The social worker said the residents were picked up several weeks prior in an “extremely weird situation” the social worker and a co-worker recorded on their phone, WTOL reports.
The shelter arranged for Greyhound tickets to get them back to Chicago, according to the news site.
The police report states multiple law enforcement agencies are slated to follow up on the investigation.
A spokesperson with Homeland Security Investigations told WTVG “Due to an ongoing investigation, HIS is unable to comment at this time.”
Splash Universe shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and new owners – brothers Jacob and Joseph Garmo – planned to reopen in the fall of 2022, but that didn’t happen until April 2024, WTOL reports.