Owner of Charleroi staffing agency pleads guilty to harboring illegal immigrants months after Trump, Vance slammed for highlighting immigration problem in PA

The owner of a Charleroi staffing agency in Pennsylvania has pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants for financial gain as well as failing to pay employment taxes to the tune of $3 million. This comes just months after President Donald Trump as well as Vice President JD Vance were slammed online for their claims regarding immigration in the Pennsylvania town.

Andy Ha, 28, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to the charges, which stem from his operation of a temporary staffing agency, Prosperity Services, Inc., which he ran from September 2022 to April 2024.

Ha admitted to harboring over 25 workers who are illegal immigrants, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. Ha provided a former hotel as housing for the illegal immigrants as well as arranged for vans to transport them to their job sites in the area of Charleroi, Pennsylvania.

As part of the scheme, Ha submitted false tax returns to the IRS, listing only a fraction of the actual workers employed by Prosperity Services. This resulted in a significant tax loss of at least $3.1 million. Ha knowingly signed these inaccurate documents, representing less than 10 percent of his true workforce.

Ha's sentencing is scheduled for July 22, 2025, and he faces significant penalties of a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison for the tax-related charge and up to 10 years for harboring illegal aliens. Additionally, he could face fines as high as $250,000.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, claims made by Vance as well as Trump about the amount of immigration in the town were labeled as "misinformation" about Haitian immigrants, along with their comments on the amount of immigration in Springfield, Ohio, another town that had a large influx of Haitian immigrants.

Vance cited Charleroi as an example where a heavy influx of immigrants has caused problems with taxpayer-funded programs, per 90.5 WESA, saying, "When we add thousands upon thousands of children of illegal aliens to Pennsylvania schools, children who can't even speak their local language, that means American citizens lose quality in their education."

Trump had said that there was a significant wave “of Haitian migrants under Vice President Kamala Harris” in Charleroi and that it was “costing local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Despite facing backlash, their claims matched what some residents in Charleroi said of the situation. One resident of the town told NBC News about the enormous influx of Haitian immigrants in the town, saying, “There's just so many people and there's just not enough resources, there's not enough jobs, there's not enough homes. People need to know that's just not Springfield – this is coming to a town near you."

X account Libs of TikTok had previously posted footage taken in the area of Charleroi, Pennsylvania and reported that Haitian immigrants were "being bussed to and from food factories operated by Fourth Street Foods.”