Immigration Crackdown: Companies pay millions for hiring illegal immigrants

Houston Chronicle: "When U.S. immigration agents scoured the hiring paperwork on file at Advanced Containment System Inc. last year, they found identification cards supposedly issued by the "Texas Department of Safety." Words including "identification" and "department" were misspelled. One ID card even had the words "novelty item" typed on the back. Some 44 percent of the company's Houston workforce from 2005 to 2009 was in the country illegally and was paid an estimated $2 million during that time, the audit showed.

On Tuesday, U.S. immigration officials and federal prosecutors announced they had reached a $2 million settlement with ACSI in exchange for avoiding criminal prosecution." read more

Immigration Crackdown: Audits Drive Illegal Workers Underground

Here is another unintended, negative consequence of the Obama administration's crackdown on unauthorized immigration. 

Immigration Audits Drive Illegal Workers Underground - WSJ.com: "The journey from prosperity to the economic margins ... is an increasingly common path for thousands of undocumented workers pushed out of their jobs by the federal government's audits of U.S. businesses, according to immigration experts, business owners and unions. (These are known as I-9 audits from the number of the document employers are required to keep on file for each employee, in which the employee states that he/she is a citizen or legally eligible to work in the U.S.)

The audits, started by the Obama administration in 2009, put the onus on business to police workers, requiring companies to turn over employee (I-9) records to federal agents. If the papers aren't in order, the workers are quietly let go without penalty while the companies are punished.

The audits, conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, were initially hailed by some immigrant advocates as more humane because they eliminate deportation raids, the norm during the Bush administration.

But it has become increasingly clear that the policy is pushing undocumented workers deeper underground, delivering them to the hands of unscrupulous employers, depressing wages and depriving federal, state and local coffers of taxes, according to unions, companies and immigrant advocates."

Immigration Crackdown: As Immigration Audits Increase, Some Employers Pay a High Price

How a Small Business Can Survive an Immigration Audit - NYTimes.com: "...1,444 businesses ... receive(d) an introduction to ICE’s stepped-up worksite enforcement program in 2009 — almost three times the number audited in 2008. ...

While the administration of George W. Bush focused on headline-making raids that resulted in arrests of immigrant workers, the Obama administration has gone after employers with ICE’s I-9 audits on the theory that employers who hire unauthorized workers create the demand that drives most illegal immigration. ...

“The master narrative of immigration reform is being crafted around the notion of unscrupulous employers seeking cheap labor,” said Craig Regelbrugge, a lawyer and lobbyist with the American Nursery and Landscape Association.

Unscrupulous employers exist, Mr. Regelbrugge said, but more often he sees business owners who are just trying to follow the law. When a new hire produces seemingly legitimate forms of documentation required by the I-9 form, the employer must accept them. (To refuse could expose the owner to charges of employment discrimination.) “The employer is not required to be a forensics expert,” said Monte Lake, an immigration lawyer in Washington.

The upshot of the more aggressive enforcement is that even employers who have followed the rules can be devastated by an audit that compels them to fire valuable, long-time employees."

Immigration Crackdown on Illegal Labor Intensifies

These are audits of I-9 forms, which federal law requires that all employers obtain from every employee to verify their eligibilty to legally work in the U.S. The audits have become a primary tool of the Obama administration in its crackdown on unauthorized immigrants. 

Crackdown on Illegal Labor Intensifies - WSJ.com: "The Obama administration intensified a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying 1,000 companies Wednesday that they will be subjected to inspections of hiring records.

The surge brings the number of companies audited by immigration authorities to 2,338 in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, surpassing last year's record 2,196. The total amount of fines levied against employers for breaking labor and immigration laws reached $7.1 million compared with $6.9 million for the entire previous fiscal year....

The audits, which have affected garment makers, produce growers and fast-food chains, result in the firing of every illegal immigrant on a company's payroll. Companies say the audits undermine productivity and cost them thousands of dollars in legal fees."

Immigration Crackdown: Obama Administration Cracks Down on Illegal Immigrants’ Employers

The president seems to have found his "middle ground" - crack down on employers and ask the Republicans for favors. 

Obama Administration Cracks Down on Illegal Immigrants’ Employers - NYTimes.com: "Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves.

... the scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions."

Immigration Crackdown: 'Silent raids' and E-Verify immigration enforcement are destroying US farms

OpEd by Daniel Altschuler, Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, has written extensively on immigration politics.

'Silent raids' and E-Verify immigration enforcement are destroying US farms - CSMonitor.com: "Enforcement-only immigration policies will further devastate immigrant communities, ravage labor-intensive agriculture, and take away countless jobs beyond the farm sector. If elected officials want US fruit and vegetable farms to survive, they need to implement smarter immigration reform. ...

The truth is that, until Congress offers existing workers a legal path to remain and employers a legal means to hire them, increasing enforcement creates more problems than it solves....

Still, the growers’ and farmworkers’ positions are not irreconcilable. In fact, their advocates have been joined at the hip in lobbying efforts since 2003, when they forged a bipartisan compromise bill, which garnered a remarkable 63 Senate co-sponsors, called AgJobs (The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act). AgJobs would expand H-2A, improve worker protections, and offer legalization for farmworkers already here."

Immigration Crackdown: Audit Hits Minnesota Firm

Immigration Audit Hits Minnesota Firm - WSJ.com: "Harvard Maintenance Inc., a national janitorial company, will lose over half its Minnesota work force after an immigration audit, making it the second major business in that state to be hit by an Obama administration crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants.

The audit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will result in about 240 workers losing their jobs, the Service Employees International Union said on Monday. ...

Harvard Maintenance began issuing dismissal letters to employees in early March and is in the process of terminating workers, according to the SEIU, which represents the workers. Harvard Maintenance gave workers 90 days to rectify irregularities in their employment-eligibility documents before informing them they could no longer work there, the union said.

"You are not legally authorized to hold employment in the United States," said a company dismissal letter to an employee that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Obama administration has made employers the cornerstone of its immigration crackdown that began in 2009.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., which owns and operates nearly 1,100 outlets across the U.S., was recently forced to dismiss 450 workers in Minnesota amid an immigration investigation that began last year and has spread to other states."

Immigration Crackdown & Reality: In immigration reform, arguing against workplace raids

This is a followup on today's LA Times editorial.

In immigration reform, arguing against workplace raids | Opinion L.A. | Los Angeles Times: "In February 2009, Dick Gordon interviewed a woman, who wished to remain anonymous, for 'The Story,' about her experience during the raid at the Howard Industries Manufacturing plant in Mississippi, in which 600 workers were arrested. She concludes with this message:

"What I would like to say to the American people, or the listeners, is that we don't come here to steal; we didn't come here to steal anybody’s job; or steal anything from anybody. We came here to work and we work hard for what we work. I could see if we were out there on the streets stealing somebody's money that they would say that we came to steal. But we didn’t come to take anything away. We came to support our children and support our parents. Have they not ever had to work to support their children and support their parents, wouldn’t they do it too?"

Immigration Crackdown: The limits of enforcement

A Washington Post editorial

The limits of immigration enforcement: "Recently, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) announced that it is beefing up its ability to go after larger companies that may employ undocumented workers. All that is a sensible shift from Bush administration policy, which emphasized raids on factories featuring mass detentions of the workers themselves.

If the current policy turns up the heat on corporations, so much the better; they may in turn increase pressure on Congress to reform America's broken immigration system. As it stands, that system ignores the fact that millions of undocumented workers play an integral role in the economy and that the nation needs a realistic mechanism for admitting sufficient numbers of low-skilled employees to fill jobs that Americans don't want, even with the nation suffering from high unemployment.

As long as Congress refuses to act, the problem will continue to fester." Jan. 22, 2011

Immigration Crackdown: New England firms face steep fines for hiring illegal workers

While this aritcle focuses on New England, it provides a good analysis of the nation-wide problems of businesses with the present federal attempts to eliminate the employment of undocumented migrants and what legislative reforms are needed to address these problems.

New England firms face steep fines for hiring illegal workers - The Boston Globe: "Those penalties (fines) are the result of a major shift last year in the Obama administration’s immigration strategy. Instead of the dramatic, large-scale raids that snagged hundreds of illegal immigrants, including at a New Bedford factory three years ago, federal officials say they are focusing more on the businesses that hire them. The aim is to eliminate the job opportunities that attract illegal workers. ...

Federal immigration officials audited more than 2,000 companies nationwide last fiscal year, examining the federal I-9 forms that companies must maintain for employees certifying that they are all eligible to legally work in the United States. Nationwide, federal officials fined noncompliant companies $6.95 million last fiscal year, 10 times the amount two years before. ...

The fines frustrated businesses that said they wished Congress and the president would find a solution to illegal immigration so that they could avoid fines and other trouble. ...

Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, said three pieces must be in place to solve the problem: Illegal workers should be (able to come) here legally to reduce their incentive to get false documents, the government should carry out effective enforcement, and businesses should have access to the workers they need, more in expansive times, and fewer during a recession.

Otherwise, he said, the fake document industry will continue to thrive and sabotage the system. “That’s the real challenge here,’’ said Chishti, who runs the institute’s office at the New York University School of Law. “Unless you get all these three things working together, we won’t have anywhere close to a good, functioning system.’’"

Immigration Crackdown: Warnings Abound In Enforcing Immigration Job Rules : NPR

Warnings Abound In Enforcing Immigration Job Rules : NPR: "'The I-9 system is deeply flawed,' said Daniel Costas, an immigration policy analyst at Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. It 'relies on employer eyesight for the verification of government identification and documents ... If this is how the system is going to work, then it's a big waste of time and money.'

The system is meant to thwart illegal immigrants from working in the U.S., where about 7.8 million illegal immigrants have jobs, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center.But at its foundation is a law that requires a promise that employers check their workers' eligibility to work. Those forms are never submitted to the government. Employers must simply keep them on hand in case the government decides to audit the business and do a check of its workers' immigration status. All employers are required to keep the forms — no matter the size of the business." Nov. 1, 2010

Immigration Crackdown: New Film Tries to Inject Compassion Into Immigration Debate

Renee Feltz: New Film Tries to Inject Compassion Into Immigration Debate: "In his new film about the largest immigration raid in US history, acclaimed director Luis Argueta attempts to 'create a new narrative about immigrants.' A recent screening of abUSed: The Postville Raid, in New York City offered a glimpse of how this can work." Oct. 28,2010