- Dr. Oz on Sunday tweeted he will "fight to end illegal immigration" if he's elected to the Senate.
- In 2017, his wife's family business faced the largest fine in ICE history for hiring undocumented immigrants.
- Asplundh Tree Experts, Co. remains family-run; Dr. Oz is listed as a shareholder of the company.
In a Sunday tweet, Mehmet Oz vowed to "fight to end illegal immigration" should he be elected to the Senate, despite the fact that his family's business faced a record-breaking fine from ICE for hiring undocumented workers.
"As your United States Senator, I will fight to end illegal immigration and soft-on-crime policies that release dangerous, undocumented criminals into sanctuary cities," Oz tweeted.
The former heart surgeon turned-TV personality turned-Trump-endorsed politician quickly faced backlash from users, who called Oz a liar and shared stories related to a fine levied against a business started by his wife Lisa's grandfather.
—Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) June 12, 2022
Asplundh Tree Experts, Co., a business for which Oz is listed as a shareholder on FEC documents, settled with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in 2017 after a six-year investigation and audit revealed a systemic effort to hire undocumented workers for their tree-pruning company.
"Asplundh Tree Experts, Co., one of the largest privately-held companies in the United States, headquartered in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, ('Asplundh'), pleaded guilty today to unlawfully employing aliens," an ICE press release regarding the settlement read, "in connection with a scheme in which the highest levels of Asplundh management remained willfully blind while lower level managers hired and rehired employees they knew to be ineligible to work in the United States."
The company, which has donated $12,000 to Oz's Senate campaign, was sentenced to pay forfeiture in the amount of $80 million dollars and an additional $15 million dollars "to satisfy civil claims arising out of their failure to comply with immigration law," an amount which represented the largest payment ever levied in an immigration case.
"Neither Dr. Oz nor Lisa Oz have even worked at the company or had any involvement in decision-making regarding its business practices, period," campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine told The New York Post. "The company reached a civil settlement in 2017 with the federal government with no further action taken since then. Dr. Oz and Lisa Oz are passive shareholders in the company along with 200+ other family members. As passive, minority shareholders, Dr. Oz and Lisa Oz had zero involvement in the settlement."
Dr. Oz's campaign did not respond to Insider's request for comment.