Sen.'s office: Halliburton subcontractor hired illegal workers

NEW ORLEANS A Halliburton subcontractor is denying that immigration agents are detaining a large number of illegal immigrants it hired to do Hurricane Katrina recovery work.

Senator Mary Landrieu's office said today that there may be more than 100 workers involved. They were detained yesterday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. They had been setting up a tent city at a Navy base just outside New Orleans.

The Birmingham, Alabama-based subcontractor, B-E-and-K, was awarded the work by Halliburton, which won contracts after Katrina to repair several military bases in the Gulf Coast region.

A B-E-and-K spokeswoman says immigration officials descended on the work site, but she denies that any of its employees were detained.

She says that all the company's workers have valid work documents and that only about three of the 150 workers at the Navy base are green-card holders.