UK AG Is Fined for Hiring Maid Who Was an Illegal Immigrant

British Attorney General Patricia Scotland has been fined 5,000 pounds for hiring a housekeeper who was illegally in the country.

The revelation brought calls for Scotland’s resignation, according to Reuters and the Associated Press. Scotland said she checked the documents of her housekeeper, but did not keep them, a violation of the law. AP says the fine amounts to about $8,100.

The British border agency said Scotland hadn’t knowingly hired a woman who had overstayed her visa. Scotland had worked on legislation to toughen penalties for hiring illegal immigrants in a previous post as a Home Office minister, AP says.

One of President Clinton’s nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird, was withdrawn after disclosures that she had employed illegal immigrants as housekeepers and failed to pay the required taxes, a 1993 New York Times story recounts. He decided not to nominate a second candidate, Kimba Wood, because she had hired an illegal immigrant as a baby sitter, even though the employee was not illegal at the time of her hire.