Business Immigration Compliance

U.S. Justice Dept. alleges discrimination against non-citizens at John Jay College

2010-04-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

John Jay College Accused of Bias Against Noncitizens

By NINA BERNSTEIN

Published: April 16, 2010

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Friday against John Jay College of Criminal Justice, alleging that the school engaged in a pattern of job discrimination against noncitizens who were authorized to work.
The lawsuit, considered the department’s first in years to crack down on immigration-related discrimination against noncitizens, says the college violated provisions of immigration law by demanding extra work authorization from at least 103 individuals since 2007, rather than accepting the work-eligibility documents required of citizens, like a Social Security card and a driver’s license.

Congress Must Fix Before Expanding Employment Verification Programs Programs Should Only Be Discussed in Context of Wider Reform

2009-07-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

July 23, 2009

Washington D.C. - As Congress holds hearings and introduces plans for expansion of an Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS) like E-verify, it has become clear that some version of employment verification will be part of comprehensive immigration reform. However, much remains to be done before EEVS is ready for prime time. The following is a statement from Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center:

"E-Verify received a lot of attention on Capitol Hill this week, but the radically different approaches to its implementation considered by Congress reinforces our observation that it is not ready for prime time. The Senate Immigration Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, held a hearing that looked at an expanded E-Verify program as part of an integrated component of comprehensive immigration reform. In contrast, Congressman Heath Shuler announced the reintroduction of a previously failed bill, the SAVE Act, which calls for mandatory expansion of E-Verify without fixing our broken immigration system.

Senator Schumer understands that we can't implement a mandatory electronic employment-verification system like E-Verify in its present form, without serious protections and revisions to it. While there remains significant disagreement over what those protections should look like, there is a clear understanding that the gravity of implementing a mandatory program that has the potential to affect every individual's ability to work - citizen or immigrant - requires thoughtful consideration and analysis.

We mustn't forget that employment verification affects every person who works in the U.S. - not just undocumented immigrants - and Congress must move forward carefully. Any expansion of E-Verify must be part of wider reform which requires current unauthorized workers to legalize their status and gives employers legal channels through which they may hire needed legal workers. Attempting to implement a mandatory E-Verify program without such reforms, as Congressman Shuler envisions, is a recipe for disaster.

Mandatory E-verify could put thousands of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants at risk of losing their jobs, will be expensive for small businesses at a time when the economy is weak, places additional pressures on the already overburdened Social Security Administration, and does not guarantee that undocumented workers will not get jobs. Every effort must be made to ensure that a new and expanded EEVS program will actually serve its intended purpose."

View IPC's Fact Check on the Key Components of Employment Verification Systems:

* 10 Key Components for Workable and Effective Electronic Employment Verification System, (IPC Fact Check), July 23, 2009

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For press inquiries contact Wendy Sefsaf at 202-507-7524 or wsefsaf@ailf.org

Nervous Employers Turn to ID Check for Workers

2009-03-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

By Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff / March 6, 2009

A federal system that lets employers check the legal status of their workers is soaring in popularity across the country, growing by 1,000 companies a week, fueled by anxiety over workplace raids and uncertainty over the future of the nation's illegal immigrants.

Get a state-by-state breakdown of E-verify searches for the past three years.

Leading the trend are Arizona and Mississippi, which have made the system mandatory for all employers, and 10 other states that require it for state agencies and contractors. But the system is also ballooning in states where it is optional, such as California, Texas, and Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, enrollment quadrupled to 1,712 businesses over the past three years, from Boston's exclusive Algonquin Club to the Papa Gino's restaurant chain to the law firm Ropes & Gray, according to a list provided by the federal government. Individual employers and private households may also use the system: Ann Romney, wife of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, signed up last year after a Globe investigation found that the family had twice hired a landscaping company that used unauthorized workers.

Known as E-Verify, the system is up for renewal in Congress and igniting debate across the United States. Federal officials are waging a publicity campaign to turn the once-obscure service into a household name, while advocates for immigrants say it contains erroneous information that could lead to some workers being unfairly denied jobs.

But employers, rattled as business owners are going to jail and paying million-dollar fines for hiring illegal workers, say the system offers peace of mind.

"God knows we check everything," said Lassaad Riahi, general manager of the Algonquin Club, which signed up for E-Verify more than a year ago. "We don't want to hire anybody that doesn't have the proper identification or the proper IDs or the proper number or the proper something."

Nationally the number of businesses in the system has risen 10-fold since 2006, to more than 113,000 this week, with checks on 6.6 million workers last fiscal year, double the year before.

Congress established E-Verify, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, in 1996 as a pilot program for a handful of states.

But the system expanded significantly in 2007, amid national debate over illegal immigration, and government officials predict that it will become even more widespread if Congress legalizes the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

All federal agencies began using E-Verify in 2007, including the office of Barack Obama when he was a US senator, and it will be required of all federal contractors starting in May.

E-Verify works like this: Companies and individual employers must first enroll in the free system, pass a tutorial, and sign a memorandum of understanding with the government. Then they enter all new employees' Social Security numbers and other information into an Internet program to verify their identities. The system searches federal databases and typically confirms the worker within seconds.

An unconfirmed employee has eight days to appeal. Companies can use the system for new hires only, under the rules, and do not automatically flag rejected workers for deportation because it is not used for enforcement.

Some employers are forced to use E-Verify - Rhode Island mandates it for state agencies - while others sign up voluntarily. Still other companies have signed up after something went wrong.

Eagle Industries started using the service in New Bedford after buying Michael Bianco Inc., the leather-goods factory raided by immigration agents two years ago. Former Bianco owner Francesco Insolia was recently sentenced to a year in prison and a $1 million fine.

Dunkin' Donuts made use of E-Verify mandatory for all stores in 2006 after a Connecticut franchise holder, Jose Calhelha, was arrested and charged with illegally hiring Portuguese workers. He was later sentenced to 10 months in prison, two years of probation, and a $1 million fine.

Business executives say the system is working overall, even as some grumble that it is time-consuming to learn and that problems can be costly to fix.

The Winchester Country Club, which has a long history of hiring seasonal landscapers from Honduras to groom the golf course, signed up last summer to improve hiring practices. Club officials immediately noticed that some of their best workers did not reapply.

"We don't intentionally hire illegal workers," said club general manager Paul Lazar. "Obviously, the reality is there's some really good people out there in the workforce and we'd love to be able to hire them. They show up every day and try to do a good job, and they don't sit around and try to call their girlfriends on their cellphones."

Critics of the service are anxious about E-Verify's rapid expansion. They say the existing databases contain inaccurate and sometimes fraudulent information. And they caution that enrolling in the system is no guarantee against immigration raids: The Swift & Co. meat packing company was enrolled in E-Verify when federal agents raided several plants in 2006 and arrested more than 1,200 people.

In addition, they say, legitimate workers are unfairly rejected because companies are wrongly screening them before they are hired, without giving them a chance to solve the problem.

"We think that an expansion of E-Verify without immigration reform makes no sense whatsoever," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. "We're not fixing the problem."

Government officials say they have boosted resources to significantly reduce errors. Last year, 3.9 percent of queries did not match, which is similar to the roughly 5 percent of the workforce that is estimated to be here illegally. Only 0.4 percent of those who were rejected had the finding overturned and were declared authorized to work.

"The system is working," said Kathy Lotspeich, deputy chief of verification for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Homeland Security agency that operates E-Verify. "We rarely get criticism from people who actually use the program."

The use of E-Verify is still tiny relative to the general workforce. Less than 2 percent of the nation's companies are enrolled, but more states and companies are considering using the service.

"Let's face it, the vast majority of employers want to do the right thing," said lawyer Susan Cohen of the Boston law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, which advises companies on the issue.

"With the increased emphasis over the last couple of years on workplace raids," she said, "the Department of Homeland Security has really put fear into the hearts of employers across the country about what could happen at their companies.

Farm Jobs Go To Residents, Not Guest Workers

2009-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

by Ted Robbins

February 20, 2009 · The U.S. agricultural industry has long complained about a labor shortage in the fields. The work force is aging and it is frequently too difficult for new farm workers to get visas. So, the federal government has just begun implementing new rules to ease the H-2A temporary agriculture worker program.

At 5 a.m., nearly 10,000 Mexican lettuce pickers wait to enter the U.S. at the port of entry between San Luis, Sonora, in Mexico and San Luis, Ariz., near Yuma. It's a daily scene during the winter season, but Anadina Cardenez Alvarez is here for the first time.

She is part of a group getting their H-2A visas. It took three months and cost $400, but she says it was worth it.

"People have told me here you can make $50 to $70 a day," she says. "There, you can barely make $50 to $70 a week. That's a big difference."

On that day, though, there was no work. The grower needed only half the number of visa workers as he thought he would.

"Due to the economic situation in the country, the farmers in this area have planted up to 40 percent less," says Janine Duron, executive director of the Independent Agricultural Workers' Center, a nonprofit that connects workers with growers. "So there's been less of a demand for farm workers. And there was just about enough demand to be met with the local domestic farm workers."

In this case, local domestic farm workers means Mexican citizens with U.S. green cards, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. These workers could legally live in the U.S., but they choose to live in Mexico because it's cheaper. In the last few years, green-card holders have made up about 15 to 20 percent of crossers, according to one customs officer's estimate. This winter, he says, that number has shot up to about 60 percent.

Paul Muthart, general manager of Pasquinelli Farms in Yuma, says it's one more effect of the recession.

"These folks who would otherwise be on a roof or in a kitchen or making a bed are back in the ag field," Muthart says.

From Farming To Construction, And Back

Such is the case of Felix Valdez, who got his green card in 1985 when the federal government offered illegal workers amnesty. He worked in the fields, but then he found a better job in construction. That's the typical pattern for immigrants. But now he's back in the fields he once left.

"I changed because there's no more construction," Valdez says. "Maybe in March … Maybe."

University of California agricultural economist Phil Martin says what's happening now is not just immigrant labor moving back to the fields, but fewer immigrants leaving agriculture in the first place.

"During the Depression, a lot of Americans who had left the farm returned to the farm," Martin says. "I like to think of the farm labor market as a revolving door in a big department store. People enter, on average they stay less than 10 years, and they leave. I think that the major thing that's happened is that door is turning slower."

But that door may not be turning at all. By the time it's light out, the Yuma workers have been taken by bus to the fields. They start picking the seemingly endless rows of romaine, butter leaf and iceberg lettuce, stooping to pick the heads then using knives to chop off the root. It's obviously hard work, and Duron, the nonprofit director, says that's a problem. Most of the domestic workers here — the green-card holders — are at least 50 years old.

"And mostly with 30-40 years or more working in the fields," she says. "They're not able to produce as well as a younger work force, and there is no younger work force in the United States."

More H-2A visa workers will likely be needed when the recession ends. But for now, older so-called domestic farm workers and former construction workers will take the jobs — unless things get so bad that U.S. citizens are willing to move across the country for five months' work in these lettuce fields at $350 a week.

Restaurant Worker Sentenced for Employing Illegal Workers

2009-02-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

Owner of San Pablo restaurant sentenced for employing illegal workers

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 02/09/2009 05:33:16 PM PST

Updated: 02/10/2009 06:15:20 AM PST

SACRAMENTO — A restaurant owner convicted of employing illegal aliens and mail fraud was sentenced Friday to pay $49,000 in fines and spend 36 months on probation and eight months in home confinement.

Prosecutors said Rui Tao Lin, 53, was the owner of King's Buffet in Vacaville, one of a group of affiliated family-owned restaurants that included Empire Buffet in San Pablo. The restaurants used a Los Angeles employment agency to recruit undocumented Asian workers, prosecutors said, while also hiring other undocumented workers who responded to classified advertisements.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided two of the restaurants in September, but did not hit the San Pablo restaurant because it never opened the day of the scheduled raid. Agents also made arrests at several homes, including one in Hercules, where the owners allegedly housed an illegal workforce.

Rui Tao Lin's brother, Rui Yang Lin, and co-defendant Bi Xia Ni were each sentenced last month to 36 months probation and a $36,000 fine. All pleaded guilty to charges in the fall.

Milk will cost a lot more without foreign workers

2009-01-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Ag economist: Labor issues could affect food prices
Dairy Herd news source | Monday, January 05, 2009

Migrant or foreign labor is a must for the dairy industry and other parts of agriculture, and a reduction in the workforce could cost consumers considerably, says David Anderson, AgriLife Extension economist in College Station, Texas. Labor and immigration are tied together, and it includes both legal and illegal immigration, he adds.

While immigration can be from another state or another region of the U.S., many minds turn to illegal immigration coming from other countries.

“We’ve always restricted immigration through the number of visas, which are much fewer than the demand, and so that encourages illegal immigration,” he says. “But the whole issue is a lot more complex that just illegal immigration. It is one that is important to the overall economy of the U.S. and other countries. The past pace of economic growth is not possible without immigration. We could not have had the economic growth of the past if we had not had as much immigration.”

Agriculture has much at stake in this issue, he says. It needs to get the debate away from the big issues and establish that there is a legitimate need for these workers. “We have to get away from the macro debate on open borders, security, citizenship and no immigrants,” he notes.

Foreign labor represents an estimated 43 percent of the nation’s dairy workforce, Anderson says.

The value of milk production is $28.7 billion and this part of the dairy industry alone provides 147,000 jobs nationwide, he says. If the related industries are added in, it is a $55 billion industry with 363,000 jobs.

If you had a foreign labor reduction of only 20 percent, you would lose 33,000 employees, $5.5 billion in sales and $1.5 billion in income, Anderson explains. Total elimination would be a lot higher, he adds. Illegal immigrants make up 50 percent of agriculture’s workers.

“What if we lost that production, what happens to retail prices?” Anderson asks. “We could see as much as a 30 percent increase.”

With dairies, labor is the second largest expense next to feed, he said. Large dairies pay higher wagers because they need specialized labor and can afford it because they have a lower per unit costs and are better able to bid higher for labor, on average.

Anderson says turnover averages 15 percent across all dairies. The rate of turnover can impact production per cow, death loss and feed efficiency, meaning it is costly for dairy operators. “That’s the hidden effect,” he says. “There is a cost of finding and training another person.”

About 20 percent of the dairy owners said they see labor shortages and are increasing wages to attract workers, he said. Wages are higher where competing jobs are located.
There is a vacuum of available workers, in part caused by the failure to pass immigration reform and the movement of penalties from civil to criminal, Anderson said.

The oil and gas industry in the High Plains has been very competitive for laborers, pulling them away from where they were working, he said. People move for higher paying jobs. “We also have a changing economy right now that is going to affect things,” Anderson says. “When the economy is poor, fewer come and more go back because the opportunity is not here.”

Since the economy has faltered, there is evidence of migrants leaving, he says. The amount of money being sent back to Mexico is down.

“Labor is a commodity and the market has to equilibrate,” Anderson adds. “This may mean workers moving to opportunities and higher wages. The wages must become relatively equal.”

The people will go where the jobs are and where there is economic growth, he says.
More than 7,000 people work in the livestock industry in the High Plains, Anderson said, and an estimated 3,000 more will be needed by 2027 in the Panhandle.

There are about 1.2 million people in the High Plains, including parts of Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. That figure remains fairly stable. The average individual wage is $25,000 annually for different types of employment, but 70 percent of that in agriculture.

“It’s going to be hard to find workers,” Anderson concludes. “They must come from one of three sources: current young residents, steal them away from another job or recruit them in.”

Source: Texas A&M University

Bush Unveils New Rules for Guest Worker Hiring

2008-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12farm.html?_r=1

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: December 11, 2008

LOS ANGELES — The Bush administration announced new rules on Thursday that it said would lessen the bureaucratic burden on employers seeking to hire foreign farm workers. Advocates for the workers, however, contended the changes would depress wages and working conditions.

The Labor Department released the changes in a document of more than 500 pages, the culmination of reviewing 11,000 comments since it proposed new regulations in February.

The changes apply to a guest worker program known as H-2A, after the visa that allows farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis for field jobs they cannot fill with Americans.

Most farmers ignore the program because of red tape and delays that could cost them precious harvesting time. In California, the 5,000 H-2A workers are a fraction of the peak agriculture work force of 450,000, according to the California Farm Bureau.

But, after Congress failed to revamp immigration laws and come up with a new guest worker program in 2007, the administration, seeking to attract more farmers to the program, moved forward with revisions not requiring Congressional approval.

The changes, the first major ones in 20 years, include eliminating duplication among state and federal agencies in processing applications, putting in place a new wage formula the department said would be fairer to workers, and increasing fines for willfully displacing United States workers with foreign ones.

An assistant secretary of labor, Leon R. Sequeira, said in an interview that while the changes would make the program “more predictable and timely, the program is still far from simple and easy to comply with.”

Growers agreed, and suggested the new rules would fall prey to litigation and perhaps reversals by the new administration.

“This is a program everybody acknowledges needs an overhaul,” said Craig J. Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a trade group. “Even if regulatory reform were wildly successful and carried on to the next administration, it can’t even begin to solve the agricultural labor crisis. The bottom line is Congress is still on the hook.”

Farmer and worker groups have backed long-stalled legislation that would make more sweeping changes.

Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, a major proponent of that legislation, denounced the revisions and said the senator “feels strongly that they should be withdrawn.”

Worker advocates said the Bush administration was seeking to put its stamp on the guest worker program instead of more rationally waiting for the next president. The regulations will be published next Thursday in The Federal Register and would take effect on Jan. 18, two days before President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated.

Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington, said of the changes, “The intent is a massive expansion of the guest worker program by enticing employers into a program with low wages and poor working conditions.”

Cleaning Firm Used Illegal Workers at Chertoff Home

2008-12-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003524_pf.html

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008; A01

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.

The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants.

Now, owner James D. Reid finds himself in a predicament that he considers especially confounding. In October, he was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees, five of whom he said were part of crews sent to Chertoff's home and whom ICE told him to fire because they were undocumented.

"Our people need to know," said the Montgomery County businessman. "Our Homeland Security can't police their own home. How can they police our borders?"

Reid admits he made mistakes but called the fine so excessive that it may put him out of business. Several of his workers moved after ICE agents showed up at their homes, he said.

Raising a common objection among employers as ICE cracks down on illegal hirings across the country, Reid said it is unreasonable to expect businesspeople to distinguish between fake and real driver's licenses and Social Security cards.

Immigration laws are unevenly enforced, he added, allowing big companies to stay in business while crushing small-business owners and workers. He said the rules punish "scapegoats" such as him while inviting people at every level -- customers, subcontractors and contractors -- to look the other way while benefiting economically from cheaper labor.

"No one wants to put the blame on the head; they'd rather put the blame on the business owner," said Reid, who owns Consistent Cleaning Services. "Damned if I should be fined for employees that I took over to their house."

Chertoff declined to comment. "We're very constrained in what we can say about anybody who has any kind of issue with the department," he said.

The Secret Service uses workers' ID information to conduct security checks, not immigration checks, much like most police departments do when they pull over people for traffic stops.

Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the service, which is part of Chertoff's department, declined to discuss specific screening practices. But he said agents protecting the secretary "would have run the appropriate checks, screened and escorted people as appropriate in order to maintain the security of the residence and our protectee's security."

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said that in this type of investigation, ICE focuses on the employers, not where employees are dispatched. He said that contractors have the responsibility of ensuring that their workers are legal, and that the Chertoffs were assured by Reid that workers sent to their home were legal. Upon learning that Reid might have hired illegal immigrants, the Chertoffs fired him, and the secretary recused himself from the department's subsequent enforcement actions, Knocke said.

"This matter illustrates the need for comprehensive immigration reform and the importance of effective tools for companies to determine the lawful status of their workforce," he said.

The Bush administration has pushed to expand employers' use of E-Verify, for instance, an electronic system that can confirm new hires' work documents against federal databases.

In addition to the Chertoffs' house, Reid said, his service once cleaned the Washington home of former president Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), now secretary of state-designee, as well as homes of another Bush Cabinet member and Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. In those cases, he said, his company worked as a subcontractor and billing was done by a larger contractor firm.

ICE investigated Reid's company under a 1986 federal law barring employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. It provides for civil and criminal penalties against employers who do not examine workers' documents and keep completed I-9 forms.

In February, ICE agents singled out Reid's company, and they subpoenaed two years of payroll and I-9 records this summer, a U.S. official said. Reid was fined $2,750 for hiring violations and $20,130 for not completing paperwork.

His offenses included failing to ask for IDs from or fill out I-9 forms for several workers who turned out to be in the country illegally. Reid said he also did not verify the eligibility of people he knew were native-born U.S. citizens, including himself, his stepbrother, his sister and his sister's friend.

ICE policy states that companies are not randomly selected for scrutiny and that all investigations are based on tips or intelligence. ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Reid was targeted under a year-old initiative called Project Safe Harbor, in which field offices pursue employers in the service, agriculture and fast-food industries.

Nantel declined to say when the Chertoffs learned of the investigation. She likened the couple to restaurant or hotel customers who take the owner's word that its workers are legal.

Reid said he was referred to the Chertoffs in 2005 and worked mainly with the secretary's wife, Meryl J. Chertoff, an adjunct professor and director of the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law School. Reid's calendar shows that the Chertoffs paid $185 per visit for his company to clean their suburban Maryland home.

Reid said he routinely asked workers to give personal information to Secret Service agents and assumed the workers were authorized because they were cleared.

Chertoff's situation appeared to be different from a case announced last week in which federal prosecutors arrested Lorraine Henderson, the Boston port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another part of Chertoff's department, on charges that she repeatedly hired illegal immigrants to clean her condominium.

Staff researcher Julie Tate and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Going Home to Guatemala - Aftermath to the Postville ICE Raid

2008-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

The aftermath of an immigration raid.
By Eliza Barclay
Posted Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008, at 10:27 AM ET

SAN MIGUEL DUEÑAS, Guatemala—One year ago, Freddy Granados said goodbye to his wife, Hilda Gil, and their two small children here in a shack tucked between volcanoes and coffee plantations. With job prospects in Dueñas grim even for Granados, a skilled baker, he departed on the standard illegal-border-crossing odyssey of poor Latin Americans chasing el sueño Americano.

Five months later, on May 12, 2008, Granados rose early and left the small apartment he shared with five other Guatemalan men to report for work on the cow-skinning line at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. That day, he and the 389 other illegal immigrants who arrived for the early shift fell prey to an expansive immigration crackdown, called "military-style" by a local priest. To make arrests at a plant with around 800 employees, the U.S. government dispatched 900 immigration agents and two helicopters. It was the second-largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, and it cost taxpayers $5.2 million, according to an October report by the Des Moines Register.

Within eight days, about 300 of the workers, including Granados, were coerced into pleading guilty to charges of identity theft and misuse of Social Security numbers, according to a court interpreter, Erik Camayd-Freixas, who penned a searing account of the trials. Granados was then sent to federal prison in Louisiana, where he served a five-month sentence before being deported back to Guatemala.

In the last two years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has begun to deploy the workplace raid with greater force. During that period, work-site enforcement arrests increased 41 percent from 3,667 to 5,173, while criminal arrests (mostly involving business owners, managers, or human-resource employees) increased 34 percent from 716 to 1,101.

But beginning with the Postville raid, ICE devised a way to use identity-theft laws to criminalize immigrants for working. Identity-theft laws are intended to prosecute people who steal identities to defraud others of money and property, not for people who use false papers to get a job. In the majority of the Postville cases, according to Camayd-Freixas, the immigrants were unaware that the Social Security number they were using belonged to a real person.

Entering the country outside the ports of entry and without proper documentation is certainly a crime, but a civil trial and quick deportation should be sufficient punishment. After months of lawyers, human-rights activists, and even some members of Congress kicking up a fuss over the application of identity-theft laws to immigrants, the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case on the issue.

"It's very unfair what they're doing," Granados told me over the phone recently, his voice squeezed by tears. "We're not criminals. We're workers." Granados was deported on Oct. 11, and he arrived home three days later. He says he is deeply pained by his experience and particularly by the treatment he received in the federal prison.

Granados said one of his lowest moments came when he spoke to his wife in July to tell her that he was in jail and would not be sending any more money. (According to Granados, federal prison officials did not let him communicate with his family for three months after the raid, nor did he ever receive his personal belongings from Postville.) Word of the raid had reached Dueñas, but Gil knew nothing of Granados' whereabouts and was gravely worried.

I met Gil in early October through her neighbor Mirna Jerez and a string of other women whose husbands and sons once worked in the Postville plant. In Dueñas, the summer brought a shared suffering for the women—the end of the remittances sent every 15 days from Postville. Most women had received about $265 a month from their husbands—enough to cover the electricity bill, keep an extended family nourished, and buy school supplies for the children. "These months have been very difficult," Gil, a timorous 32-year-old with a soft, round face, told me.

The women were perplexed by the charges; none of their husbands were troublemakers. They had gone to the United States for no other reason than to make life a little easier for their families in the shanties.

For the men, the process seemed even more opaque. "We didn't have any options," Granados recalled. "The only option was to plead guilty for stealing, when we never stole anything."

Prosecutors in the fast-tracked trials told the arrested workers that if they did not plead guilty, they could receive as much as a 10-year sentence. Such a possibility was inconceivable for Granados, with Gil and the small children at home in Dueñas depending on him.

By early October, Gil and the other women knew their men would be arriving home soon. But the prospect was a bittersweet one. Though Gil missed her husband, she knew he would be returning to a more difficult life in Guatemala than the one he left a year earlier. Fuel prices were up, and the price of a pound of beans had doubled from 40 cents to 80 cents. A global financial crisis would mean nothing good for a small, poor country like Guatemala.

Although it is little comfort to Granados, news that Agriprocessors had also suffered from the raid recently reached Dueñas. On Oct. 31, ICE arrested Agriprocessors CEO Aaron Rubashkin on allegations of harboring undocumented workers for financial gain and aiding and abetting workers in stealing identities. A few days later, Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy, having lost half its work force and having suffered a massive PR disaster.

If President-elect Barack Obama manages to move swiftly on immigration reform, the Postville raid may go down in history as a low point in using enforcement to try to fix a broken immigration system. But ICE may not be finished with its large-scale raids. At least a few members of the U.S Congress, including Joe Baca, a Democrat from California, have called on President George Bush to put a stop to them.

"Enforcement alone, no matter how well formulated or funded, is doomed to fail," Baca wrote in a letter to Bush in October. "We cannot deport our way out of this problem."
Eliza Barclay is a writer based in Washington, D.C., who reports on Latin America and Africa.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2205960/

Illegal staff may bring arrest, fine: Letters would warn employers if IDs didn't match database

2008-11-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

November 17, 2008

Illegal staff may bring arrest, fine

Letters would warn employers if IDs didn't match database

By Janell Ross
THE TENNESSEAN

When Nashville immigration lawyer Linda Rose holds a seminar for business owners, there are usually questions about worksite immigration raids.

But at a seminar this month, much of Rose's audience wanted to talk about immigration enforcement that comes in the mail, not through the door: the no-match letter.

After nearly 2½ years of litigation delays, the Department of Homeland Security announced in late October plans to revive an effort to put employers with suspected illegal workers on notice. If they don't act, they'll be penalized or even prosecuted.

No-match letters actually come from the U.S. Social Security Administration. The letters advise employers information submitted about workers does not correspond with information in the Social Security Administration's database. Under the new effort, the employer and employee would have about 90 days to address the problem.

Homeland Security announced in October the letters will include a list of actions employers must take. If an employer fails to follow the steps or fire the worker, the employer would be engaged in "knowingly employing" someone the agency considers an illegal worker.

Some first-time offenses — those that are a matter of a clerical error and those involving illegal workers but no evidence of a pattern — are considered civil violations. They carry fines that range from $110 to $3,200 per worker, Rose said.

But in cases where the government believes that there is a pervasive pattern of hiring illegal workers, criminal charges can be filed.

Penalties can range as high as six months in jail and or $3,000 fines.

A suit filed by the AFL-CIO in 2006 and joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups initially stopped Homeland Security from moving forward with its plans.

The groups said the measure would disrupt business operations, force employers to provide new training and, because of the 18 million errors the Social Security Administration estimates exist in its database, mistakes were likely.

Lawsuit pending on plan

The errors haven't been corrected, but Homeland Security wants to move forward. Officials will find out whether they can after a Friday federal court hearing on the lawsuit.

The Social Security Administration hasn't decided "due to the pending litigation whether it will be mailing the letters (to employers) or not," said Patti Patterson, an agency spokesperson based in Atlanta.

Some suspect the burden of proving a legal right to work in the U.S. will fall to employees.

"They are the ones who will be at risk of not being able to work when they are legally and fully able to do so," said Stephen Fotopulos, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. "I think there are a lot of people who want an employment system that works. But it will never work better than the data."

Tom Negri, the general manager of the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, said new workers there are run though an existing Department of Homeland Security database and must pass a background check and drug test. He said he doubts the plans would affect him, but they will other companies.

"They have to spend the money to have the kinks worked out," Negri said. "If they don't … well, with unemployment as high as it is, do you want it to affect millions of people, employable U.S. workers? I would think not at this period in time."

At: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008811170330

Migration - New Thinking - International Migration

2008-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

October 1, 2008

SECTION: IMF WORLD BANK

LENGTH: 1905 words

HEADLINE: Migration - New Thinking - International Migration - Time
To Go Home -
Figures From The World Bank And The United Nations Reveal How Migratory Trends
And Remittance Are Affected By The Global Economic Climate.

Only three out of every 100 people on earth is an international migrant,
according to the latest United Nations report on population and
development, and
the surprising aspect is that this figure has not changed since 1990. But while
the number of international migrants may have risen by 36 million (as the
world's population has increased) to reach 191 million by 2005, the irony is
that in this era of globalisation the growth of the migrant population has
slowed down. Also, in contrast to some perceptions that migration is spiralling
out of control it is interesting to examine in the current shifting global
economic circumstances how increasing numbers of migrants may be returning home
to improved domestic circumstances.

Migration patterns have changed but in different ways. The increase in the
global number of migrants between 1990 and 2005 was five million lower than
between 1975 and 1990. In 1970, in only three countries with populations in
excess of 10 million (Australia, Canada and France) did the proportion of
international migrants surpass 10%. But by 2000 that number of countries had
increased to nine (Australia, Belarus, Canada, Cote d'Ivoire, France,
Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the US), with those nine accounting for
40% of the world's migrant stock.

Today, not surprisingly, the more developed countries are hosting 60% of the
world's migrants with one in three migrants living in Europe and one in four
living in North America. In 2005, according to the UN, three quarters of all
migrants were hosted by the 28 largest receiving countries. The UN also notes
that since 1990, 72 countries registered an absolute decline in their migrant
populations as a result in large part to the successful repatriation of some 21
million refugees, particularly to developing countries.

Gulf booms

Reflecting the resolution of some long-standing conflicts,
migration patterns
have changed as millions of refugees have been able to return home.
The UN notes
that the global refugee population dropped from 20 million in 1990 to less than
14 million in 2005. Also, demographics and economic necessity are driving
change. Europe's population, for example, would have been declining since 1995
had it not been for migration. Also, one of the largest concentrations of
migrants is found in the oil-producing countries in the Middle East, where by
2005 the Gulf states were hosting 13 million migrants, mostly
temporary workers.

The oil-rich Gulf states have proved particularly useful to
migrants from the
Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially amid the Gulf's current
economic boom.

According to a World Bank report on remittances in July, the Gulf Co-
operation Council (GCC) states have among the highest number of migrants as a
share of population in the world, with Qatar at 78%, UAE at 71%, Kuwait at 62%,
Bahrain at 41%, Saudi Arabia at 26% and Oman at 24%. Remittances to the
Philippines and Pakistan are continuing to grow robustly by between 15% and 20%
in the first nine months of 2007, while Bangladesh has experienced a steep
increase in the first half of 2008 compared with the previous three years.
Remittances from migrants to these areas are said to be helping mitigate the
impact of high food and oil prices on the poor in many developing countries.

Remittance trends

The latest World Bank data reveals that remittance flows to developing
countries reached $251bn in 2007, up 11% on 2006 and more than double those of
2002. Mexico and the Philippines, which are among the top four remittance
recipients in the developing world, reported remittance inflows for 2007 of
$25bn and $17.2bn, respectively, with Poland reporting actual inflows of $11bn
in 2007, or 2.5% of GDP, twice earlier estimates. This change makes Poland the
fifth largest remittance recipient among developing countries with Romania also
significantly higher at $9bn in 2007. India and China were the top
remittance-recipient countries in 2007, with an estimated $27bn and $25.7bn in
remittances, respectively.

So what factors affect migration trends and remittances? And what impact do
events such as the credit crunch have? Last month, Mexico's central bank, Banco
de Mexico, announced that remittances have fallen for the first time in a
decade. A 6.93% decline was reported for July compared with the same period a
year ago. Remittances are Mexico's second largest source of income after oil,
and in 2007 reached $25bn, compared with $13.6bn from January-July 2008.

This fall has been influenced by high inflation in the US, stricter border
controls reducing the influx of immigrants into the US, and the currently
troubled US economy. After remittances more than doubled between 2002 and 2007,
the slowdown in the US economy, especially the construction sector,
has affected
the employment and incomes of Mexican migrants in the US.

The World Bank says: "The stock of Mexican migrants may not have
changed much
but the recent (US) enforcement efforts appear to have reduced the number of
seasonal migrants and their ability to send remittances, especially through
formal channels."

Why people migrate

Are economic changes the prime cause behind migration moves?
Clearly the boom
in the GCC states creates job opportunities, but Michelle Mittelstadt,
spokesperson for the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute (MPI), is
adamant that major moves are not affected by the short-term business climate.

"We believe decisions to migrate are long-term life decisions that have far
less to do with the destination countries than the country of
origin," she says.

But much also has to do with skills and levels of government
support. The MPI
emphasises the role of circular migration programmes by governments
to encourage
and support mobility patterns and also what governments, such as that of the
Philippines, can do to better manage migration.

According to the World Bank's Neil Ruiz: "More than 8.2 million native
Filipinos work or live abroad, equivalent to almost 25% of the total labour
force. About 75,000 Filipinos are deployed for overseas employment every month.
Filipinos also comprise 30% of all sea-based workers in the world. Remittances
from these migrants amounted to about $17bn or 13% of GDP in 2007."

For example, prior to departure, all Filipino overseas contract workers must
undergo the Philippine government's mandatory deployment process, two key
components of which are pre-departure orientation seminars and the issuance of
identification cards. Creating an institutional framework helps better manage
international migration.

India, China and Mexico were the three largest recipients of remittances in
2007 and, with $77.7bn, they account for nearly one third of remittances
received by the developing countries. But migration issues cover more than just
remittances, and new markets are opening up in various geographies for various
skill sets.

Not only are 300,000 so-called 'sea turtles' returning to new opportunities
in China (see box) but areas such as the Gulf are now attractive places for
senior bank executives from major financial centres, not just for construction
workers. With the global financial focus moving east, the Gulf, India and China
are taking on new perspectives and luring back many expatriates who have gained
valuable experience abroad. Also, immigration structures are changing
significantly. In late 2007, Europe created an expanded 'free-travel area',
known as the Schengen Area, with the addition of nine EU member states to the
area.

"This amounts to a 'big-bang' expansion of an internally borderless Europe,"
says Demetrios Papademetriou, president of MPI. "In this age of mobility, the
Schengen expansion demonstrates a real commitment on the part of the EU to
creating a union free of internal borders." Global people flows in all
directions are now more of a reality.

The Return of the sea turtles

Expanding markets from China to Brazil and the Gulf, especially banks,
require talented management and the market for that talent is undoubtedly
global. As the credit crunch exposes weaknesses in Western markets, new
geographies operating on different economic cycles are attracting new prospects
keen to find the next boom and ride a new wave of prosperity.

For institutions everywhere hiring the right talent is critical to their
success and in China the group most sought after are 'sea turtles' - English-
speaking Chinese "returnees" with international banking experience ('sea
turtles' and 'returnees' have the same pronunciation in Mandarin).

As China opened up and foreign bank branches expanded in the 1990s, growing
by at least 20 a year and almost doubling assets under management every year,
there was huge demand for sea turtles with middle and senior banking
experience,
but demand for them far outstripped supply. Grace Cheng, country manager for
executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates in Greater China, says:
"First, this was because there weren't significant numbers of overseas Chinese
people with banking experience, as most of the early generations of overseas
students were government-sponsored scientists and academics.

"Second, China wasn't seen as attractive enough to lure back those who were
doing well on Wall Street or in London. A former New York based Merrill Lynch
Chinese banker told us that his friends thought he was crazy when he left his
$400,000 pay vice-president position in 1997 to return to China."

Since China's entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2002, foreign banks
have exploded as has demand for sea turtles. Fourteen foreign banks are now
incorporated in China, competing directly with Chinese counterparts. They are
seeing incredible growth. In 2003, Standard Chartered had just 300 people in
China, it now has more than 3500. Citibank has about 4000 people in
China and 14
branches in Shanghai and Beijing alone.

Sea turtles remain the most sought after people, says Ms Cheng, particularly
those with experience in advanced Western management and products.
One driver is
foreign banks' increased targeting of domestic Chinese enterprises. Another
interesting development is that, increasingly, retail banks are hiring sea
turtles to be branch managers instead of non-Chinese ex-pats.

As China's economy continues to grow rapidly, albeit at a slower rate than
historical levels, the number of overseas Chinese returning to the country will
grow steadily. According to the Chamber of Commerce of Western
Returned Scholars
Committee, 300,000 sea turtles had returned to China by 2007. The committee
expects that number to be 500,000 by 2010. They will be needed by the foreign
and Chinese banks as they increase their spread across the country.
The question
is whether there will be enough of them with the right relevant
experience to go
round.

Attracting the right talent in China or anywhere comes at a price and in the
Hay Group's latest World Pay Report, Global Management Spending Power, the
average salary of a management level employee is examined in order to reach a
ranking of the relative spending power in countries across the world (see
table). The ranking of the 20 highest management spending power countries uses
the US as the base point of measurement or 100 on the index.

The oil-driven Middle East economies top the table with Qatar's spending
power, at 241.7 on the index, almost two and a half times that of US managers.
The demand for top talent in the Gulf continues to drive salaries higher.

Copyright 2008 Financial Times Business Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Banker

Constitutional Rights

2008-10-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

Immigrants have the rights under the 4th and 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

1. You do not have to speak with, or answer any questions by, or give any documents to any immigration or Ice agent. (5th Amendment)

2. You do not have to let any immigration or ICE agent enter your home unless they have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate, with your name on it. (4th Amendment)

3. You do not have to give permission to any immigration or ICE agent to search your belongings. (4th Amendment)

E-Verify Use Fails to Protect Raided Miss. Company

2008-09-02T14:38:00.001-07:00

The biggest immigration raid in U.S. History and the company used E-Verify!

E-Verify Fails to Cover Company From Immigration Raid

Feds arrest 595 suspected illegal workers of a Mississippi company in a raid that likely will add fuel to business opposition to the government verification system.

September 2, 2008

Workforce Management

E-Verify Fails to Cover Company From Immigration Raid
Howard Industries, a Mississippi manufacturer of electrical products, is the latest example of a company being targeted for immigration enforcement despite using a government-run employment verification system.

The incident, however, is unlikely to derail legislation to extend the program’s authorization or to affect a proposed federal regulation to make the government system, called E-Verify, mandatory for federal contractors, some say.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 595 Howard workers suspected of being illegal in an August 25 raid that likely will add fuel to smoldering opposition to the government verification system by business groups.

“Howard Industries runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for jobs,” the company said in a statement. “It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.”

The 595 workers were charged with identity theft and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.

“What this will do is focus employers on compliance in general, but E-Verify is an ineffective compliance tool because it doesn’t protect against identity theft,” says Eric Bord, a partner at the law firm Morgan Lewis in Washington. “It has the perverse effect of encouraging identity theft.”

A raid at Swift & Co., a large food-processing firm, in December 2006 resulted in the arrests of nearly 1,200 suspected illegal workers on identity-theft charges. Swift was using E-Verify at the time.

E-Verify, which checks information from I-9 forms against Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases, cannot tell if a worker is submitting a stolen Social Security number. That is one of the primary criticisms leveled against the system by the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce.

The organization, led by the Society for Human Resource Management, also cites a Social Security database error rate of 4.1 percent that could wrongfully declare millions of people ineligible for work. E-Verify backers say it has demonstrated an error rate of less than 1 percent.

Howard Industries has been using E-Verify since 2007. It is one of about 78,000 companies that have signed up for the system. Almost all of the corporate participation is voluntary, but Mississippi is one state that has mandated companies to use the system.

The law that authorizes the program is set to expire in November. On July 31, the House approved a five-year extension of E-Verify as a voluntary program. Senate action hasn’t been scheduled.

Many Democrats and some Republicans want to overhaul or junk E-Verify. Most Republicans and some conservative Democrats praise it for helping reduce the “jobs magnet” that fosters illegal immigration—and want to make it permanent and mandatory for all employers.

Democratic leaders and Republicans agreed that there is not enough time left in this year’s congressional session for the wider verification debate. Congress can modify E-Verify at any time during the five-year extension.

The Department of Homeland Security has made E-Verify the cornerstone of its compliance efforts and is encouraging companies to sign up.

That will be a tough sell, according to Bord, because there’s no upside to participating in E-Verify.

“Employers who have effective I-9 compliance programs derive no additional benefit in defending themselves against an investigation by ICE,” he said.

In addition to pushing voluntary E-Verify adoption, Homeland Security is working on a regulation that would require federal contractors to use it to check existing employees and new hires. It is compiling public comments on the rule.

One organization that has filed a negative assessment of the regulation is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The E-Verify system is not ready for prime time,” said Randel Johnson, the chamber’s vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits.

Johnson contends that Homeland Security is overstepping its authority by trying to make the program mandatory.

“We think that’s contrary to the congressional statute,” he said. It’s not clear whether the regulation will become final before the Bush administration leaves town.

No matter the outcome, Bord said E-Verify would continue to be central to federal work-site enforcement until comprehensive immigration reform was revived on Capitol Hill.

Companies should ease their transition to E-Verify by establishing an electronic I-9 process to ensure immigration compliance, Bord said.

“If you get it wrong, the damage is critical,” he said.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

ICE Raids Mississippi Electrical Equipment Plant - Arrests 350+ Workers

2008-08-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

ICE raids Miss. plant seeking illegal workers

By HOLBROOK MOHR

LAUREL, Miss. (AP) — Federal immigration agents said they rounded up 350 suspected undocumented workers in a raid on a Mississippi electrical equipment plant Monday, after sealing all entrances and questioning employees.

Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, confirmed the raid at Howard Industries Inc. of Laurel. Suspected illegal workers were loaded into white vans with shaded windows and driven away. Gonzalez wouldn't say where they were headed other than to say they were being taken to a holding facility.

"This is ... part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed that illegal aliens are employed at Howard Industries," Gonzalez said.

She said agents were acting on a tip from a union worker and were still interviewing plant employees late Monday.

The raid was executed based on "evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant for individuals illegally in the United States," ICE said in a statement.

Agents were talking with all workers at the sprawling plant to determine their residency status, said agency spokesman Brandon Montgomery.

A statement on the Web site of the Laurel Leader Call newspaper, attributed to Howard Industries, said the company "runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs."

"It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants," the statement said.

Chief Executive Officer Billy Howard did not respond to a message left by The Associated Press.

A recording at Howard Industries said the telephone switchboard was closed. A man who answered the phone at the security station said reporters would have to call back Tuesday.

All plant entrances were blocked and a tent was set up at one checkpoint to keep agents out of a steady rain. Officers in an unmarked vehicle stopped motorists traveling on roads behind the factory and told them to leave.

People exiting the plant told The Hattiesburg American newspaper that so many workers were stopped that operations shut down. It wasn't clear how many workers the plant employed.

Rodolfo Galicia said his 22-year-old brother was detained.

"Everybody's crying, worried about what's going to happen to him," he said in Spanish.

The ICE spokeswoman said 50 people were given alternatives to detention for humanitarian reasons, meaning they could be fitted with a tracking device and order to report to a case worker later.

Howard Industries was founded in the 1960s. In 2002, state lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan aimed at helping to expand its operations. The company produces dozens of products, including electrical transformers and medical supplies, according to its Web site.

The raid is one of several nationwide in recent years.

On May 12, federal immigration officials swept into Iowa's Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human resources department, court records showed.

Note: ICE says people whose relatives were detained can call for information: 866-341-3858.

Immigrants Rights Group New ICE Raid Coming

2008-08-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

HattiesburgAmerican.com

August 25, 2008

Immigrants' rights group knew ICE raid coming

An immigrants' rights group based in Jackson knew for the last eight or nine days that more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were in the state.

“We saw a growing presecne of ICE agents in the area. It was apparant they were going after somebody,” said Bill Chandler, executive director of Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance.

Chandler said they didn't know where in the state a raid might occur. Federal warrants were served at a Howard Industries plant in Laurel this morning and also at the business's corportate offices in Ellisville.

Chandler said his group had sent lawyers to Laurel and and Hattiesburg.

Those arrested or detained this morning are expected to be processed at the Federal Courthouse in Hattiesburg this afternoon.

CA9 Finds No-Match Letter Does not Provide Constructive Knowledge of Immigration Violations

2008-08-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

See http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=26248

If you cannot access this link, please contact The Law Office of Randall Caudle for a hard copy of the 25 page decision or a summary of the decision.

Defective E-Verify Expands Despite Flaws

2008-08-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

Immigration Policy Center (IPC)
...providing factual information about immigration and immigrants in the United States.
For Immediate Release

Defective E-Verify Expands Despite Flaws
Experts' Comments Slam Employment Authorization Program

August 11, 2008

Washington, DC--Final comments are due today on a rule that would make E-Verify mandatory for approximately 200,000 public and private federal government contractors and their 4 million employees. Employers, labor unions, privacy experts, and immigrant advocates are all submitting comments that express deep concern about the impact of E-Verify on American workers. The Department of Homeland Security should heed their advice before a vast new expansion of E-Verify is considered.

For months Congress has heatedly debated the merits of E-Verify -- a small, voluntary electronic employment authorization program run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in collaboration with the Social Security Administration (SSA). Several bills have been introduced to expand E-Verify and make it mandatory for all employers. Groups ranging from employers to unions to immigrant advocates and privacy specialists have warned against the expansion of the program until significant improvements are made, citing the problems a mandatory system would create for employers and U.S. workers alike. Most notably, during hearings that highlighted the massive drawbacks of E-verify, witnesses described the huge burden that an expanded E-Verify would put on SSA, resulting in longer waiting times for American workers seeking their benefits. Analysis of the program and evidence coming from those who have used it indicate that the current program is seriously flawed, ineffective, and could potentially cost thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents their jobs due to database errors.

On July 31, 2008 the House of Representatives voted to extend E-Verify for another five years, keeping it a voluntary program. The House also mandated reports on the program's usage and effectiveness, and reimburse the Social Security Administration for expenses they incur. Similar legislation is now being considered in the Senate. Meanwhile, several states, including Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have made E-Verify mandatory. The experiences in these states offer a cautionary tale. In Arizona, employers have already been erroneously notified that native-born U.S. citizens are not authorized to work, businesses have decided not to invest additional dollars in the state, industries are unable to find enough workers, and the state economy may lose as much as $10 billion.

Before any new expansion of the deeply flawed E-Verify program is considered, the Department of Homeland Security must scrupulously review today's comments and address these troubling concerns.

###

The Immigration Policy Center has produced numerous reports and analyses of E-Verify and the various bills introduced in Congress to expand the program. For more information on E-Verify and other timely issues, please see IPC's webpage, www.immigrationpolicy.org.

For more information contact Andrea Nill, 202-507-7520 or email anill@ailf.org

Biggest Immigration Law Firm in U.S. Suing U.S. Dept. of Labor

2008-08-10T14:07:00.001-07:00

See http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/08/08/green-card-lovin-law-firm-fights-labor-department/

August 8, 2008, 6:34 pm
Green Card Lovin’ Law Firm Fights Labor Department
Posted by Nathan Koppel

An ongoing battle between the Labor Department and a prominent law firm just got nastier.

Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, a prominent New York immigration firm, is being audited by the Labor Department for possibly giving too much assistance to clients that seek green cards for foreign workers. Today, the firm fired back with a suit claiming that some of the department’s rules are unconstitutional.

At issue are controversial Labor Department rules that require a company, as a condition for sponsoring a foreign worker for a green card, to certify to the Labor Department that the company has not been able to find a “minimally qualified” U.S. worker to fill the job. Lawyers are limited from advising companies as to whether an American worker can be deemed qualified, according to Labor Department regulations. These regulations are aimed at preventing lawyers from helping clients find reasons not to hire qualified Americans.

In June, the Labor Department announced it was auditing green-card applications filed by Fragomen, because of a concern the firm may have improperly helped companies review the qualifications of American workers. Fragomen has denied wrongdoing. Here’s a law blog backgrounder on the audit.

The Labor regulations have been criticized widely by immigration lawyers, who say companies need their help in navigating a complicated area of law. The regs also violate clients’ First Amendment and due process rights to seek the advice of counsel, Fragomen claims in its suit. “As a result of the Department’s unlawful actions,” the suit asserts, “Fragomen has lost business from clients as well as opportunities to compete for new business.”

David James, assistant Secretary of Labor for public affairs, said that the department is “confident that it’s reasonable interpretation of its rules will be upheld.” The department previously has said that it’s not trying to limit legal advice but says that determining whether an employee is qualified typically shouldn’t require attorney input.

Immigration Enforcement Causing Employers Headaches

2008-08-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-olivera_09met.ART.North.Edition1.4dcd188.html

For employers, immigration has a bottom line

Saturday, August 9, 2008

The no-match rule, the border fence and enforcement raids – these topics seem to dominate most public discussions on immigration these days.

Too often, though, the discussions generate lots of heat and little light, leaving the public in the dark about the impact of immigration on our economy.

But ask an employer, and a different story emerges, one with real human consequences.

That's the story the Texas Employers for Immigration Reform will be sharing when it has its fourth immigration summit later this month at the Dallas Marriott Las Colinas in Irving.

The Aug. 25 meeting is open to the public.

Speakers will review some of the main concerns of employers, many of whom are small-business owners who feel they're bearing the brunt of federal efforts to curb immigration.

The Social Security Administration's latest no-match rule remains a major concern for many employers, said Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business. He said 60 days is not enough time to determine whether an employee's Social Security number matches the name the government has on file.

"Divorce, marriage, transposition of digits – there's too many variables for mistakes," he said.

The program could result in employees who are U.S. citizens also losing their jobs, he said.

"When the workload increases dramatically [for the Social Security Administration], it could be disastrous for us and our economy," he said.

Mr. Hammond remains optimistic, however, that things will improve. Both presidential candidates have expressed support for immigration reform, he said, and the business community is doing a better job of getting organized to bring about pragmatic solutions.

For Eddie Aldrete, a bank executive in San Antonio and a member of the Texas employers coalition, the concern over Social Security numbers is overblown and a distraction.

He's worried over another set of numbers.

"The biggest threats to our economy are baby boomer retirements and our dropping fertility rates," he said.

His presentation on how fewer babies translates into fewer workers draws crowds every time he gives it, and he expects no less at the immigration summit.

"We've become too focused on keeping people out," he said, when we should be doing the reverse.

Almost every industrialized nation is experiencing falling birthrates, including the U.S.

The nation's birth rate now stands at 2.1 children per woman and is expected to fall below replacement level in seven years. Mexico's birth rate is 2.4.

He looks at key U.S. industries and how they are facing unprecedented levels of retirements in the next several years. He compares the looming economic impact to a meteor crash.

"At the end of the day, we should be recruiting people from Mexico to come."

Companies Implement Assimilation Programs for Immigrants

2008-08-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hats off to Marriott! (Randall)

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/08/08/ST2008080803431.html

Companies Take Lead in Assimilation Efforts
Programs Aid Immigrant Workers

By Pamela Constable and N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 9, 2008;

Jose Trivelli, a graying engineer from Peru, spends his days fixing Internet connections at a Tysons Corner hotel and his evenings listening to a laptop computer program with cartoon characters and a chirpy voice that helps him pronounce such phrases as, "I'd like to open an account" and "Let me call my manager."

At 52, he admits to being slightly embarrassed by the simplistic instructional program, but he says his U.S.-born children, who speak perfect English, are so enthusiastic about his efforts that they help him with difficult words and dream of the day he will be promoted to manager.

Trivelli's employer, Marriott International, has a more ambitious motive for offering thousands of foreign-born housekeepers, cooks and maintenance workers its no-cost "Thirst for Knowledge" program, which simulates conversations in banks, hospitals, shops and schools as well as in hotel kitchens and lobbies.

Marriott and another Bethesda-based company, Miller & Long Concrete Construction, are among several dozen major U.S. corporations spearheading a campaign to turn the divisive national debate about immigration in a more positive direction.

"This is a mission for us," said Andy Chaves, a human resources manager for Marriott and a member of the White House Task Force on New Americans. "When our employees become proficient in English and assimilate into our society, it benefits the company, the community and the individual. Everyone gains."

Amid increasing public hostility to immigrants and intensifying efforts by local and federal authorities to crack down on illegal immigration, these business leaders hope to counter criticism that immigrants steal jobs and burden public services by highlighting the contributions they make to the U.S. economy and improving their ability to integrate.

The initiative is supported by a bill recently introduced in Congress. Sponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and three representatives from California, Florida and Texas, it would provide $350 million for immigrant family literacy programs, individual tax credits for teachers and corporate tax breaks for firms that offer educational workplace programs like "Thirst for Knowledge."

In addition to support from private firms that employ thousands of immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere, the bill is backed by the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, which recently issued a report called "U.S. Business and Hispanic Integration: Expanding the Economic Contributions of Immigrants."

The report points out that Hispanics make up more than 14 percent of the U.S. workforce, own more than 2 million businesses and have a collective purchasing power of more than $800 billion a year. It says foreign-born workers have much to offer but need more help to master English and become more invested in American society.

It concedes that many Hispanic immigrants arrive with limited educations and that the immigration wave of the past two decades has slightly depressed wages among unskilled American workers. It also argues that immigrants "complement" the overall labor force as more native-born Americans earn degrees and seek higher-level jobs.

The report also asserts that if immigrants are given more opportunities to learn, earn and engage, they will repay the investment as better workers, parents, consumers and participants in public life. Although not endorsing illegal immigration, the report accepts it as a fact of life that needs to be addressed through legislative reforms.

The report lists corporations that have offered their large immigrant workforces a variety of skill-building programs. These include scholarships at Wal-Mart, English classes at United Parcel Service, financial literacy programs at Western Union and bilingual skills development at Northrop Grumman shipbuilders.

Some companies that employ immigrants have been reluctant to associate themselves with the effort, however, citing fears of public criticism and government scrutiny amid increasingly aggressive federal efforts to track down illegal immigrants and punish their employers.

"Businesses feel cowed by the rhetoric," said Christopher Sabatini, a policy director at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. "There is a fear of being labeled as aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants." He said some companies have curtailed programs aimed at helping immigrant workers because of community disapproval.

One company that has taken a strong public stance in favor of helping immigrant workers is Miller & Long. Myles Gladstone, the firm's personnel director, said that it once hired mostly African Americans but that since the early 1990s, fewer U.S.-born workers have applied, and they have been largely replaced by immigrants. Today, the firm employs more than 2,000 Hispanics, mostly foreign-born.

Gladstone said the firm started offering safety instruction in Spanish but gradually expanded into "broader life skills" for workers and their families. Today, it offers 65 free classes, including English, Spanish literacy, job safety, lifesaving, financial skills and health promotion. He said there are plans to expand the program to help immigrants keep their children out of trouble, with seminars on gangs and substance abuse.

He noted that not all immigrants are able to learn English and that of about 500 who have taken the company's language classes, "not a lot" have become truly bilingual. He said that if construction workers are trained well and understand safety, "they don't really need to have fluency in English," although without it they cannot become foremen or crane operators.

Antonia Diaz, 42, has advanced steadily at Miller & Long since she emigrated from Honduras six years ago. She began as a laborer, earning $10 per hour and speaking almost no English. Now, after taking corporate English classes for several years, she is a construction site safety worker and earns $18.50 an hour.

"If I had known I would be talking like this, I wouldn't believe it," Diaz said yesterday in passable English as she built wooden safety barricades around a construction site in Silver Spring. Although she converses with her mostly Hispanic crew in Spanish, she said learning English had other merits. "It helps me in my personal life," she said. She said she loves her job and plans to stay with Miller & Long but added: "If I know English and I get laid off, I can find other work. I am prepared for anything."

At Marriott, where some hotels have employees from as many as 25 countries, Chairman Bill Marriott calls immigrants the backbone of his business and frequently talks about the virtues of diversity and assimilation in his personal blog.

"We would hire a native-born person any day, but in most cases they don't want to do the lower-level labor we need in our business," he said in a telephone interview this week. "Probably the most important thing we can do is offer our employees the opportunity to learn English and grow and become part of our society."

At the Tysons Corner Marriott, much behind-the-scenes work is conducted in Spanish among immigrant employees. Most who have taken the "Thirst for Knowledge" class do not speak perfect English; Trivelli still confuses "chopping" with "shopping" and tends to drop his consonants. But he and the others said they have gained something else: a stronger sense of confidence and belonging in their adopted environment.

"Until now, I was always working too hard to study," said Trivelli, who was practicing vocabulary on his laptop in a workroom filled with tools and wires. "Now my kids are so happy I am learning. They help me with my pronunciation, and they tell me if I learn enough English, I can replace my boss one day."

USCIS States that new Passport Card Acceptable for Employment Eligibility Verification and I-9s

2008-08-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

See USCIS official announcement at http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2008,0811-passportcard.pdf

August 2008 Visa Bulletin

2008-07-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Significant changes between the July and August Visa Bulletin occurred in the Employment-based visa priority dates. As stated below, the EB-3 category no longer has any visa numbers available. Furthermore, the unskkilled workers category has also become unavailable. Finally, on the Family-based immigration side, the only significant change can be seen in Mexico's 4th Preference category - jumping forward a year.

Family Immigration - Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act sets an annual family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000.

1st Preference (USC unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 15 March 2002

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 15 March 2002

India: 15 March 2002

Mexico: 08 August 1992

Philippines: 22 March 1993

2A Preference (LPR spouses & unmarried children under 21)

Worldwide: 01 October 2003

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 October 2003

India: 01 October 2003

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: 001 October 2003

2B Preference (LPR unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 01 November 1999

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 November 1999

India: 01 November 1999

Mexico: 15 April 1992

Philippines: 15 March 1997

3rd Preference (USC married sons & daughters)

Worldwide: 08 June 2000

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 08 June 2000

India: 08 June 2000

Mexico: 08 September 1992

Philippines: 01 April 1991

4th Preference (USC brothers & sisters)

Worldwide: 08 September 1997

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 22 February 1997

India: 22 February 1997

Mexico: 08 January 1995

Philippines: 08 March 1986

Employment Based - Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act sets an annual limit for employment-based preference limit of 140,000

1st Preference (EB-1)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

2nd Preference (EB-2)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 June 2006

India: 01 June 2006

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

3rd Preference (EB-3)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

Schedule A workers (RNs, PTs)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

Unskilled Workers (less than 2 years experience required)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

4th Preference (EB-4)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Religious Workers

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Iraqi & Afghani Translators

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

5th Preference (EB-5: Investors)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Targeted Employment Areas/ Regional Centers)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT
India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

McDonald's Fined $1 Million Dollars for Employing Unauthorized Workers!

2008-07-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

Reno McDonald's owners plead guilty to employing illegals

July 16, 2008

Reno McDonald's owners plead guilty to employing illegals
Sustainable growth issue makes it to November ballot
New property tax question to be on ballot
Immigration sweep nets 42 in Lake Tahoe area
New Yucca Mountain cost estimate over $90 billion
Reno engineers are surveying damage from Sparks flood
Wanted man on the loose for first degree murder
American Indians rep: "Native Americans' vote could make a difference"
Family escapes garage fire in south Reno
New Fossett search now on foot

One current and one former top executive for a franchisee that owns 11 McDonald's restaurants in and around Reno, and the corporation itself pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas Wednesday to federal felony immigration offenses for encouraging illegal aliens to reside in the United States.

These charges stem from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into allegations the company knowingly hired illegal alien workers

In September 2007, ICE agents executed federal search warrants at the 11 McDonald's restaurants owned by Mack Associates in the Reno area and at the franchisee's corporate office.

During the operation, agents encountered 58 illegal aliens who were working illegally at the McDonald's restaurants. The illegal alien workers were arrested on administrative immigration violations and processed for removal.

Approximately 30 of those workers have been returned to their native countries. The remaining illegal workers were provided with documentation allowing them to remain in the United States pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.

The government and Mack Associates agreed that the corporation will pay a $1 million fine -- $500,000 for each count, the maximum allowed - and be placed on probation during the period that the fine is outstanding.

The court accepted this agreement and sentenced Mack Associates to one year of probation and ordered the corporation to pay the agreed upon $1 million fine, with $300,000 payable immediately and the balance to be paid within nine months.

The plea agreement details how Mack Associates' management employed individuals they knew were in the country illegally, including two restaurant managers, by furnishing them with names and Social Security numbers belonging to other individuals.

In addition, Jimmy Moore, 47, the franchisee's former vice-president, pleaded guilty to one felony count of inducing an illegal alien to remain in the United States. At sentencing, Moore faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A third defendant in the case, Anntoinette Richmond, 44, the corporation's controller, has been charged with one misdemeanor count of continuing employment of an unauthorized alien.

USCIS Hiring Surge to Clear out Cases

2008-07-15T15:04:00.001-07:00

I hope this helps improve processing times and that the new officers are customer service oriented. (Randall)

Dallas center at heart immigration hiring surge

By ANABELLE GARAY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 15, 2008;

DALLAS -- Some 48 students fill each of the auditorium-style classrooms, their bulky Immigration Law Handbooks tabbed with dozens of colorful stickies and laptop computers within reach.

For the next six weeks, the men and women who make up each class will study topics such as logic, ethics, legal decision-making, discretion, immigration history and trends.

Their classes are part of a nationwide effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to recruit and train hundreds of new employees who will help tackle the agency's mountainous backlog of cases.

Awaiting each of the students upon graduation will be a pile of petitions, some more than a year old. One by one, these adjudicators, as they are called, will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of people anxiously waiting to come to the U.S., to remain here and work or to become citizens.

Since October, the agency has added 830 adjudication officers to its ranks, bringing the total working at immigration offices nationwide to 3,775. Another 590 are expected to be trained by the end of the year.

It's all part of a renewed push to clear pending cases and to approve or deny most applications within six months. It has not been uncommon for some immigrants, who pay hundreds of dollars in filing fees, to spend a year or more awaiting a decision on their status.

About 1.4 million people applied for naturalization in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007, nearly double the number of petitions filed the previous year. Driving the surge was a rush to file petitions before a planned fee increase took effect last summer and the upcoming presidential elections.

Overwhelmed, the agency warned that anyone who had applied after June 1, 2007, would likely wait 15 to 18 months to attain citizenship. That alarmed many applicants, who had hoped to become citizens in time to vote in November.

The agency has since said the waits will be shorter, but it won't say by how much.

Several CIS offices around the country have only just finished processing citizenship applications filed last July. Others are even further behind. The Miami field office recently completed naturalization petitions filed in April 2007 and Phoenix was still backlogged to June of last year.

The agency is confident the infusion of new adjudicators will help it handle the surge of immigrants. Costs are covered by the fee increase that took effect last year.

"Looking at the numbers, the vast majority of offices ... are going to meet their six to nine months" goal, said Stella Jarina, director in residence of the USCIS Academy Training Center in Dallas.

The center has graduated 479 adjudicators since opening in January, Jarina said.

Those who have been pushing the agency to speed up the petition process say they've seen improvements, but for many hoping to become citizens it may be too little, too late.

"My sense is there is going to be a dent, but not a significant dent in the process of applications in time for a majority of those who applied last year to be able to vote in this presidential election," said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at NYU School of Law. "There has been some catching up both in terms of resources and recruitment but not enough to meet the response of the challenge that the surge presented."

The agency points out, however, that more adjudication officers are still being hired and trained. About 285 are enrolled in classes now under way in Dallas, Jarina said. Another 290 are registered for future sessions.

Most of the future adjudicators have college degrees in such fields as communications, prelaw, sociology, psychology and international studies. Some are naturalized citizens and many speak a language in addition to English.

They spend each eight-hour day digesting immigration statutes, understanding naturalization and learning the various classifications for immigrants.

As part of their coursework, students also take the same citizenship test that their future customers must pass in order to become citizens.

After graduation, each class travels to the National Benefits Center at Lee's Summit, Mo., where students get at least a week of on-the-job training under the supervision of seasoned adjudicators before taking up cases on their own at USCIS offices throughout the country.

Prosecutors to seek indictments

2008-07-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5881300.html

HOUSTON — Prosecutors can seek criminal indictments against the owner of a rag exporting company and three managers accused of knowingly hiring unauthorized workers after a magistrate found the government had enough evidence to support the federal charges.

Authorities believe Mabarik Kahlon, 45, owner of Action Rags USA, and three supervisors conspired to conceal and harbor unauthorized workers and induced them to stay in the United States illegally. Officials also allege the owner and managers engaged in a pattern of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

The others who could face indictments are human resources manager Valerie Rodriguez, 34; manager Cirila Barron, 38; and warehouse supervisor Mayra Herrera-Gutierrez, 32.

During a hearing Wednesday, attorneys for the defendants questioned the role of four confidential informants who prompted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to raid the company. Three of the informants were paid a total of $13,200 and given immigration benefits, said defense attorney Paul Nugent.

Critics of immigration raids say the government is quick to exonerate company leaders.

"I think ICE is under political pressure to make arrests of management, and I think they may have rushed this case because of political considerations," Nugent said after the hearing.

ICE agent Calvin Bradford testified that only one of the four informants was told beforehand that money would be paid for their undercover work. The agency has not decided how much it will pay the informant who provided the original details of activities at the company.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Davis said 85 percent of plant workers were undocumented, showing sufficient evidence of a conspiracy.

More than 160 suspected illegal immigrants working at the hot, cluttered factory in north Houston were detained on June 25. At least 74 have been released by ICE officials for humanitarian reasons.

2 supervisors at raided meatpacking plant arrested

2008-07-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080705/ap_on_re_us/immigration_raid_3;_ylt=AlA3REkIDnNGN9z4iWt7v6BQuk0A

By AMY LORENTZEN, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 4, 9:06 PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Two supervisors at an Iowa meatpacking plant that was raided by federal immigration agents in May were arrested and charged with encouraging people to live in the United States illegally.

Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43, were also charged Thursday with and aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identification. Guerrero-Espinoza was charged with aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft.

Federal immigration officials raided Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, on May 12. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human resources department, court records said.

Since the raid, critics had asked federal officials why no top executives at the plant had been arrested even though more than a third of the plant's employees faced immigration charges.

"I'm still waiting to see whether federal officials will pursue an investigation into Agriprocessors itself for apparent workplace safety and immigration law violations," U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley said. "As I've said before, until we enforce our immigration laws equally against both employers and employees who break the law, we'll continue to have a problem with illegal immigration."

Agriprocessors spokesman Juda S. Engelmayer said the company and its attorneys were reviewing the paperwork from the federal action on Thursday and couldn't comment on the matter.

According to the complaints, sources told federal officials that Guerrero-Espinoza and De La Rosa-Loera were plant supervisors.

A person who worked in the human resource department told authorities that Guerrero-Espinoza would bring them resident alien cards for new job applicants who were to be hired in the beef kill department, one of the areas he supervised, the complaint said.

A week before the raid, Guerrero-Espinoza instructed a group of workers to get new IDs and Social Security numbers in order to keep working at the company, another source at the plant told authorities.

A number of sources said a couple of weeks before the raid that De La Rosa-Loera told them they needed new documents to work at the plant, the complaint against him said. When they got the new documents, they reported that De La Rosa-Loera handed them back but allowed them to continue working at the plant.

Detention hearings for both men were ordered for Monday in Cedar Rapids. Court documents did not list attorneys for the men, and officials with the U.S. Clerk of District Court's office did not know whether attorneys had been appointed.

___

Associated Press writer Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.

Immigration raids not in sync with policies

2008-07-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times

Article Launched: 07/06/2008 12:03:09 AM PDT

HAYWARD — From about 1 to 5 a.m. on March 23 of last year, undercover federal agents parked outside Glenio Silva's pizzeria and took notes.

They watched as delivery crews and cooks entered and exited The Pizza House, a tiny fast-food restaurant in Hayward's historic downtown. The agents returned in April and May, staying long enough each trip to watch the business close at 3 a.m., and to confirm that some of the workers never left because they lived in the building.

Tipped off by an informant, an illegal immigrant who quit the restaurant in 2006 after a feud, the agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained in a request for a search warrant that they were building a case against a business they had reason to believe was criminally violating the nation's immigration laws.

On June 15, 2007, the agents came back in full force, raiding the Hayward establishment and a sister shop in San Francisco on a busy Friday night, arresting six unauthorized workers from Brazil and charging Silva, the business owner, with concealing and harboring illegal immigrants — a federal felony.

ICE officials said the case fits into the agency's strategy of increasingly relying on criminal prosecutions against employers to enforce immigration law. Yet a review of Bay Area immigration prosecutions indicates that such prosecutions remain a rarity, and they are hardly routine. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, only three people were convicted of concealing and harboring illegal immigrants in federal court in California's Northern District, which covers the Bay Area and all of coastal California from Monterey to the Oregon border, according to data culled from the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

"I don't think the laws are really in sync with reality," said Silva, who is now contesting his criminal charges in a San Francisco court. "All the restaurants I know — everybody with a busy restaurant — has illegal people. I don't think this is fair."

His lawyer, Steven Gruel, a former federal prosecutor, calls Silva's situation a case of "unconstitutionally arbitrary enforcement" — and is using ICE's haphazard enforcement record as one reason the case should be dismissed.

"ICE's enforcement of worksite violations is bewildering," Gruel wrote in a motion to dismiss the case, filed last week. "Major violators receive a slap on the wrist or no action whatsoever, undocumented aliens are openly harbored as they seek refuge in sanctuary cities, and yet a lone pizzeria owner with six undocumented workers is caught up in the whirlpool of this federal criminal prosecution."

The charge Silva faces is one of the key tools ICE can use to criminally charge unscrupulous employers, and comes with a penalty of as many as five years of prison and deportation, even though Silva is a lawful permanent resident. In a written statement last month, the agency said that its strategy "differs dramatically from the approach of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which focused on imposing civil fines on employers who hired illegal aliens."

Being in the country illegally is still an administrative violation, not a crime. But there are several related crimes, ranging from fraudulent use of visas to conspiracy to bring illegal aliens into the country. And in contrast to its predecessor, INS, which was disbanded in 2003 when ICE was formed, ICE officials say their new agency "relies heavily on criminal prosecutions and the seizure of company assets to gain compliance from businesses that violate the employment provisions of our nation's immigration laws."

The total number of immigration crime prosecutions nationwide has risen sharply this year, mostly because of Operation Streamline, a new effort in border states to charge those who cross the border with low-level crimes. But prosecution rates in other parts of the country have not changed as much.

The records-gathering organization reported that 75 people were convicted of immigration crimes in the Northern District of California during the first six months of this fiscal year, the vast majority for the charge of re-entering the United States after being deported — a charge that is frequently attached to cases against people charged with other crimes.

The total number of prosecutions and convictions on immigration charges in the region has remained relatively steady throughout the Bush administration. The highest year for immigration convictions in the region was from Oct. 1, 2000 through September 2001, following a surge in prosecutions issued during the last year of the Clinton administration.

Defenders of current methods to battle illegal immigration say the local prosecution numbers don't reflect the wide array of approaches used to deal with the issue.

"Rather than going after the garden-variety employer who is hiring illegals, the criminal emphasis is on those who are exploiting them," said Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney in charge of the San Francisco region, explaining why the number of employer convictions is so low.

Russoniello said prosecutors focus on the most egregious cases, while ICE is responsible for dealing with employers who should face fines rather than criminal charges.

"We could probably fill up the docket with employment cases," Russoniello said. "It wouldn't do us a lot of good. It would bleed off a lot of resources."

Minimum fines against employers increased this year from $275 to $375 per illegal employee, while the maximum penalty for one illegal employee increased from $11,000 to $16,000. In fiscal year 2007, ICE said it secured more than $30 million in criminal and civil fines from worksite enforcement cases nationwide, arrested 863 people on criminal charges and made more than 4,000 administrative arrests in those worksite cases.

In fiscal year 2008, ICE worksite enforcement teams have arrested more than 2,900 people on administrative violations during the first half of the year, and arrested 850 people so far on criminal charges. Of those people, 75 are in the "supervisory chain" of owners, supervisors and managers, the agency said.

But critics of ICE's methods say the government has targeted more and more undocumented immigrants with costly detention and deportation in recent years while leaving employers who hire them off the hook.

"When you start realizing where all of their resources are going to, it's really about picking up undocumented immigrants," said Evelyn Sanchez, director of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition. "They kind of see it as a badge of honor that on a yearly basis, they detain almost 1 million immigrants."

Sanchez is providing legal assistance for some of the 63 illegal workers, most from Mexico, who were detained by ICE on May 2 when the agency raided El Balazo, a chain of taquerias across the East Bay and in San Francisco. The owners of the restaurant chain have not faced any criminal charges, but ICE said the business is still under investigation.

Small restaurant chains have been one of the main targets of the most high-profile immigration raids in California. In May, ICE raided a French bakery in San Diego and arrested 15 suspected illegal immigrants there. The bakery owners have not been charged with crimes.

Silva, who sold his family's San Ramon house last year because of the financial losses he has faced following the raid on his two pizzerias, is fighting the allegations that he knowingly hired illegal Brazilian immigrants.

But the part of the situation that causes him to bristle most is that some of the Brazilians who were not authorized to work for him had previously worked at much bigger pizza chains. Why, he asked, hasn't the government gone after those chains?

Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter enforcement, said he has little sympathy for such arguments, and said that a combination of increased enforcement activity and the poor economy has already caused many illegal immigrants to leave.

"Raids are important," Krikorian said. "The importance of enforcement is not to arrest every illegal immigrant. But the point is to send a message, to both workers and employers, that the party is over."

Oct. 5, 2005 -- Hayward
What happened: ICE raided the Pacific American Service warehouse and distribution center, which imports and exports products from the Port of Oakland. Arrested were illegal employees from Mexico, who ICE said represented at least 25 percent of the company's more than 60 employees
Today: Owners have not been prosecuted.
June 15, 2007 -- Hayward
What happened: ICE raided The Pizza House in Hayward and Monterey Pizza in San Francisco, arresting six illegal workers from Brazil, one a recent graduate of Pinole Valley High School. ICE also charged the owner with a federal crime of harboring illegal aliens.
Today: Owner Glenio Silva is contesting charges that he knowingly harbored illegal workforce, saying allegations by secret informant are false and based on "unconstitutionally arbitrary prosecution."
Nov. 7, 2007 -- Oakland
What happened: ICE raided Pepe's Cabinets, a small furniture-maker's shop in Oakland, arresting eight illegal workers from Mexico and charging the shop owner with criminally harboring them. The 16-month investigation began after someone called the ICE tip line.
Today: Owner Jose De Jesus Guzman-Baez is being prosecuted.
May 2, 2008 -- East Bay, San Francisco
What happened: ICE raided a taqueria chain, El Balazo, arresting 63 illegal workers of the 11-restaurant chain.
Today: Owners have not been prosecuted. ICE says investigation is ongoing.

With E-Verify, too many errors to expand its use?

2008-07-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

Raid: Federal immigration agents detained at least 120 workers at a plant in Houston last month. The immigration status of workers is a key concern for many employers.

AP/file

Database aims to make it easy for employers to check worker immigration status. Critics say the accuracy rate is too low.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 7, 2008 edition

Reporter Alexandra Marks discusses the controversy surrounding the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify system.

New York - Two hours after Fernando Tinoco started his new job at a meatpacking plant in Chicago, he was escorted by security guards to the office and fired.

The reason: Company officials had entered his Social Security number into the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify system. It's a mostly voluntary program designed to give employers a fast, easy way to check a person's immigration status. Mr. Tinoco's information came back as a "tentative non-confirmation," meaning that he may not be a citizen. He was shown the door.

But Tinoco is a citizen and has been since 1989. Immediately after his firing a few months ago, he went to a Social Security office and got a letter confirming his legal status. It was too late.

"I went back and the security guard chased me away, told me not to come back to the company because I was fired," he says in a phone interview.

President Bush's recent executive order mandating that all federal contractors use E-Verify and legislation pending in Congress that would make the program mandatory for all employers nationwide have heightened concerns among critics that thousands of legal Americans will be unfairly denied jobs. That's because E-Verify relies mainly on the Social Security database, which the Government Accountability Office has found to be fraught with errors. Studies have also shown that almost half of employers who are already using E-Verify are not abiding by rules designed to protect citizens like Tinoco.

Advocates acknowledge that E-Verify's 94 percent accuracy rate could be improved, but they insist that its benefits outweigh any imperfections. They contend that it's an easy, straightforward way for employers to comply with immigration law. Better education of employers can ensure it's used properly, they say.

In the middle are many immigration experts and economists. Worksite enforcement, they say, is crucial to controlling illegal immigration. But they also note that America's current immigration system is broken and not meeting the needs of the economy. That's why there's a steady flow of illegal, low-wage workers entering the US. These experts are concerned that imposing E-Verify nationwide now without broad immigration reform would severely damage the economy.

"We have significant sectors of the economy that need large numbers of low-skill workers, yet we don't have legal channels for these immigrants to come in," says Judy Gans, manager of immigration policy at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "The question is: What are we doing to the economy by imposing worksite enforcement before the legal channels are there to meet the economy's needs?"

E-Verify used to be called the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification program. It was created by Congress in 1997 as a voluntary pilot program to give employers an electronic way to verify employees' Social Security numbers. It's now operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration and is used by almost 70,000 employers nationwide. It's currently voluntary, except in a handful of states like Arizona.

Other states are wary of E-Verify. Illinois even has a law forbidding employers from using it because of concerns about its accuracy, although the state has agreed not to enforce its law until a court case challenging it is resolved. California legislators are considering a similar ban on the use of the program.

E-Verify advocates say the program has enough safeguards to protect citizens. Workers who are given a "tentative non-confirmation" – meaning there's a problem with their Social Security number – have eight working days to clear up discrepancies in the government's database, they note. And employers who use E-Verify are held harmless it if turns out they unknowingly hired an illegal immigrant.

"If you're an employer, you're no longer required to be a document expert," says Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington. "With E-Verify, you can tap into an automated Internet database that runs against almost 500 million records. It's fast, easy, and free to use. What's not to like?"

Critics have found quite a bit not to like. They note that a study commissioned by DHS itself found that for every thousand names put into the system, 58 come back as tentative nonconfirmation. Of those, about five people successfully contest the finding that they're not legally eligible to work in the US. DHS officials and advocates like Mr. Dane believe that means the other 53 applicants are probably illegal and the system is discouraging them as it should. But critics note that there's no way to know if those 53 were in the US illegally. The study commissioned by DHS also found that a substantial number of employers did not follow the E-Verify rules designed to protect citizens.

"We really don't know what the situation is with that 5.3 percent [who don't contest their tentative nonconfirmations]," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington.

He did an analysis using the same Social Security database that E-Verify uses. The government acknowledges that the database has an error rate of 4.1. That means that about 17 million people's names may not be exactly correct or there was an error when the information, like date of birth, was entered. Though they are here legally, those residents would come back as "tentative non-confirmations."

"As a matter of simple math, that means that if E-Verify were to go national, on the first day 1 in 25 legal new hires would be bounced out of the system and asked to go down to the Social Security office and straighten out the problem," he says.

That raises Mr. Harper's broader concerns about the program – that it would encourage employers and workers to operate "under the table" and that it could prompt even more identity theft and document fraud. "Conservatives are supposed to want people to work – not on welfare, not working under the table," he says. "Here's a system where we really don't know what's happening with 5.3 percent, but it looks like more than 1 in 100 lawful employees are being sent packing."

But supporters argue that clearing up discrepancies in the Social Security database is a "public service." They say there could be some initial disruptions to the economy, including a substantial loss of tax revenue from illegal workers who are now paying taxes. But they argue there will be long-term benefits to the economy.

"Of course some portion of illegals working on the books will stop doing so and either start working under the table or go home," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. "Either one is going to result in their no longer paying taxes. But enforcing the law is supposed to get those people out of their jobs: They're not here legally."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0707/p02s01-usgn.html

Congressional Quarterly Article on E-Verify

2008-07-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

Congressional Quarterly is the publication read by everyone on Capitol Hill. I was quoted in it once! (Randall)

See http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002908998&parm1=5&cpage=1

June 28, 2008
Where You Stand on E-Verify Depends on Where You Sit
By Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff

The debate over the E-Verify program is less one about statistics, or even policy, than it is about two states of mind.

One says nobody should have to prove to the government that they are qualified to work in the United States. The government should have to prove they are not.

The other says that people have to be sorted out in order to enforce the law, and both must be examined to separate the legal from the illegal.

Those points of view aren’t even mutually exclusive. But neither side gives the other an inch.

“The only reason why an American citizen would choose not to contest [an incorrect record] is because they have stolen someone’s identity or have a criminal record they are trying to hide,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA, which advocates for reduced immigration. “If they choose not to contest . . . they are choosing to lose their job.”

“Not a single case has come up where a U.S. citizen or an immigrant with authorization has been fired due to E-Verify,” said Jenks.

Pretty definitive.

“That is a lie. I can’t say it more straightforward,” said Timothy D. Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Equally definitive.

Sparapani cites the case of a Pittsburgh federal courthouse cafeteria worker who was fired in 2006 after failing a DHS security check because of a typographical error in her Social Security record.

So, someone did lose their job. But that woman, Judy Miller, who had worked at the courthouse for 20 years, was able to regain her job and her lost wages after her member of Congress, Rep. Mike Doyle , D-Pa., intervened.

So, someone was fired, but in the end got her job back.

States of mind.
Where You Stand on E-Verify Depends on Where You Sit

Those who decry E-Verify say government database errors could imperil the jobs of thousands of U.S. workers if Bush administration plans to expand electronic employment verification go forward.

They argue that mandatory nationwide use of E-Verify, which combines DHS and Social Security Administration databases, would require hundreds of thousands of workers to correct faulty government records at their own expense. The program offers no compensation for wages lost while fixing the errors. But worse, critics say, is that the E-Verify program provides little recourse for workers who lose their jobs because of government mistakes.

“There is absolutely no functional redress process, said Sparapani. “And even the process they have isn’t guaranteed statutorily . . . That’s where we get into trouble.”

President Bush signed an executive order June 6 that will require contractors to check employees’ work status for all future contracts through E-Verify, affecting approximately 4 million employees.

DHS requires employers who have registered for E-Verify to inform new hires if a mismatch occurs between data submitted by a worker and that in either of the two databases. The worker then has eight federal workdays to initiate contact with the appropriate government agency to dispute the recorded data. The employee cannot be fired while the appeal is in process, according to Chris Rhatigan, spokeswoman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program.

However “if the employee does not contact the [SSA or DHS] office within eight days, they are considered a no show and the . . . employer can then terminate the employee,” Rhatigan said.

Sparapani says the eight-day window is too short for many low-income workers, especially those with children or who live in rural areas. He said many workers can’t afford to take even a day off work — even with their jobs on the line.
Entitled to Their Own Facts

As further demonstration that the people arguing about this issue pay virtually no heed to the other side’s arguments, consider the disagreement over how many people would potentially be affected.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) says errors exist in up to 4 percent of its files.

DHS says that because of improvements it has made to the combined database system, the current E-Verify error rate is actually one-tenth that, 0.4 percent. Some of these improvements include using DHS immigration data instead of SSA records for naturalized citizens, for whom the error rate can be as high as 10 percent.

So naturally, each side uses the number most convenient to its argument.

According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report, there were 146 million people in the U.S. workforce as of May 2008. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in June 2007 that with around 60-65 million new hires a year, plus 10 million repeat verifications annually, a nationwide employment verification system would take 75 million queries a year.
Where You Stand on E-Verify Depends on Where You Sit

Using the higher SSA error rate, 2.6 million workers a year would have to fix their records to gain employment if E-Verify is mandated. Using DHS figures, 260,000 workers would have to correct errors.

Such an influx would “overwhelm the Social Security Administration, who don’t have the resources to deal with the thousands of people who will be flooding their offices or trying to fix their records so they can work,” says Michele Waslin, senior policy analyst at the Immigration Policy Center, an immigrant advocacy research group. “So ultimately this ends up hurting Americans who are retired or disabled who want to collect their benefits.”

Sparapani said SSA is already overburdened and points to a Government Accountability Office report from May that says “despite SSA efforts to manage staffing reductions, customers experienced longer waiting times and more unanswered calls to field offices.” The report also said it found 51 percent of calls to field offices go unanswered, which E-Verify adversaries say will be another hurdle for workers trying to make appointments to correct errors.

If “somehow you can’t get to Social Security in eight days . . . you have absolutely no recourse,” Sparapani said. “And if we move to a mandatory system, there is nowhere for you to go because every single employer is going to have to deny you work.”

But a closer look at those numbers would seem to lessen the potential impact on SSA.

There are 1,300 SSA field offices, according to the agency’s Web site.

“If you divide up the number of people that this could possibly happen to, then the workload on SSA field offices is really minimal,” said Jessica Vaughan, senior policy analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors reduced immigration levels.

Using the upper and lower government approximated rates and assuming that errors will be equally dispersed geographically, a field office could intake an additional 200 to 2,000 customers a year, between about one and 10 per workday.

“Correcting a mismatch is really quite simple,” said Mark Lassitier, spokesman at SSA. “It takes a few weeks for a person to get the [new Social Security card]. The database is corrected almost in real-time.”

Supporters acknowledge that the process can be burdensome, but point out that it is much to the employee’s advantage to have accurate records. E-Verify only requires information that is already provided in an I-9 employment verification form that is required by law (PL 99-603).

And missing a day of work is certainly a good trade-off for losing your job altogether.
States of Mind: California and Arizona Divisions

There are 66,000 employers using E-Verify and 4 million employment queries were run in 2007, of which 99.5 percent were verified instantaneously, according to DHS.
Where You Stand on E-Verify Depends on Where You Sit

Created as a pilot program in a 1996 immigration law (PL 104-208) the authorization for E-Verify will sunset Nov. 30 without congressional action. Several bills addressing employment verification are pending in Congress. One measure (HR 4088) introduced by Rep. Heath Shuler , D-N.C., would phase in mandatory use of E-Verify over seven years.

While not specifically addressing E-Verify, a June 16 federal appeals court decision could complicate any expansion of the program.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that employees can’t be fired because the Social Security numbers they submit are different from the government’s records. Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall ruled that 33 Los Angeles janitors fired in 2003 over Social Security number mismatches had to be reinstated with back pay.

In her opinion, Holcomb wrote that a mismatch “does not automatically mean that an employee is undocumented or lacks proper work authorization. In fact, the SSA tells employers that the information it provides them ‘does not make any statement about . . . immigration status.’ ”

So, if lack of proper documentation doesn’t make a worker undocumented, how can anyone be surprised that estimates of error rates vary dramatically?

Part of the reason those estimates are so disparate is because use of the system is voluntary. The experience of self-selected employers, who might not hire large numbers of immigrants, cannot necessarily be extrapolated as adequately representative of what would occur if use of the system were to be mandated nationally.

The one place where it has been mandated — Arizona — is not yet proving to be much better of a laboratory.

When asked about the states’s experience thus far with mismatch errors and the appeal process, Ann Seiden, spokeswoman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, said, “We haven’t heard that many stories about that happening.”

But, she added, “it hasn’t been a problem-free experience by any means. Probably the greatest challenge is on the education side and getting every Arizona business up to speed on what to do and what is required.”

She said the most recent statistics show that only 23,000 out of 150,000 businesses in the state have registered to use E-Verify.

That would seem to indicate that many employers in the state are not taking the law all that seriously. Multiply that by 50, and the problem of error rates could begin to pale before the problem of rogue employers not following the rules.

Grisella Martinez, an immigration policy analyst for the pro-immigration National Immigration Law Center, said government reports show that often “employers don’t tell employees that there’s been a tentative non-confirmation,” the status E-Verify gives when a mismatch occurs and when the eight-day window to appeal an error begins. She says other employers encourage employees not to contest mismatches because of the effort and time, which can block them from future employment with other employers that use E-Verify.

Martinez referred to a September 2007 study conducted by Westat on the E-Verify precursor, called Basic Pilot. The 250-page report says “the rate of employer non-compliance is still substantial, which decreases the ability of the program to reduce unauthorized employment and diminishes the effectiveness of safeguards designed to protect the rights of work-authorized employees who obtain erroneous tentative nonconfirmations.”
Where You Stand on E-Verify Depends on Where You Sit

“Even though these things are prohibited, there are no actual checks to make sure the employers aren’t engaging in that with the data,” Martinez said. “There currently is no appeals process, so the next time the person goes to get a job it will also come up again that the person is not eligible to work.”

So, there is a system. It’s voluntary. Many would like to make it mandatory.

There are, by best estimates, more than 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, perhaps half or more of them in the workforce.

If you are a U.S. citizen, the potential exists for transposed numbers on a government form to cost you your job.

Which is a bigger problem?

It all depends on your state of mind.

Caitlin Webber can be reached at cwebber@cq.com.

Authorities Detain 45 in Immigration Raid at Painting Company

2008-07-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/30/AR2008063000604.html

By William Wan

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 1, 2008; Page B02

Authorities raided the offices of an Annapolis painting company yesterday and detained 45 suspected illegal immigrants, who officials say were hired and housed by the company in private homes.

The raids, executed simultaneously at the offices of Annapolis Painting Services and 10 private homes that authorities said were owned by the company, were conducted by a force of 75 federal immigration agents and 50 Anne Arundel County police officers.

The immigrants are being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Baltimore while their status is reviewed, said Scot Rittenberg, an assistant special agent in charge in Baltimore.

No charges have been filed yet against the owner of the painting company, Robert Bontempo Jr., because the investigation has not been completed, Rittenberg said. But Police Chief James Teare Sr. said Bontempo could face federal felony charges.

The 45 immigrants detained -- 35 men and 10 women -- came from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Nigeria, federal investigators said.

There were five additional workers whose cases also have been entered into the illegal immigration removal process, but ICE agents did not take them into custody for humanitarian reasons. Some had children, one was dependent on medication and another was pregnant.

Bontempo did not return calls to his office and home. According to his company's Web site, he started painting homes in the 1970s to pay his way through college.

The Web site calls his company one of the largest painting contractors in the region and boasts of its work at several local institutions: the Maryland State House, the Annapolis Visitors and Convention Bureau, the U.S. Naval Academy and Anne Arundel Community College.

The company has more than 100 employees, county police said. The 10 sites raided yesterday morning housed large groups of immigrants living in single-family homes owned by the company, authorities said. ICE agents also conducted interviews with workers at five other sites.

At a news conference yesterday across the street from the company's offices, County Executive John R. Leopold (R) touted the raid as the most significant operation against illegal immigration in his administration.

He has come out strongly against illegal immigration in the county and made a series of policy changes in the past year to deter it.

"It's unfair to those companies operating legally to be undercut by those who hire illegal immigrants," Leopold said. "This sends a clear message that it's not going to be tolerated in Anne Arundel County."

ICE officials said they appreciated the assistance of county police in the raids but said their investigation was unrelated to the county's new policies.

ICE officials received the tip about Annapolis Painting Services 18 months ago, just as Leopold was taking office and months before he had announced his policies.

"We receive leads like this all the time, and we prioritize them to focus on the most egregious violators," Rittenberg said. "In this case it was in Anne Arundel County."

In August, Leopold issued an executive order declaring that the county would sever contracts with any business employing illegal immigrants. The order was largely symbolic, as it included no enforcement measures.

He also cut county grants to nonprofit agencies that offered social services to Spanish-speaking residents.

In addition, Leopold assigned a full-time county detective to a federal task force cracking down on counterfeit documents used by illegal immigrants.

And he instituted a policy that county jails must notify ICE immediately when foreign-born inmates are processed in county detention centers so that their immigration status can be checked.

45 Arrested On Immigration Charge In Anne Arundel

2008-06-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.nbc4.com/news/16747182/detail.html?rss=dc&psp=news

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Federal officials arrested 45 employees on illegal immigration charges Monday at a well-known local painting company that has touted its work on prominent buildings such as the Maryland State House and facilities at the U.S. Naval Academy.

All 45 people were arrested because of administrative immigration violations, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said. All of them will be placed in removal proceedings, the agency said.

The business, Annapolis Painting Services, did not immediately return calls or e-mails seeking comment. The company describes itself on its Web site as "one of the largest painting contractors in the region." The Web site includes photographs of employees working at the state capitol building and includes mention of work at the Naval Academy.

The search warrants were served at the business and 15 residences believed to be owned by it at about 6 a.m., said Anne Arundel County Police Chief James Teare.

"We believe that they were all associated with this painting company," Teare said outside the business, which is located near a popular shopping mall.

ICE, which described the arrests as part of ongoing investigations into workplaces that hire illegal immigrants, has been working on the case for 18 months, according to a statement released by the agency.

Scot R. Rittenberg, assistant special agent in charge for ICE in Baltimore, said the arrests involved 11 search warrants, five seizure warrants for bank accounts, 11 seizure warrants for vehicles and 15 forfeitable properties.

The arrested workers included foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nigeria and Panama, ICE said in a statement.

Investigators could be seen towing vehicles and removing boxes from the business.

About 50 county police worked with 75 ICE officials on the investigation for several months, said Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold. Leopold said the arrests should send a strong signal that the hiring of illegal immigrants won't be tolerated in Anne Arundel County.

"This is the most important signal to make that message known," Leopold said.

Meanwhile, civil rights and religious organizations scheduled a rally Tuesday to protest the arrests at ICE's main office in Baltimore by calling for an end to workplace raids.

USCIS Now Offering Grace Period Following Release of New Form I-9

2008-06-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

USCIS has revised the Form I-9 page on its website at www.uscis.gov to indicate that it is accepting the “Rev. 6/5/07” edition of the form. USCIS recently released a new edition of Form I-9, dated 6/16/08.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hears arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s employer-sanctions law

2008-06-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

http://law.lexisnexis.com/practiceareas/Emerging-Issues-Law-Blog/Labor--Employment/Ninth-Circuit-Court-of-Appeals-hears-arguments-on-the-constitutionality-of-Arizona's-employer-sanctions-law
Labor & Employment

6/17/2008 11:15:25 AM EST

Posted by Cecil Lynn

LexisNexis Law Center Staff and Attorney, Ryley, Carlock, & Applewhite

In a case that is undoubtedly being closely watched by immigration advocates and opponents around the country, a panel of judges for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments last Thursday on the constitutionality of Arizona’s employer-sanctions law. In the case of Arizona Contractors Associations, Inc. v. Candelaria, (Case Nos. CV 07-02496 and CV-07-02518), plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a law that allows the government to revoke or suspend the license of any business that hires an immigrant who is not authorized to work in the country. According to published reports, the appellate judges were skeptical towards arguments that Arizona has no legal authority to impose its own requirements on employers as a way to thwart the hiring of illegal workers.

The “Legal Arizona Workers Act”, which has been in effect in Arizona since January, has been widely debated. Proponents believe that its enforcement would curve the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico looking for better wages. Opponents of the law argue that the law places an undue burden on businesses to check and verify each employee’s work eligibility. The law requires that employers run the names of potential employees through an online database that validates social security numbers and immigration status. A federal judge in Phoenix ruled in February that the law passed Constitutional muster.

For additional information on the Legal Arizona Workers Act, see Allott, Ann. “Ann Allott on Arizona and Illinois Laws (and Lawsuits) on Undocumented Workers.” LexisNexis® Expert Commentary.

While the Candelaria case is the first employer-law case to reach the nation’s appellate level, it joins a small, but ever growing number of conflicting federal district court opinions. In Gray v. City of Valley Park, Missouri, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7238 (E.D. Mo. Jan 31, 2008), the court granted the City’s motion for summary judgment and upheld a city ordinance prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants. The decision has been appealed to the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read the City of Valley Park’s motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs’ response, the City’s reply, and the City’s supplement.

In Villas at Parkside Partners v. The City of Farmers Branch, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42452 (N.D.Tx. May 28, 2008), a federal judge, expressly rejecting both Candelaria and Gray, granted plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction barring enforcement of a city statute that required proof of citizenship prior to renting or leasing residential property. The court held that the city was preempted by federal law. Likewise, in Lorenzo v. City of Hazelton, 06-CV-01586-JMM (M.D. Penn. 2006), the judge held federal law preempted a Hazelton statute entitled the “Illegal Immigration Relief Act” which required landlords and employers to verify the legal immigration status of renters and potential hires.

We can expect to see more immigration-related statutes and more court challenges as communities grow increasingly frustrated with the federal government’s efforts to police undocumented and illegal immigrants. With the 8^th and 9^th Circuits expected to issue opinions this summer on the issue, it may not be long before state and local immigration statutes like those in Gray, Candelaria, Hazelton and Farmer’s Branch are on the radar of the United States Supreme Court.

Immigration agents raid Arlington Boeing supplier

2008-06-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

http://heraldnet.com/article/20080627/NEWS01/807661105

Immigration agents raid Arlington Boeing supplier

Authorities arrest 32 workers suspected of immigration violations.

By Diana Hefley, Herald Writer

ARLINGTON -- Federal immigration agents raided an Arlington aerospace company and arrested nearly three dozen people Thursday morning after a yearlong investigation into allegations the business employed illegal workers.

Immigration authorities served a federal warrant of inspection at Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies Inc., according to Lorie Dankers, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle.

The company is a leading supplier of frame and interior parts for commercial and military aircraft, including parts used in the Boeing Co.'s 737 and 777 jets.

Federal authorities on Thursday said they didn't have any evidence to indicate that AMT officials knew their workers used bogus documents to gain employment. The investigation is ongoing and the company is cooperating, Dankers said.

"We'll go where the evidence leads us," she said.

Nobody at AMT would comment about Thursday's raid and arrests when contacted by The Herald.

The agents arrested 32 workers for investigation of immigration violations. The majority of the workers are believed to be Mexican nationals without legal authority to be in the U.S., Dankers said. Two of the workers are thought to be from El Salvador.

The probe into AMT began months ago after Immigration received a tip that the business was using undocumented workers, Dankers said. Federal agents audited the company's employment records and discovered discrepancies indicating that a small percentage of employees used fake documents to secure jobs, Dankers said.

About 360 employees were at the shop when immigration agents showed up.

The arrested workers, 16 men and 16 women, are expected to be deported. As part of Thursday's raid, the workers were interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed. Four women were released on humanitarian grounds. Agents determined the women were either caring for children or had a medical problem. They will be allowed to remain free pending deportation proceedings, Dankers said.

The other 28 workers were being held at a federal detention center in Tacoma.

Immigration authorities across the country have launched dozens of enforcement operations at work sites, targeting businesses deemed critical to the country's infrastructure or considered to be sensitive to national security.

The Arlington company is registered with the U.S. Department of State's Director of Defense Trade Controls, Dankers said. The department oversees the export and import of products used for national defense.

Along with the thousands of arrests of suspected illegal immigrants, immigration officials have arrested business owners suspected of knowingly using illegal workers.

"(Thursday's) enforcement action is part of ICE's ongoing nationwide effort to shut down the employment magnet fueling illegal immigration," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of Immigration in Seattle.

"Every job held by an illegal alien is a job taken from a U.S. citizen or legal resident of this area," Winchell said in a statement.

Employer arrests could follow Houston immigration raid

2008-06-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5857042.html

Immigration agents detain 166 undocumented workers at east side plant

By JAMES PINKERTON and SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

As anxious relatives stood outside, van after van of mostly female undocumented workers were removed from a sweltering rag-sorting factory on Houston's east side and whisked to an immigration processing facility.

The early morning raid Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, while netting 166 undocumented workers, did not include arrests of company officials with Action Rags USA. But those charges may be on the way.

"The office of investigation is looking at allegations of the hiring of illegal aliens, which is a crime," said Special Agent Bob Rutt, of the Houston ICE office. Arresting illegal immigrants was "a collateral part" of the investigation, he said. "Our focus, ICE's overall focus, is targeting the employer."

Rutt, however, referred inquiries about possible criminal charges in Wednesday's raid case, as well as one at Shipley Do-Nuts in Houston, to federal prosecutors. There have been no arrests of Shipley managers or company officials.

"As it pertains to Shipley Do-Nuts, we cannot confirm or deny the existence of a criminal investigation," said Angela Dodge, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston.

"I think everybody recognizes that to get a handle on this, ... you have to go after the employer," said Steven Camarota, director of research with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter immigration controls.

In fiscal 2007, ICE secured fines and forfeitures of more than $30 million in worksite enforcement cases, according to the agency's annual report. ICE did not provide statistics on the number of employers criminally charged last year.

Employer prosecutions aren't "the biggest bang for the buck, as far as the way ICE is thinking about it," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank based in Washington, D.C.

"It's much easier and gets more headlines to arrest a lot of people," Papademetriou said. "To make a case against an employer requires time and significant investments of investigative resources. Sometimes it takes half a year, or a year."

ICE began investigating Action Rags USA a year ago after learning about hiring practices from a former employee.

The Wednesday raid, which involved 200 ICE agents, started shortly after work began at 7 a.m. at the sorting facility at 1225 Port Houston.

Late Wednesday, ICE officials said of the 166 workers they detained, 130 were females, including 10 who were pregnant. In all, 66 undocumented workers were released for humanitarian reasons, including pregnancy and child care issues, and were told to report to an immigration judge.

The workers who remain detained could be processed for removal from the U.S. The arrest tally included 135 from Mexico, 12 from Honduras, 10 from Guatemala, eight from El Salvador, and one whose nationality is unknown, ICE officials said.

'We were like a family'

The raid surprised many workers as they began a day of sorting bales of used clothing in the un-airconditioned facility. The clothing is shipped worldwide, according to a company Web site, or processed into rags for industry.

A woman who identified herself as a company supervisor said many of the workers initially didn't believe a raid was under way, noting false reports of raids in the past year.

"But when I came out to look, the agents were at the doors, and they had surrounded the warehouse," said Brenda, who gave only her first name. "They started yelling for us to sit down. They started searching us to see if we had knives or weapons."

Brenda said workers who ran from federal agents or tried to hide were handcuffed "and treated like criminals."

"When I left I was crying, because we all got along well," she said. "We were like a family."

ICE officials said four workers were taken to area hospitals due to anxiety attacks and heat-related illness; one woman fell 20 feet from a stack of pallets in which she was hiding.

Repeated attempts to contact company officials at the facility Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Action Rags lost its corporate status in July 2007 due to a tax forfeiture, according to Texas Secretary of State records. The records listed Mubarik Kahlon as the company's registered agent and director.

Secretary of State spokesman Scott Haywood confirmed that Action Rags is no longer a registered LLC in Texas, but said he could not comment on any potential legal implications.

A woman who answered the door at Kahlon's home in Humble said he was not there.

Critics call raid a waste

As ICE continues its investigation, pro-immigrant activists blasted the raid as a waste of taxpayer money which will have hurt Houston's economy and workers' families.

"Are we safer because they arrested immigrant women who are working?" asked Maria Jimenez, with the Center for Central American Resources in Houston. "I mean, 200 agents went to basically capture women who were contributing to the economy. What have we gained for society by removing mothers, wives and sisters from their family?"

Men were also detained, including the husband of Juana Ramirez, who acknowledged her spouse is not in the country legally.

"All he does is go to work, comes home and takes care of the kids when I go to work," said an angry Ramirez, who works at a fast-food restaurant and is expecting the couple's third child. "He doesn't drink or do drugs. It's not good at all."

Papademetriou called raids like Wednesday's the "low-hanging fruit" of operations.

"They don't require an enormous amount of investment on the part of ICE. They make headlines. The numbers look substantial," he said.

According to ICE statistics for the 2007 fiscal year, ICE made 863 criminal arrests and 4,077 administrative arrests as a result of worksite enforcement efforts nationally.

Camarota said even though the number of arrests is small in relation to the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S., the raids have a significant impact.

"If you're on a highway and thousands of people were speeding and one person gets pulled over, compliance with the law shoots up dramatically. Any law enforcement action has a much greater effect than just on the individuals who are subject to it," he said.

One former ICE prosecutor, Austin attorney Kevin Lashus, said worksite raids are designed to frighten companies who hire undocumented workers.

"What they're hoping to do is be able to use these stepped-up raids to force employers to reconsider their employment verification policies," said Lashus, who is now a member of the Tindall & Foster immigration law firm in Austin. "They're trying to scare the hell out of them — their intent is to force employers to police themselves."

Immigration raids often spare employers

2008-06-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5863348.html

Immigration raids often spare employers
'Bosses' make up only 2% of recent arrests, a number blamed on high evidence threshold

By STEWART M. POWELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are staging dramatic raids across the country that routinely seize hundreds of undocumented workers at their jobs — and leave their employers free to work another day.

The appearance of separate justice that arose during federal authorities' surprise morning raid at Action Rags USA on Houston's east side fits a nationwide pattern.

Many of the 166 workers taken into custody on suspected immigration charges in Houston last week were paraded toward vans to be transported into detention. But immigration authorities spared company officials both immediate arrest and the embarrassing "perp walk" that exposed those arrested to news photographers.

"Once again the federal government has it backwards," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, a former state judge and prosecutor. "It is a waste of time if we don't go after the business owners who are knowingly hiring illegals.

"If we eliminate the illegal job opportunities, we can start to eliminate the problem."

Over the past eight months, federal immigration agents have arrested more than 2,900 suspected undocumented workers on administrative immigration charges and 775 more workers on criminal charges such as identity theft or Social Security fraud.

Only 75 ''bosses" — business owners, supervisors or human resources workers — have been arrested on charges such as harboring or knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants.

That accounts for barely 2 percent of the total of 3,750 workplace immigration arrests since last October.

In a statement, the immigration agency said that "the presence of illegal aliens at a business does not necessarily mean the employer is responsible," adding: "Developing sufficient evidence against employers requires complex, white-collar crime investigations that can take years to bear fruit."

Must prove they knew

Undocumented workers often face quick prosecution for so-called ''status crimes" such as being in the country illegally — charges that are easy to prove. Many of those arrested quickly plead guilty and serve sentences averaging as little as a month. But to convict employers, federal prosecutors must show that they knowingly hired undocumented immigrants, a threshold that demands more evidence.

"You have to show that the employer knowingly and willingly hired an illegal," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, a former Justice Department official. "A lot of these guys carry multiple Social Security cards" — making it difficult for employers to determine whether they are legally in the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose Cabinet department handles immigration enforcement, defended the two-tiered practice of arresting undocumented workers at worksites while taking time to assemble criminal cases against employers.

"When we find evidence of persistent, widespread hiring of illegals, we're going in to try to build a case against the employer if there's a case to be built," said Chertoff, a former federal appeals court judge.

Federal prosecutors often take years to put together cases against employers.

Immigration authorities raided IFCO, a Houston-based pallet company, more than two years ago. Seven managers and 1,187 undocumented workers were arrested, with many taken into custody at the company's plants in Texas and 25 other states. But it won't be until Oct. 16 that at least two managers, each free on $20,000 bond, will face sentencing after pleading guilty in the case.

Workers rather than managers also led the way into the courtroom after raids netted nearly 1,300 people at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant in Cactus and five other plants in five other states in 2006.

Eight undocumented workers pleaded guilty to felony charges within three months on such counts as illegally re-entering the United States after deportation and using someone else's Social Security number to obtain employment.

'A two-sided coin'

Members of the Houston-area congressional delegation expressed concern about aspects of last week's raid.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, whose congressional district includes the rag-sorting plant, said ICE's deployment of as many as 200 agents and helicopters scared children at a nearby elementary school.

"It sounded like maybe (ICE) had more assets than they really needed to go in and pick up those 160 people there," Green said. "Most of those ladies who worked there, granted they were here illegally, but they weren't holding up liquor stores or hurting people. They just needed a way to support their families."

Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, called worksite enforcement "a two-sided coin."

"As employers, Action Rags broke the law and without question should be prosecuted for their violations," Culberson said. "ICE is equally obligated to enforce the law and be respectful and humane while carrying out their duties."

House Panel Votes 'NO' on Continued Funding for E-Verify

2008-06-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.shrm.org/government/update/062708_2.asp

This week, during consideration of the 2009 spending bill for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the House Appropriations Committee decided not to extend the "E-Verify" program for 10 years beyond the program's November 30 expiration date.

This action provides SHRM members and other proponents of the "New Employee Verification Act" (H.R. 5515)" with a unique opportunity to again urge their legislators to support NEVA as an alternative to the E-Verify program.

To send a letter to your legislator requesting his/her support of H.R. 5515, please access SHRM's HR Voice letter-writing tool HERE and click on "Write Your Elected Officials!"

For the past 14 months, SHRM and members of the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce coalition have lobbied Congress to replace E-Verify with a new, more secure, accurate, and reliable employment verification system. Under H.R. 5515, employers would access the employment verification system using their state "new hire" reporting process, which is currently utilized for child support enforcement. The Social Security Administration database would be used for U.S. citizens and the DHS database would be used for non-U.S. citizens to verify an employee's eligibility to work in the United States.

In addition, NEVA would create a voluntary biometrics option that employers could choose to use for employee verification. This system would include a standard background check and the collection of a "biometric" characteristic — such as a thumbprint — to secure an employee's identity and prevent the illegal use of a Social Security number, stolen or fraudulently-obtained driver's license, or altered identification documents.

During the past two years, nine states have enacted laws requiring certain employers to use E-Verify in confirming the work eligibility of new hires. If Congress fails to reauthorize the program -- or substitute an alternative verification system -- before the November 30 deadline, many of these state mandates may become null and void.

New I-9 Form for Employers as of June 16, 2008: 5 Documents Removed from List & Electronic Retention and Signature Now OK

2008-06-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

New Form I-9

Edition Date: 06/16/08. See http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf

No previous edition accepted.

Please note the following changes to the Form I-9 process:

Five documents have been removed from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents:

1) Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-561),
2) Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570),
3) Alien Registration Receipt Card (I-151),
4) Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327),
5) Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571);

One document was added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents:

1) Unexpired Employment Authorization Document (I-766);

All Employment Authorization Documents with photographs have been consolidated as one item on List A: I-688, I-688A, I-688B, I-766;

Instructions regarding Section 1 of the Form I-9 now indicate that the employee is not obliged to provide his or her Social Security number in Section 1 of the Form I-9, unless he or she is employed by an employer who participates in E-Verify;

Employers may now sign and retain Forms I-9 electronically. See instructions on page 2 of the Form I-9.

2008-06-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Citizens sue after detentions, immigration raids
By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Nitin Dhopade, the chief financial officer for Micro Solutions Enterprises, was headed toward the accounting department on the afternoon of Feb. 7 to deliver checks he had just signed. Suddenly, he says, he encountered armed men and women wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms branded with "ICE," which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Dhopade, 47, says he and 30 other administrative workers for the Van Nuys, Calif., company, which recycles used toner and ink cartridges, were marched down a stairwell lined by officers. The workers were ordered against a wall and told not to touch anything or use their cellphones. "There was no way you could leave. You were definitely detained," he says. "None of us were in handcuffs, but there was no way you could say 'I'm leaving.' "

That marked the beginning of a surprise raid that would result in the arrests of 138 suspected illegal immigrants, about one-fifth of MSE's workforce. Also swept up in the same raid were more than 100 U.S. citizens and legal residents, including Dhopade, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India. They say they were illegally detained at the factory for an hour when ICE agents blocked the doors and interrogated them, forbidding them to leave or go to the bathroom without an escort.

Whether their brief detention was a mere inconvenience or a flagrant violation of their constitutional rights is the subject of a growing debate that seems likely to be resolved in federal court. Immigration officials, charged with enforcing the law against the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the USA, are mounting more raids at slaughterhouses, restaurants and factories.

Increasingly, U.S. citizens and legal residents who work alongside illegal immigrants are being detained and interrogated, too. And some, such as Dhopade, are filing claims or lawsuits against the government.

Dhopade says he was a victim of racial profiling by ICE. An ICE agent questioned him about his immigration status and his ability to speak English "because of my skin color," he says. "None of the white folks in the office … that I know of were asked for proof of citizenship. To be asked for proof of citizenship, in this country, it's an insult. This is the United States of America. This country does not require that."

In other immigration raids, citizens and legal, permanent residents have been taken to jail. Jesus Garcia, a former Texas poultry worker, was handcuffed and spent more than 30 hours in ICE custody this year, part of that time in jail. Two co-workers, both citizens, also were arrested. No charges were filed against them.

In April, the Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law, a public interest law firm here, filed claims for damages on behalf of 114 MSE employees, all citizens or legal permanent residents, also called green-card holders. The claims allege that they were subjected to "false imprisonment" and "detention without justification" and seek $5,000 each in damages from the federal government.

The lawsuits and claims against the government are part of a strategy by immigration lawyers to halt or change workplace raids. Peter Schey, president and executive director of the center, acknowledges that "we're hoping the prospect of thousands of U.S. citizens over time filing claims for damages against the United States government might cause (ICE) to reconsider how these raids are conducted."

"You cannot in this country engage in group detentions of large numbers of people because you think a smaller number within the larger group has done something wrong," Schey says. At the Van Nuys plant, ICE "created a powerful atmosphere of fear and intimidation. People felt like they had been taken hostage."

The rationale for the raids

Julie Myers, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for ICE, says federal law, Supreme Court decisions and search warrants give ICE the authority to enter workplaces to question "all the people inside," including citizens. She declines to discuss the MSE case, citing the ongoing investigation. But she says ICE agents work fast to separate legal workers from suspected illegal ones.

"When we go in, a lot of people are pretending to be U.S. citizens, and then there are some people who are," she says. "Our goal is to make sure we work as quickly and efficiently as we can so that U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents are free to go."

The stepped-up enforcement protects U.S. workers, she says. "We're trying to create a culture of compliance … so that businesses would start to have incentives to hire only people who are legally entitled to work here."

Workplace arrests by ICE in 2007 were 10 times what they were in 2002. Last year, the agency charged 863 people with criminal violations, such as identity theft, and 4,077 for allegedly being in the country illegally. In 2002, ICE made 25 criminal and 485 immigration-related arrests. Workers arrested on criminal charges face jail time; those accused of being in the country illegally are subject to deportation.

So far this year, ICE has made 850 criminal arrests and detained 2,900 people on immigration violations.

ICE has three primary targets, Myers says: workers who steal the identities of U.S. citizens, such as those who use someone else's Social Security number to gain employment; work sites such as airports and naval bases, which could be particularly vulnerable to terrorist threats; and what Myers calls "egregious employers" — those who knowingly hire illegal workers.

Barbara Coe, chairwoman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, says raids "are providing the incentive for at least some of these illegal aliens to get out of here before they are deported. I don't think there are enough raids. There should be more." She says she's sorry legal residents are sometimes questioned during raids but believes ICE needs time to determine who is here legally.

So does Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "It's not the end of the world," he says of citizens who are detained. "These people were briefly inconvenienced. Too bad."

'My heart was racing'

Denise Shippy, nine months pregnant the day of the MSE raid, says it was more than an inconvenience.

She had planned to take off that afternoon for parent-teacher conferences and a doctor's appointment. But Shippy, 30, needed to train a receptionist to fill in for her while she was on maternity leave, so she took her two children to the office with her. The raid occurred as she settled Cassidy, 7, and Ricky, 9, into the mailroom for lunch.

As she left the mailroom, Shippy found the lobby filled with ICE agents, and she, the children and co-workers were herded in there. When Shippy tried to respond to an e-mail, she says, one ICE agent said, "Stop typing."

"My rights were violated," Shippy says. "I am a citizen of this United States. I was born here. I'm not who they're looking for. I wasn't allowed to leave. … I couldn't go anywhere and couldn't do anything. Neither could my children."

Although she was upset, she tried to calm her kids, she says. She needed to use the restroom, but held off because she didn't want an agent to accompany her.

"I didn't want to scare the heck out of my kids," she says. "I was trying to be cool and calm for my children. My heart was racing."

At one point, agents started escorting handcuffed workers — suspected illegal immigrants — from the factory floor out the front door. Her children asked why the workers were handcuffed, what they had done wrong and what would happen to them, she says.

"That was when I started getting angry," she says. "My kids should not have had to watch these things. They saw people being led out in handcuffs. These are people who are recognizable to my children."

Shippy, who gave birth to a boy on Feb. 19, returned to work June 9 and says she still feels justified in filing a claim.

"I'm not some money-hungry person," she says. "This is something I'm pretty passionate about. It shouldn't have happened the way it did."

Debate over the law

As long as ICE has a warrant to enter a workplace, Myers says, agents can conduct what she calls a "survey" to determine the legal status of "anyone within the premises."

She cites a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that said factory surveys during immigration raids don't amount to an unconstitutional detention or seizure of those being questioned, even U.S. citizens.

In its ruling, however, the Supreme Court emphasized that the employees in the factory were not prevented from moving around, continuing to work or leaving. The current raids are different from those the Supreme Court approved, Schey says.

ICE can question workers as long as the interaction is voluntary, "but what they're doing (now) is not that," he says, because workers think they have no choice except to answer questions — which may incriminate those here illegally.

Many workers caught in raids don't know they're not obligated to respond, regardless of their immigration status, says Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California-Davis, law school. ICE "can ask people questions. That doesn't mean people have to respond," he says.

Schey suspects ICE is using search warrants as a pretext to enter workplaces and then arrest as many people as it can to get publicity. "It's in effect a group detention," he says, "not supported by probable cause, … not supported by any law."

Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School, argues that ICE cannot legally detain or arrest anyone without reasonable suspicion that a specific person broke the law. People should not be detained simply because "they work in the same factory as the person" for whom ICE has warrant, he says.

Kris Kobach, who teaches law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, counters that police sometimes have to detain a large group to find the lawbreakers among them. He cites, as an example, police looking for two drug dealers in a house where 10 people live. In such a drug raid, "police will reasonably close the doors to the house and detain everybody," he says.

The factory's owners

No fines or charges have been levied against MSE or its managers.

Brothers Avi and Yoel Wazana, immigrants from Israel, started the company in 1994. Last year, net revenue was $95 million. At MSE's headquarters, a 225,000-square-foot building in Van Nuys, workers clean, disassemble, reassemble and test old printer cartridges. Before the raid, MSE employed about 700 people here.

Myers declined to say what prompted the raid. However, ICE began auditing the company in May 2007, focusing on "I-9 forms," which employers use to document employees' legal status. As part of the I-9 process, employers must inspect at least two documents that show identity and legal status, including U.S. passports, Social Security cards or green cards.

MSE was "in compliance with I-9 requirements," says Schey, who also represents the company. "If some of the documents workers presented were fraudulent," MSE has "no way of determining that."

The next month, the company voluntarily began using a government database to verify the status of new hires, he says. Then the company didn't hear from the government for months, Schey says.

"They expected a letter," he says. "Instead, on Feb. 7, ICE comes in like gangbusters."

About 100 ICE agents raided the factory between 3:30 and 4 p.m., says Nora Preciado, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. Armed with a federal search warrant, they arrested 130 workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries on suspicion of being in the country illegally. ICE also had arrest warrants for eight others, who were picked up at their homes or the factory. These eight, identified by ICE during the earlier check of documents, face criminal charges for making false claims of U.S. citizenship or presenting false documents.

Five people arrested in the raids have been deported, ICE says. The others remain, some in detention, some not, while fighting their deportation orders in court.

Avi Wazana did not comment on the cases against his former employees or the methods MSE used to check their immigration status. In an e-mail after the raid, however, he told some of his customers that "MSE … has rejected hundreds (possibly more) of applicants … due to improper documentation."

The ACLU and other legal aid groups sued ICE, saying the detained MSE workers should have been allowed access to attorneys when they reported for interviews after the raid. U.S. District Court Judge George Wu agreed, and ordered ICE to stop interviewing workers. ICE has since allowed lawyers to be present at any interview with MSE workers.

One of the workers interviewed without an attorney present was Maria, a 39-year-old Pacoima resident who worked at MSE for eight years. She asked that her last name not to be used, on the advice of her attorney. "I felt like I had to answer" questions from ICE, she says. "I didn't know about my rights."

Maria was a supervisor in charge of eight line workers. She says she entered the USA illegally 15 years ago from Mexico so she could give her children a better education. One of her three children, a 14-year-old girl, is a U.S. citizen.

Maria says she'll fight to remain in the USA because she doesn't want to be separated from her family, especially her daughter. The girl's father, Maria's longtime partner, is a U.S. citizen and will care for their daughter if Maria is deported.

"She's not going to leave," Maria says of the girl, an eighth-grader. "This is her country."

Jailed 'over a mistake'

ICE's raids foster discrimination, says Domingo Garcia, attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens. "There's a lot of racial profiling. … If you look like a Hispanic, you're detained or arrested."

He says he plans to file a class-action, civil rights lawsuit on behalf of legal workers detained in raids, including Jesus Garcia, 27, a green-card holder from Mount Pleasant, Texas. Domingo Garcia says he will ask the court to prohibit ICE from conducting raids until it changes its policies to prevent racial profiling.

ICE agents went to Jesus Garcia's home on April 16 in conjunction with a raid on a nearby Pilgrim's Pride poultry processing plant, where he worked marinating chicken meat. Garcia, from Mexico, has been a legal permanent resident for a year and a half. When about 10 ICE agents and local sheriff's deputies knocked on his door, they told him he was using the wrong Social Security number, says his wife, Olivia Garcia, a U.S. citizen.

Though Garcia showed the agents his green card, they handcuffed him and jailed him. He was released a day and a half later after agents told him he wasn't the person they wanted, he says. He had spent the night in jail. "He said it was pretty bad," Olivia says. "People were crying and screaming."

Jesus Garcia, who has since left Pilgrim's Pride for another job, says the mishap cost him three days of work. "I worked hard to get my residency," he says. "And to take me to jail just over a mistake?"

U.S. Citizens Sue ICE for Being Detained During Raids

2008-06-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

Citizens sue after detentions, immigration raids

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Nitin Dhopade, the chief financial officer for Micro Solutions Enterprises, was headed toward the accounting department on the afternoon of Feb. 7 to deliver checks he had just signed. Suddenly, he says, he encountered armed men and women wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms branded with "ICE," which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Dhopade, 47, says he and 30 other administrative workers for the Van Nuys, Calif., company, which recycles used toner and ink cartridges, were marched down a stairwell lined by officers. The workers were ordered against a wall and told not to touch anything or use their cellphones. "There was no way you could leave. You were definitely detained," he says. "None of us were in handcuffs, but there was no way you could say 'I'm leaving.' "

That marked the beginning of a surprise raid that would result in the arrests of 138 suspected illegal immigrants, about one-fifth of MSE's workforce. Also swept up in the same raid were more than 100 U.S. citizens and legal residents, including Dhopade, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India. They say they were illegally detained at the factory for an hour when ICE agents blocked the doors and interrogated them, forbidding them to leave or go to the bathroom without an escort.

Whether their brief detention was a mere inconvenience or a flagrant violation of their constitutional rights is the subject of a growing debate that seems likely to be resolved in federal court. Immigration officials, charged with enforcing the law against the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the USA, are mounting more raids at slaughterhouses, restaurants and factories.

Increasingly, U.S. citizens and legal residents who work alongside illegal immigrants are being detained and interrogated, too. And some, such as Dhopade, are filing claims or lawsuits against the government.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: California | Texas | United States Supreme Court | Department of Homeland Security | Customs Enforcement | United States of America | India | Van Nuys | Julie Myers | Center for Human Rights | Constitutional Law | Micro Solutions Enterprises

Dhopade says he was a victim of racial profiling by ICE. An ICE agent questioned him about his immigration status and his ability to speak English "because of my skin color," he says. "None of the white folks in the office … that I know of were asked for proof of citizenship. To be asked for proof of citizenship, in this country, it's an insult. This is the United States of America. This country does not require that."

In other immigration raids, citizens and legal, permanent residents have been taken to jail. Jesus Garcia, a former Texas poultry worker, was handcuffed and spent more than 30 hours in ICE custody this year, part of that time in jail. Two co-workers, both citizens, also were arrested. No charges were filed against them.

In April, the Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law, a public interest law firm here, filed claims for damages on behalf of 114 MSE employees, all citizens or legal permanent residents, also called green-card holders. The claims allege that they were subjected to "false imprisonment" and "detention without justification" and seek $5,000 each in damages from the federal government.

The lawsuits and claims against the government are part of a strategy by immigration lawyers to halt or change workplace raids. Peter Schey, president and executive director of the center, acknowledges that "we're hoping the prospect of thousands of U.S. citizens over time filing claims for damages against the United States government might cause (ICE) to reconsider how these raids are conducted."

"You cannot in this country engage in group detentions of large numbers of people because you think a smaller number within the larger group has done something wrong," Schey says. At the Van Nuys plant, ICE "created a powerful atmosphere of fear and intimidation. People felt like they had been taken hostage."

The rationale for the raids

Julie Myers, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for ICE, says federal law, Supreme Court decisions and search warrants give ICE the authority to enter workplaces to question "all the people inside," including citizens. She declines to discuss the MSE case, citing the ongoing investigation. But she says ICE agents work fast to separate legal workers from suspected illegal ones.

"When we go in, a lot of people are pretending to be U.S. citizens, and then there are some people who are," she says. "Our goal is to make sure we work as quickly and efficiently as we can so that U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents are free to go."

The stepped-up enforcement protects U.S. workers, she says. "We're trying to create a culture of compliance … so that businesses would start to have incentives to hire only people who are legally entitled to work here."

Workplace arrests by ICE in 2007 were 10 times what they were in 2002. Last year, the agency charged 863 people with criminal violations, such as identity theft, and 4,077 for allegedly being in the country illegally. In 2002, ICE made 25 criminal and 485 immigration-related arrests. Workers arrested on criminal charges face jail time; those accused of being in the country illegally are subject to deportation.

So far this year, ICE has made 850 criminal arrests and detained 2,900 people on immigration violations.

ICE has three primary targets, Myers says: workers who steal the identities of U.S. citizens, such as those who use someone else's Social Security number to gain employment; work sites such as airports and naval bases, which could be particularly vulnerable to terrorist threats; and what Myers calls "egregious employers" — those who knowingly hire illegal workers.

Barbara Coe, chairwoman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, says raids "are providing the incentive for at least some of these illegal aliens to get out of here before they are deported. I don't think there are enough raids. There should be more." She says she's sorry legal residents are sometimes questioned during raids but believes ICE needs time to determine who is here legally.

So does Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. "It's not the end of the world," he says of citizens who are detained. "These people were briefly inconvenienced. Too bad."

'My heart was racing'

Denise Shippy, nine months pregnant the day of the MSE raid, says it was more than an inconvenience.

She had planned to take off that afternoon for parent-teacher conferences and a doctor's appointment. But Shippy, 30, needed to train a receptionist to fill in for her while she was on maternity leave, so she took her two children to the office with her. The raid occurred as she settled Cassidy, 7, and Ricky, 9, into the mailroom for lunch.

As she left the mailroom, Shippy found the lobby filled with ICE agents, and she, the children and co-workers were herded in there. When Shippy tried to respond to an e-mail, she says, one ICE agent said, "Stop typing."

"My rights were violated," Shippy says. "I am a citizen of this United States. I was born here. I'm not who they're looking for. I wasn't allowed to leave. … I couldn't go anywhere and couldn't do anything. Neither could my children."

Although she was upset, she tried to calm her kids, she says. She needed to use the restroom, but held off because she didn't want an agent to accompany her.

"I didn't want to scare the heck out of my kids," she says. "I was trying to be cool and calm for my children. My heart was racing."

At one point, agents started escorting handcuffed workers — suspected illegal immigrants — from the factory floor out the front door. Her children asked why the workers were handcuffed, what they had done wrong and what would happen to them, she says.

"That was when I started getting angry," she says. "My kids should not have had to watch these things. They saw people being led out in handcuffs. These are people who are recognizable to my children."

Shippy, who gave birth to a boy on Feb. 19, returned to work June 9 and says she still feels justified in filing a claim.

"I'm not some money-hungry person," she says. "This is something I'm pretty passionate about. It shouldn't have happened the way it did."

Debate over the law

As long as ICE has a warrant to enter a workplace, Myers says, agents can conduct what she calls a "survey" to determine the legal status of "anyone within the premises."

She cites a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that said factory surveys during immigration raids don't amount to an unconstitutional detention or seizure of those being questioned, even U.S. citizens.

In its ruling, however, the Supreme Court emphasized that the employees in the factory were not prevented from moving around, continuing to work or leaving. The current raids are different from those the Supreme Court approved, Schey says.

ICE can question workers as long as the interaction is voluntary, "but what they're doing (now) is not that," he says, because workers think they have no choice except to answer questions — which may incriminate those here illegally.

Many workers caught in raids don't know they're not obligated to respond, regardless of their immigration status, says Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California-Davis, law school. ICE "can ask people questions. That doesn't mean people have to respond," he says.

Schey suspects ICE is using search warrants as a pretext to enter workplaces and then arrest as many people as it can to get publicity. "It's in effect a group detention," he says, "not supported by probable cause, … not supported by any law."

Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School, argues that ICE cannot legally detain or arrest anyone without reasonable suspicion that a specific person broke the law. People should not be detained simply because "they work in the same factory as the person" for whom ICE has warrant, he says.

Kris Kobach, who teaches law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, counters that police sometimes have to detain a large group to find the lawbreakers among them. He cites, as an example, police looking for two drug dealers in a house where 10 people live. In such a drug raid, "police will reasonably close the doors to the house and detain everybody," he says.

The factory's owners

No fines or charges have been levied against MSE or its managers.

Brothers Avi and Yoel Wazana, immigrants from Israel, started the company in 1994. Last year, net revenue was $95 million. At MSE's headquarters, a 225,000-square-foot building in Van Nuys, workers clean, disassemble, reassemble and test old printer cartridges. Before the raid, MSE employed about 700 people here.

Myers declined to say what prompted the raid. However, ICE began auditing the company in May 2007, focusing on "I-9 forms," which employers use to document employees' legal status. As part of the I-9 process, employers must inspect at least two documents that show identity and legal status, including U.S. passports, Social Security cards or green cards.

MSE was "in compliance with I-9 requirements," says Schey, who also represents the company. "If some of the documents workers presented were fraudulent," MSE has "no way of determining that."

The next month, the company voluntarily began using a government database to verify the status of new hires, he says. Then the company didn't hear from the government for months, Schey says.

"They expected a letter," he says. "Instead, on Feb. 7, ICE comes in like gangbusters."

About 100 ICE agents raided the factory between 3:30 and 4 p.m., says Nora Preciado, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. Armed with a federal search warrant, they arrested 130 workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries on suspicion of being in the country illegally. ICE also had arrest warrants for eight others, who were picked up at their homes or the factory. These eight, identified by ICE during the earlier check of documents, face criminal charges for making false claims of U.S. citizenship or presenting false documents.

Five people arrested in the raids have been deported, ICE says. The others remain, some in detention, some not, while fighting their deportation orders in court.

Avi Wazana did not comment on the cases against his former employees or the methods MSE used to check their immigration status. In an e-mail after the raid, however, he told some of his customers that "MSE … has rejected hundreds (possibly more) of applicants … due to improper documentation."

The ACLU and other legal aid groups sued ICE, saying the detained MSE workers should have been allowed access to attorneys when they reported for interviews after the raid. U.S. District Court Judge George Wu agreed, and ordered ICE to stop interviewing workers. ICE has since allowed lawyers to be present at any interview with MSE workers.

One of the workers interviewed without an attorney present was Maria, a 39-year-old Pacoima resident who worked at MSE for eight years. She asked that her last name not to be used, on the advice of her attorney. "I felt like I had to answer" questions from ICE, she says. "I didn't know about my rights."

Maria was a supervisor in charge of eight line workers. She says she entered the USA illegally 15 years ago from Mexico so she could give her children a better education. One of her three children, a 14-year-old girl, is a U.S. citizen.

Maria says she'll fight to remain in the USA because she doesn't want to be separated from her family, especially her daughter. The girl's father, Maria's longtime partner, is a U.S. citizen and will care for their daughter if Maria is deported.

"She's not going to leave," Maria says of the girl, an eighth-grader. "This is her country."

Jailed 'over a mistake'

ICE's raids foster discrimination, says Domingo Garcia, attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens. "There's a lot of racial profiling. … If you look like a Hispanic, you're detained or arrested."

He says he plans to file a class-action, civil rights lawsuit on behalf of legal workers detained in raids, including Jesus Garcia, 27, a green-card holder from Mount Pleasant, Texas. Domingo Garcia says he will ask the court to prohibit ICE from conducting raids until it changes its policies to prevent racial profiling.

ICE agents went to Jesus Garcia's home on April 16 in conjunction with a raid on a nearby Pilgrim's Pride poultry processing plant, where he worked marinating chicken meat. Garcia, from Mexico, has been a legal permanent resident for a year and a half. When about 10 ICE agents and local sheriff's deputies knocked on his door, they told him he was using the wrong Social Security number, says his wife, Olivia Garcia, a U.S. citizen.

Though Garcia showed the agents his green card, they handcuffed him and jailed him. He was released a day and a half later after agents told him he wasn't the person they wanted, he says. He had spent the night in jail. "He said it was pretty bad," Olivia says. "People were crying and screaming."

Jesus Garcia, who has since left Pilgrim's Pride for another job, says the mishap cost him three days of work. "I worked hard to get my residency," he says. "And to take me to jail just over a mistake?"

West Coast Mayors Decry Immigration Raids

2008-06-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

West Coast mayors decry immigration raids

Mayors want Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on businesses that exploit workers, such as those that violate wage and safety laws, not "responsible employers" that contribute to economies.

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

Three West Coast mayors are asking the leaders of other cities to take a stand against workplace immigration raids that they say hurt local economies and may force companies to relocate.

At the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors this week in Miami, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will ask their colleagues to challenge how the government raids businesses in search of illegal workers.

They want Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on businesses that exploit workers, such as those that violate wage and safety laws, not "responsible employers" that contribute to economies, their resolution says.

"We've never taken the position that you shouldn't enforce the law," Villaraigosa says. "What we've said is, in a time of limited resources, we should prioritize our enforcement. At a time when we don't have the resources to go after criminals, we're going after legitimate businesses and workers instead. That doesn't make sense."

The resolution will be discussed by a committee Saturday and, if approved, will go to all the mayors for a vote Monday.
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ICE has aggressively ramped up workplace arrests in the past five years. Last year, it charged 863 people with criminal violations such as identity theft and 4,077 for being in the country illegally. In 2002, it made 25 criminal and 485 immigration arrests.

"We fully respect the opinions of local leaders and will continue to work with them," agency spokeswoman Kelly Nantel says. But she says ICE has a duty to enforce immigration law "that we take very seriously."

"Sometimes we find employers with their illegal workforce in deplorable, substandard conditions, and that's not acceptable," Nantel says. "Employers who harbor illegal aliens are inherently mistreating those aliens for their own financial gain.." She says ICE refers suspected violations to state or federal law enforcement agencies. Last year, ICE was responsible for charges against 92 employers.

Villaraigosa wants his colleagues to adopt the resolution because "mayors all over the country have to deal with the consequences of a broken immigration system," such as businesses taking a severe economic hit if they're raided, says spokeswoman Jazmin Ortega.

Mark Boughton, mayor of Danbury, Conn., also says the immigration system needs fixing, but he believes communities should help ICE enforce laws. He is a member of the mayors conference but won't attend the meeting.

"To encourage ICE not to enforce the law is irresponsible and goes against good public policy," he says.

If raids continue, Villaraigosa says, regional economies will suffer.

In February, ICE raided Micro Solutions Enterprises, a Van Nuys, Calif., company that recycles printer cartridges, arresting 138 suspected illegal immigrants out of about 700 workers at that plant.

Chief financial officer Nitin Dhopade says the company lost millions after the raid because of reduced productivity, fewer sales and customers, and increased shipping costs to make up for delays.

He says the effects will ripple into the broader economy.

Barbara Coe, chairwoman of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which works to raise awareness of illegal immigration, counters that raids don't hurt the economy, illegal immigrants do.

Some employers hire illegal immigrants instead of legal workers so they can pay them lower wages, she says. "Cheap labor is the bottom line," she says. "There are American workers who will fill those jobs in a heartbeat."

Important Ninth Circuit Decision on Termination of Employee Based on No-Match Letter

2008-06-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

Ninth Circuit holds that in union context, employer's termination of employees whose names appear on no-match letter, without any other indication of undocumented status, constitutes termination without cause, in violation of collective bargaining agreement, thus entitling employees to reinstatement and back pay.

For the entire case opinion, click here.

Colleges With Federal Contracts Will Have to Use New Employee-Verification System

2008-06-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Washington — All colleges and universities entering into federal-government contracts will be required to use the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system to establish the immigration status of newly hired employees and all employees working on such contracts, under an executive order signed this week by President Bush.

E-Verify is the federal government’s automated system for allowing employers to verify job applicants’ eligibility to work as U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, or authorized immigrants. When an employer submits an applicant’s name and personal information for eligibility verification, E-Verify checks that information against Social Security Administration and Homeland Security Department databases.

A proposed rule, published on Thursday in the Federal Register, states that all employees of federal contractors who are newly hired or who are directly engaged in work on those contracts would need to have their work eligibility checked through E-Verify. The rule applies to contracts of more than $3,000 with work performed within the United States, including those with colleges and universities.

It is unclear how many colleges will be affected by the new rule, although it could hamper colleges seeking to hire foreign scholars or to engage foreign graduate students. Users of the E-Verify system will have to foot the costs of using it, including start-up and training expenses, according to the notice.

Ada Meloy, general counsel at the American Council on Education, said educators were concerned about E-Verify because of error rates in the federal database used to verify employees’ eligibility. “We think this is going to cause some angst,” Ms. Meloy said.

E-Verify has been problematic since it was established, in 1996, as a voluntary pilot program. About 7 percent of queries to E-Verify cannot be verified immediately by the Social Security Administration, and about 1 percent cannot be immediately confirmed by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO also found that the E-Verify system cannot protect against workers’ using stolen identity information and stolen Social Security numbers.

Public comments on the proposed rule are due by August 11. —Karin Fischer

For the original story, click here.

Official: Arizona Employers Not Verifying Workers

2008-06-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

Forbes.com

An immigration official says a large percentage of Arizona businesses aren't using a federal database to check the work eligibility of their employees, as they are required to do by state law.

But Jonathan Scharfen, the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, says he's still happy with Arizona's compliance with the e-Verify program.

Arizona prohibits its 150,000 employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and a new state law punishes violators with the suspension or revocation of their business licenses.

Scharfen says that only 25,000 of those employers have so far signed up to use e-Verify. But he says most of them are the bigger employers in the state.

For the original story, click here.

Sanctions Law Ruling Will Ripple Across U.S.

2008-06-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 8, 2008 12:00 AM

Arizona's employer-sanctions law was among the first in the nation to go on the books, sending the state into a new world of employee screening, absent workers and anxious waiting for prosecutions.

Now, a year after it was signed into law, the measure has survived a challenge in federal court and is the first in the nation to get an airing before a federal appeals court. On Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears the case, which is being pressed by business groups, civil-rights groups and Latino organizations.

The law allows the state to suspend or revoke the business license of employers found to have knowingly hired illegal workers. The case is being closely watched by lawmakers, attorneys, employers and immigration activists of all stripes. And not just in Arizona.

The Legal Arizona Workers Act, in effect since January, has spawned a number of similar acts in states from Mississippi to Indiana, New Jersey to Colorado.

Two other sanctions-related cases will follow the Arizona case to appeals courts, likely later this summer. The resulting opinions will shape a landscape that could guide sanctions laws nationwide, as well as increase pressure on Congress to do something about illegal immigration.

"It's hard to underestimate the impact Arizona has had with its employer-sanctions law," said Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who has been helping the state of Arizona with its defense of the law.

Arizona, Kobach said, has done two things: It won the first legal challenge against its sanctions law, which emboldened other states to follow suit.

And anecdotal evidence suggests the mere existence of the law has prompted illegal workers to deport themselves, lessening their strain on the state, Kobach said.

For the full story, click here.

Immigration Raid by Sheriff's Dept. in AZ on Amusement Park

2008-06-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

An article of interest on a Sheriffs Dept. raid (without ICE involvement) at an amusement park in AZ. Company uses E-Verify. 400 worker records seized. 6 workers arrested.

This is the same sheriff that makes male inmates wear pink underwear, operates the only female chain gang in the country, and houses prisoners in tents in the desert (where the temp ranges from 30 degrees to 120 degrees.

Fun-park raids test state hiring law to prosecute employers
Company records seized in illegal-worker inquiry

Jun. 10, 2008 02:25 PM

The Arizona Republic

Maricopa County sheriff's deputies seized hundreds of employee records from the parent company of three Valley summer-fun spots on Tuesday as part of a sweeping ID-theft investigation that may lead to the first use of a new state law to prosecute employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.

Nine workers associated with Golfland Entertainment Centers, which operates Waterworld, Golfland and Big Surf, were arrested in an investigation that stems from a tip the Sheriff's Office received in February.

But any potential penalty for Golfland Entertainment Centers through a civil violation of the state's employer-sanctions law is likely a ways off, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said.

"This may or may not turn into an employer-sanctions violation," he said. "These cases take time."

Thomas said it marked the first time that he and Sheriff Joe Arpaio have worked in concert to investigate potential violations of the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which took effect in January. Deputies served search warrants on Waterworld and Golfland for employee records.

A Golfland Entertainment Centers official said the company is cooperating with the Sheriff's Office.

For company employees, Tuesday made for an unusual day.

The arrests and seizures were the result of an investigation that started after a former Waterworld employee provided detectives with specific, credible information about workers at the water park using fraudulent IDs, sheriff's officials said.
Armed with arrest warrants, undercover detectives targeted half-a-dozen workers suspected of ID theft early Tuesday as the employees were on their way to work at Waterworld.

Detectives caught four of them before 9 a.m. and then reconvened in a West Valley meeting room to make plans to serve warrants for Waterworld employee files at the water park and the company's local headquarters at Golfland in Mesa .

By 11 a.m., detectives were collecting records for more than 400 employees at Waterworld and detaining a couple of other illegal-immigration suspects who happened to cross paths with the Sheriff's Office's federally trained deputies. Golfland Entertainment Centers employs more than 1,100 people in Arizona .

Deputies took into custody the fifth suspect as he attempted to flee Waterworld on Tuesday with two co-workers. Sheriff's deputies also detained the co-workers when they couldn't give sufficient evidence they were in the country legally.

The sixth suspect deputies targeted arrived at the Waterworld office and was arrested without incident.

Sheriff's officials reported having evidence that more than 100 employees at Waterworld could have potential discrepancies with Social Security numbers.
Dave Johnson, director of marketing for Golfland, said after the arrests that the company has nothing to hide.

"We haven't tried to impede their investigation in any way, and we are confident we are in full compliance with the law," he said.

Johnson said all employees hired this year have been vetted through E-Verify, a Web-based program that electronically checks the employment eligibility of new hires. The program went into effect this year under the hiring law.

The new law says employers who knowingly hire illegal workers can face the penalty of having a business license suspended or revoked. The E-Verify system, however, can serve as a defense for employers.

Waterworld is one of three water parks owned by Golfland Entertainment Centers, which also operates the Big Surf water park in Tempe and Sunsplash water park and miniature-golf course in Mesa . Johnson said all parks would remain open as scheduled.

The company's local headquarters is in Mesa at Sunsplash. Fred Kenney of Granite Bay , Calif. , is listed as the company's president and chief executive. Golfland Entertainment Centers also operates six parks in California .
Tuesday's action from the Sheriff's Office drew a mixed response from patrons at the family-fun parks in the Valley.

"You just usually don't think of that population working here," said Debbie Walton of Gilbert. "It's teenagers working summer jobs."

Other residents echoed Arpaio's sentiment that his office should enforce all laws to the fullest extent.
"I think it's necessary," said Susan Collins of Chandler . "We have to have laws. I'd like to see them enforced unless they've been changed."

Following an afternoon news conference at the Sheriff's Office, several community activists gathered the media to voice concerns about Arpaio's enforcement of illegal-immigration laws.

Phoenix attorney Antonio Bustamante called the arrests "simply another pretext."
"The sheriff has a hard time complying with the black lettering of the law," he said.
Bustamante said deputies were going against defenseless people without a voice or political power.

Elias Bermudez of Immigrants Without Borders called the raid "selective enforcement."
"He's not going after employers, he's going after employees," Bermudez said.
But that has been Arpaio's approach to enforcing the state's employer-sanctions law since the statute went into effect Jan. 1.

Arpaio, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, often likens immigration enforcement to drug suppression, in which authorities start with small-time offenders and attempt to work their way up to dealers and smugglers.

In this instance, deputies arrest people suspected of identity theft with an eye on gathering enough information to potentially build a case against an employer over violation of a state civil statute.

"We're not just looking at the employees, we're looking at the employers, we're looking at the businesses," Thomas said. He wouldn't say whether the case might serve as a bellwether of sanctions cases to come.

Reporters JJ Hensley, Craig Harris, Jim Walsh and Michael Kiefer contributed to this article.

Sun Valley Lays Off Nearly 300 Workers

2008-06-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

Sun Valley Floral Farms terminated 283 employees Monday after a letter from Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed them that the workers are not eligible to work in the United States because their employment numbers are incorrect.

The cuts represent more than half of the company's workforce, according to Sun Valley Group CEO Lane DeVries.

”It's like a neutron bomb hitting our company,” DeVries said. “Some of these people worked with us for 17 years. Some were team leaders for 10 or 12 years. This is very devastating to the people involved.”

The action from ICE likely stems from investigations and raids that took place nearly one year ago this week, resulting in the deportation of many immigrants.

DeVries said Sun Valley's employment records were searched at that time, and approximately seven months ago, they were asked to submit I-9 tax forms. They hadn't heard anything further until last week.

”If there was a way we could have avoided this, I would like to have heard it,” he said. “But the law is the law. If immigration sends you a letter, you really don't have a choice.”

In a company-wide meeting Monday afternoon, DeVries explained the situation to his employees and handed out final paychecks to the terminated workers, along with letters informing them that their numbers are incorrect.

”It was a very somber meeting,” he said.

Sun Valley is by no means the only business on the North Coast to employ immigrant labor, and DeVries feels that large-scale crackdowns like this one could damage the local economy.

”A large portion of the workforce (in Humboldt County) is made up of these fine, fine people,” he said. “They're hard workers; their kids are attending schools; they go to church on Sundays. This is very devastating to the people involved. This is a bad deal.”

The layoffs have left the company desperate for workers.

”We need people in the worst possible way,” DeVries said. “It makes for a very, very tough situation. This has to be one of the darkest days in the history of our company.”

Ryan Burns can be reached at 441-0563 or rburns@times-standard.com.

For the original story, click here.

Bush Widens Immigration Checks

2008-06-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, in an aggressive new effort to keep illegal immigrants out of the workforce, on Monday ordered all companies doing business with the federal government to begin ensuring their employees can legally work in the U.S.

The order will require thousands of firms to use a government system called E-Verify to check workers' Social Security numbers. The system has been voluntary for private firms but mandatory for government agencies.

The policy, which initially applies to new hires, eventually could affect millions of federal contract workers nationwide whose jobs range from serving cafeteria food to launching NASA spacecraft. The step is one of several the administration planned after Congress failed last year to pass an overhaul of immigration laws.

"The federal government should lead by example and not by exhortation," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has encouraged firms to use E-Verify.

Groups advocating immigration restrictions have embraced E-Verify as a way to weed out illegal workers. But it has been criticized by business groups and immigrant advocates because errors in the Social Security database can lead to red-flagging legal residents.

And with the rapid expansion of federal contracting under President Bush, some critics questioned whether the order would be workable.

"I just don't know how the administration is going to enforce this," said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor and federal contracting expert who said such outsourcing had grown by 70% under Bush. "It's a very large number and very difficult to track. Who is responsible for making sure the sub-sub-sub-contractor is using E-Verify?"

E-Verify is already a success, Chertoff said, predicting that the executive order would affect "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers."

To see the full story, click here.

Iowa Company Targeted in ICE Raid Hires Compliance Officer

2008-06-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

It would be a great idea for a lot of companies to hire immigration compliance officers!

Agriprocessors should have done this before getting raided!

Agriprocessors hires compliance officer

Des Moines Register.com

By Grant Schulte • Register Staff Writer • June 5, 2008

Agriprocessors, Inc. in Postville has hired a former federal prosecutor to monitor the meat company’s compliance with state and federal laws, a spokesman announced today.

Jim Martin, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, will serve as the company’s corporate compliance officer starting immediately, according to a news release. Martin heads the Prevene Group, a St. Louis firm that helps companies comply with laws.

“Agriprocessors’ 800 jobs are important to Postville and northern Iowa, along with the observant Jewish community across the country that relies on them for meat and poultry,” Martin said in the statement. “Agriprocessors can meet the needs of those who depend on the company and operate in compliance with all laws, and I intend to see that happen.”
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The new hire came less than a month after federal immigration agents stormed the kosher meat-processing plant in what was later deemed the largest single-site raid in U.S. history. Nearly 400 illegal immigrant workers were arrested, and 305 were charged with immigration-related felonies.

The bust also exposed allegations of physical and verbal abuse by the plant’s managers, though none have been charged. The company announced May 23 that it planned to hire a new CEO.

Heshy Rubashkin, the vice president for Agriprocessors, said: “We are pleased to have someone with the integrity and credentials of Jim Martin join our team. Retaining Jim and his team is part of an ongoing effort to improve compliance and safety performance. We take responsibility to our employees, to Postville and to the observant community very seriously.”

Martin investigated white collar and corporate fraud cases during his 21-year stint as a prosecutor, according to his biography on the Prevene Group’s Web site. He recently was recognized in “Best Lawyers in America” for corporate governance and compliance law.

Agriprocessors also has begun interviewing candidates to fill its opening for chief executive officer, the statement said.

“Obviously, selecting the right person for this job is critical,” Rubashkin said. “We are moving with deliberate speed to make the best selection as soon as possible. Hiring a new CEO and retaining an outside corporate compliance officer demonstrates our company’s commitment to meaningful change.”

Iowa Company That was Raided By ICE in Largest Raid Ever has state lower saftey fines.

2008-05-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Since Agriprocessors had a large number of their employees arrested, criminally prosecuted, and deported under stipulated removal, I am not sure the state of Iowa is doing them any favors. This company and the town it is located in are likely to disappear.

State reduces safety fines against Agriprocessors

By DAVID PITT | AP Business Writer

1:39 PM CDT, May 29, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa - State occupational safety regulators have reduced fines against Agriprocessors Inc. for numerous safety and health violations.

The Iowa Division of Labor Services fined the Postville company $182,000 in March for 39 violations of work place safety rules.

After company officials agreed to correct violations on Tuesday, the fines were reduced to $42,750, said Kerry Koonce, a spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, which includes the Labor Services Division.

Koonce said Thursday that the fine reduction followed a routine process in which a company is allowed to respond to the violations found by inspectors and then allowed meet with inspectors to explain how it responded to fix the problems. That process concluded on Tuesday, and the agency ordered the fines reduced, Koonce said.

Some of the more serious violations found during inspections between October 2007 and February 2008 were:

--Improper storage and use of hazardous chemicals.

--Improper labeling of emergency exits and alarms that couldn't be heard by some employees.

--Failure to develop emergency response plans.

--Improper programs for use of respirators and for the use of blood-borne pathogens.

The enforcement action against the company for the safety violations was one of the largest against a single Iowa company in the number of violations and the level of the initial fine assessed, Koonce said.

"This is one of the largest ones that has ever happened," she said. "It was very big."

In addition, Koonce said an investigation into allegations that the plant employed minors has resumed.

The investigation into child labor law violations was under way before a May 12 raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that resulted in the arrest of nearly 400 people. The inquiry was halted when federal agents took the company's employment records.

"It's in process again but it will take a little bit of time because the feds have some of the records," Koonce said Thursday.

The investigation, which is being conducted with help from the federal government, includes reviewing wage records and interviewing workers.

If founded, the company could be prosecuted on state misdemeanor charges. The law says a prosecutor may bring one count for each day each underage child works. Each offense is a $60 fine, Koonce said.

The plant, owned by Aaron Rubashkin of New York , is the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant.

The U.S. attorney's office said 302 workers from the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant were charged with federal crimes after the Immigration raid. Of those, 297 pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison time or probation.

The remaining five have cases pending in federal court.

Charges include use of false identification documents and false use of Social Security numbers.

Initially, 389 workers were taken in the raid. Charges against six workers were dismissed because they were juveniles.

U.S. Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth said the operation was the largest single-site Immigration raid in U.S.

Last week, Rubashkin released a statement saying the company was seeking a new chief executive officer for the plant, which has been led by his son Sholom Rubashkin.

Reno ICE Fugitive Ops Activity

2008-05-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

ICE Fugitive Operations Team Finds 1 individual with a prior deportation order. The ICE Fugitive Ops Teams are separate from ICE Office of Investigations, which is responsible for worksite raids and criminal investigations.

1 arrested in Reno-area immigration sweep

The Associated Press

Thu, May 29, 2008 (7:32 a.m.)

One man is under arrested and facing deportation following a sweep in the Reno area by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Officials say the enforcement action targeted fugitive aliens already under deportation orders who have criminal records in the United States.

Jose D. Mejia, 43, was arrested Wednesday at a Sparks apartment complex.

Immigration officers say Mejia was under a final deportation order issued in September and probably will be deported to El Salvador.

___

Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com

Millionaire Posts Bond for Workers Arrested in Worksite Raids

2008-05-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

We need more individuals like this!

Multimillionaire Helps Undocumented Workers Post Bail

New America Media, News Report, Wendy Sefsaf, Posted: May 23, 2008

Editor's Note: Robert Hildreth is a multimillionaire immigration advocate who has helped bail out undocumented immigrants who have been arrested in ICE raids. Now he wants to create a national fund for the purpose. NAM contributor Wendy Sefsaf reports from Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON -- Robert Hildreth, a self-made multimillionaire who built his fortune trading in Latin American bonds, wants to create a national fund that would help post bail for undocumented workers seized by immigration authorities.

Hildreth began posting bail out of his own pocket after seeing what he considered to be "un-American" images on TV of shackled workers being deported. Hildreth , the son of high school teachers, called the Greater Boston Legal Services and told them to contact him if they needed help posting bonds for undocumented workers.

After doing this a few times, in a few different states, Hildreth decided his program should go national. His idea is to create a non-profit bond fund that would match 50 percent of bail funds in most cases, and provide 100 percent bail only in extreme cases. Advocates say this is crucial for workers who are coerced into signing deportation orders before talking to a lawyer or having their day in court. Helping them post bond enables them to get out of detention, contact a lawyer and regroup with their families.

By matching the funds, Hildreth is helping legal service groups and others get the ball rolling. But having the other half matched by the families themselves, Hildreth says, forces them to have a stake in the outcome and makes an individual less likely to “jump bail.”

“Immigrants are the greatest savers in this country. If I put up half of the funds, the families can usually come up with the rest,” Hildreth observes. “For example, I paid $130,000 to bail out the immigrants rounded up in the New Bedford raids -- and within three weeks they came up with $130,000 of their own. I know the money is there and there is an extended family structure that is able to pool the necessary funds.”

He also thinks that his approach appeals to our innate love of a bargain. “Everybody loves a deal,” Hildreth says. “If I went into Best Buy and shouted, 'I will pay for half of everything you buy,' that store would be cleared out in no time.”

Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles affirms the need for a bond fund. “This is about poor people having their day in court,” she says. “People have to understand that these workers are not appointed lawyers, not read their Miranda rights. They are swept up, usually taken to another state, interrogated and then later told they can hire a lawyer if they can find one.” She adds, “What Bob Hildreth has done is an amazing example of what people of conscience need to do in these horrible times; he is giving people their liberty and a reason to hope.”

The national bond fund has more than $150,000 in pledges so far from previous bonds that have been returned to Hildreth with interest. These funds will be used to post future bonds and he is now hoping to build a significant fund. “When you pay for a bond, it is not a contribution. You get your money back with interest which returns back to the fund for the next person who needs it.” So far, no one helped by Hildreth has jumped bail.

Setting up a bond fund is not a new concept. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund provided bail money and legal assistance for civil rights demonstrators throughout the 1960s, including during the 1961 freedom rides led by the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Hildreth also sees the bail money as a lifeline. “We have families whose loved ones were arrested in Massachusetts and then sent to detention centers in Texas. The communication is cut off," he explains. "What we are finding in raids is that people don’t know their rights. They are forgoing their due process in the first 48 hours out of fear, and agree to be deported without having consulted an attorney. It would be wonderful if the word caught like wild fire that immigrants do have rights and furthermore you might find some help from me.”

He thinks of immigration much like an economist would. “In America we should always be finding ways to match immigrant money,” he says. “Their propensity is to save. Immigrants sent home $60 billion last year in the form of remittances. My feeling is that we have a group of immigrants floating on a sea of money, how can we get them to invest more of it here?”

He has tried creative ways to do just that even before his recent foray into immigrant rights, by supporting immigrant education initiatives. “This summer, 15 of the brightest Hispanic high school sophomores in Lynn, Massachusetts will be creating educational accounts. They will put up $250 and I will put up $500 and we will build up from there.” Why do we need to match their funds? “Because otherwise there is such a pull from Latin America to send every extra dollar down there. We know the highest drops outs are Hispanics, so creating these accounts early is going to get them going to college.”

One might wonder why a descendant of Irish immigrants and Puritans who settled in Boston more than three centuries ago worries about immigrants coming to America today. “I am very pro-immigrant and it comes more from an American ideal than from being a Mother Theresa type. I think immigration is the only model America has ever known. We have never known a day, a minute, where we haven’t accepted immigrants. They provide huge economic benefits to us. The 12 million undocumented workers in this country spend billions of dollars every year in supermarkets, on rent and in taxes, etc. I have no idea what it would be like to yank them out by the root, and I wouldn’t want to take that risk.”

However, the economist also has a philosophical bent on what it means to be an American. “I have a different view of what makes up the border of the U.S. It’s not dirt but ideas. So if you have a native-born American who hates capitalism or freedom of people to move and find work, I think that is less 'American' than the guys born in Latin American who have taken on our American ideals hook, line and sinker.”

Aside from running his financial company and planning the bond fund, Hildreth is busy calling the supermarkets that allegedly benefit from undocumented workers in the Boston area. He is asking them to support a local immigration group that is holding their annual gala and contacting other groups in Iowa that are working with immigrants recently detained during a raid at a meat-packing plant. “I want them to know there is help here, if they need it,” says Hildreth.

Federal Govt. Going Past Employers to Charge Landlords for Harboring Illegal Immigrants Charges!

2008-05-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

The Federal government has in its arsenal charging employers with federal harboring illegal immigrants criminal charges. The Federal Govt. now is stretching this to charge landlords. Employers that house or help their employees with housing should be very careful!

See:

May 24, 2008,

Immigration case puts focus on landlords

It's the first time feds have tried to prosecute property owners for renting to illegal residents

By BRANDON ORTIZ
Mcclatchy-tribune

LEXINGTON, KY. — Four illegal immigrants who rented from Lexington landlords have testified they showed only Mexican identification when they applied for apartments.

The immigrants, who are to be deported, testified in depositions that they did not present American driver's licenses or Social Security cards. One, Adnan Ramirez-Jimenez, even showed a Mexican voter registration card, indicating Mexican citizenship, and a manager wrote on his rental application, "first time in USA."

Ramirez-Jimenez testified that he did not show apartment management at Cross Keys Apartments any proof he was in the country legally.

The depositions were filed in U.S. District Court in Lexington in the criminal case against William Jerry Hadden, 69, and his son Jamey, who are charged with 24 counts of harboring illegal immigrants and 24 counts of encouraging illegal immigrants to remain in the country.

The case appears to be the first time the federal government has tried to prosecute landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, defense attorneys say.

The testimony could bolster the government's contention that the Haddens knew 60 tenants were in the country illegally yet rented to them anyway. Whether that's enough to win a conviction for harboring remains to be seen.

The immigrants were deposed so they would not have to remain in jail until the June 23 trial. A fifth witness was called to testify, but he refused to answer in the deposition.

Harboring laws
The Kentucky American Civil Liberties Union, immigration activists and Jerry Hadden's attorneys have contended that the federal government is stretching the intent of the law.

They say harboring laws were intended to target human traffickers or employers who are trying to hide their work forces. They note it is not illegal to rent to illegal immigrants. The Haddens had no legal obligation to check any tenant's immigration status. And laws passed in other cities prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal immigrants have been challenged in court.

The case could have wide-ranging implications, said Josh Santana, president of the Lexington Hispanic Association. If the government wins a conviction, landlords will be less willing to rent to Hispanics, even those with legal status, he said.

"There are sometimes problems for people of color; we don't need to give excuses to people who are predisposed to not rent to them," Santana said.

Lawyer Tucker Richardson, who represents Jerry Hadden, declined to comment. But his law partner, Russ Baldani, wrote in court papers that the government is pushing a ridiculous interpretation of the law.

Jamey Hadden, who lives in Vietnam, has not been served with the indictment, court records indicate.

New Temporary Worker Visa Procedures to Cut Bureaucracy

2008-05-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

With restaurants and resorts facing summer staff shortages, the Bush administration will announce federal regulations today to streamline the way foreign workers enter the country for seasonal jobs.

The Department of Labor is rewriting rules to help employers find and hire workers for temporary jobs as landscapers, waitresses and crab pickers more quickly and efficiently than current guidelines allow.

In one major change affecting industries such as construction and shipyards, the definition of "temporary" will be drastically expanded -- from the current 10 months to three years.

Adjusting the so-called H2B visa program is part of an ongoing administration effort to reconfigure immigration laws on a piecemeal basis in the absence of a comprehensive overhaul.

For the full story, click here.

The Social Security Administration No‑Match Program: Inefficient, Ineffective, and Costly

2008-05-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

The failure of congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and the Bush administration’s subsequent stepping up of immigration enforcement, have resulted in deficient policies that do not address the issue of unauthorized immigration, but do cause extreme hardship to U.S. workers, businesses, communities, and the economy. Soon after the 2007 Bush Administration backed immigration-reform bill failed in the U.S. Senate, the Administration redirected its efforts with respect to unauthorized immigration into more vigorous enforcement along the border and in the workplace. Eager to demonstrate they could be tough, the Administration dusted off a proposed regulation, which had first been made public about a year earlier, to use Social Security administration (SSA) “no-match” letters as a tool for identifying unauthorized workers. Final regulations were issued in august 2007, but were subsequently enjoined by a Federal Judge who found that they would “result in irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers.”

For the complete report, click here.

USCIS Announces Enhancements to E-Verify Program

2008-05-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today improvements to the E-Verify employment authorization program that will reduce an already low mismatch rate, while also streamlining and increasing the effectiveness of the overall program.
Today’s announcement comprises the first two phases of an overall three-part enhancement for
E-Verify aimed at decreasing the mismatch rate for naturalized citizens.

“Less than one percent of all work-authorized employees receive a tentative nonconfirmation through E-Verify,” said USCIS Acting Director Jonathan Scharfen. “While this is a very small percentage, we believe every employee who is authorized to work in the United States should be instantly authorized by the program. We’re confident that the enhancements we’re launching today will help us achieve that goal.”

For the full news release, click here.

E-Verify and Arizona: Early Experiences for Employers, Employees, and the Economy Portend a Rough Road Ahead

2008-05-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

On July 7, 2007, Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which requires all employers in the state to enroll in and use the E-Verify system to verify the employment eligibility of all new hires. The law also creates penalties—including suspension or revocation of business licenses—for employers who “knowingly” or “intentionally” hire unauthorized immigrant workers. The law went into effect on January 1, 2008.

Some have claimed that E-Verify is working well in Arizona—that employers are signing up for the program and not experiencing any problems with the system. However, multiple reports point to the opposite conclusion. E-Verify is not yet fully implemented in Arizona and already there are significant signs of trouble. Before other state and federal lawmakers jump on the bandwagon and blithely seek expansion of E-Verify, they should heed the warning signs that the program is not ready for roll-out. Read below about the experiences of Arizona’s employers and employees with E-Verify, and early signals of its impact on the state’s economy.

For the full press release, click here.

On the Eve of an EEVS Hearing: What Should We Be Listening For?

2008-05-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

House Hearing on Electronic Employment Verification Systems Poised to Ask the Tough Questions

This week, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on electronic employment verification systems (EEVS) -- Washington’s latest magic potion for dealing with the nation’s broken immigration system. Several bills, including the Shuler-Tancredo "SAVE Act" (HR 4088) and the Johnson "New Employee Verification Act of 2008" (HR 5515), would create a nationwide mandatory EEVS that would require all American workers, foreign- and native-born alike, to get the government’s stamp of approval in order to work. Scores of organizations, including most recently the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), have asked that these proposals be slowed or shelved out of concern for their impact on Americans. As more hearings are expected in the coming weeks in other committees, including Homeland Security and Judiciary, what questions should the American public want to hear be thoroughly asked and answered?

EEVS’ Price Tag: EEVS is expensive, and coupled with its reliability weaknesses, the problems outweigh the perceived benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the SAVE Act would decrease federal revenues by $17.3 billion from 2009-2018 because it would result in an increase in the number of people working in the underground cash economy, outside the tax system. At the same time, it would increase spending by over $23 billion, resulting in a whopping price tag of over $40 billion over the next 10 years. CBO also estimated that SAVE would cost U.S. employers over $136 million to comply in at least one of the first five years the mandates are in effect.

For the full press release, click here.

Study: Illegal Worker Crackdown Would Cost Employers $1B

2008-04-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

The government's plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions in lost wages, a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says.

Those costs are enough to trigger a federal law that would require the Homeland Security Department to analyze more thoroughly the effect of its proposal, said Richard Belzer, a consultant hired by the chamber to do the study. It was made available to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The department's proposed "no match" rule would require employers to fire workers who can't resolve mismatches between their name and Social Security number. The chamber opposes the proposal.

Belzer's study will be among public comments submitted to the Homeland Security Department on the proposal. The department could adopt the proposal after reviewing the comments. The deadline for comments is Friday.

For the full story, click here.

Houston Shipley Raid First in Broad Crackdown

2008-04-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Families are in hiding. Immigrants are lining up lawyers in case of arrest. Business leaders are nervous, and activists are outraged.

It's part of the dramatic fallout from an immigration raid last week on a Shipley Do-Nuts warehouse complex, the first such raid in Houston since early last year.

"A lot of the undocumented are afraid of going out on the street where you might get picked up," said Alma Baladez, a legal Mexican immigrant who lives by the northside Shipley complex. "They don't go out with the same tranquility."

That peace could be rocked even further as immigration experts and government officials warn that more raids are looming — raids increasingly designed to force employers into complying with laws.

Kevin Lachus, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney, expects worksite investigations and immigration raids to increase significantly across the U.S. and especially in Houston.

For the full story, click here.

Arizona's Immigration Two-Step

2008-04-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Traumatized by a tidal wave of illegal immigrants, Arizona last year enacted the nation's most pitiless law to punish employers who hire undocumented workers. Now state lawmakers, having proved that they mean business -- even if it means killing off businesses -- are reconnecting with reality: They want to import Mexican workers.

No state has been as unhinged by illegal immigration as Arizona, where by some estimates undocumented employees comprise up to 12 percent of the state's workforce of 3 million, more than twice the national average. They have also fueled Arizona's supercharged economy, which has grown faster -- and with less unemployment -- than almost anywhere else in the country.

For the full story, click here.

How Errors in Basic Pilot/E-Verify Databases Impact U.S. Citizens and Lawfully Present Immigrants

2008-04-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

The Basic Pilot/E-Verify employment eligibility verification program is being sold as an
easy fix that would curb unauthorized employment by undocumented immigrants. But
state laws mandating businesses to use Basic Pilot/E-Verify, federal administrative efforts
to expand the program, and congressional proposals to require its use by all employers entirely
ignore the effect the program will have on U.S. citizens and lawfully present noncitizens. The
program has been plagued by serious problems since its inception in 1997, including (1) its
reliance on government databases that have unacceptably high error rates that misidentify work authorized individuals as not employment-eligible and (2) employer misuse of the program to
take unjustified adverse action against workers.1 These deficiencies will be magnified many
times over if the program is further expanded before they are addressed. The inevitable result
will be to threaten the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of citizens and lawfully present
immigrants who may be either wrongfully dismissed from or refused employment.

For the full article, click here.

The Real Price of SAVE

2008-04-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released an estimate of the costs of the “Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act” (“SAVE Act,” HR 4088). The bill’s centerpiece is a massive mandatory electronic employment verification system that would require all American workers, native- and foreign-born, to be approved by a government database in order to secure employment. In addition, the bill includes several familiar enforcement provisions including: increasing the number of immigration enforcement agents, increasing law enforcement activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, and adding more detention beds. The CBO concludes that the “SAVE Act” would decrease federal revenues, increase government spending, and create an unfunded mandate for states and private employers.
According to the CBO, enacting “Save Act” would:

• Decrease federal revenues by $17.3 billion over the 2009-2018. This decrease largely reflects the judgment that mandatory verification of employment eligibility through the E-Verify system would result in an increase in the number of undocumented workers being paid outside the tax system. Simply put, rather than increase legality, the “SAVE Act” will push more employers to pay their workers “under the table,” ironically deepening illegal behavior.

• Increase discretionary spending by approximately $10.3 billion over the 2009-2013 period and $23.4 billion over the 2009-2018. Those costs reflect the federal government’s expanded use of the employment verification system, additional personnel for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), increased detention capacity, grants to certain local governments along the borders, and additional costs to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for verifying the proper use of Social Security numbers.

• Unfunded mandates compliance costs exceeding $136 million in at least one of the first five years the mandates are in effect.
The “SAVE Act” would impose mandates as defined by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) by requiring: all employers – including public entities – to verify all new hires through the expanded electronic employment verification system, all states to maintain data regarding birth registries, and all employers to provide information to the SSA. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these costs exceed the annual threshold of $138 million established in the UMRA.

• Increase federal direct spending by $30 million over the 2009-2018 for salaries of new federal judges authorized by the bill.

For the full article, click here.

Chertoff: Don't Expect Any Changes in Immigration Enforcement

2008-04-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he feels the pain of employers pinched by the federal government's intensified efforts to control illegal immigration. But until Congress enacts broad immigration reforms, businesses shouldn't expect any changes in enforcement.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Chertoff said this week the rising complaints from businesses offer some evidence the Bush administration's approach is working.

"This is harsh but accurate proof positive that for the first time in decades, we've succeeded in changing the dynamic and (are) actually beginning to reduce illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Unfortunately, unless you counterbalance that with a robust system to allow people to come in temporarily and legally, you're going to wind up with an economic problem."

Chertoff defended the actions of his agency, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

For the full story, click here.

Nunez blasts Homeland Security Over Workplace Immigration Raids

2008-04-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

State Assembly speaker Fabian Nunez and 22 other state lawmakers blasted the Department of Homeland Security Thursday, calling for the federal agency to halt immigration raids at the workplace.

The California legislators, in a terse letter to Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, asked for a moratorium on the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents until they can have a "frank exchange" over their methods.

The letter cited the Feb. 7 raids of a Van Nuys toner and ink manufacturing plant where authorities detained 130 people, and cames a week after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asked the federal government to review its immigration policy.

"This raid resulted in numerous very clear violations of constitutional rights as well as the egregious and offensive mistreatment of workers," the letter said. "The manner in which ICE has conducted its workplace raids and overly aggressive investigation practices is unacceptable on societal grounds and questionable, at best, on legal grounds."

For the full story, click here.

Tally of those Arrested in Immigration Raids at Pilgrim's Pride Plants Climbs to 311

2008-04-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

The tally of those arrested at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants on various immigration-related offenses climbed Thursday to 311.

Workers at Pilgrim's Pride, one of the world's largest poultry processors, have been the target of a criminal investigation into identity theft for at least a year, and Wednesday, workers employed at five plants, including Mount Pleasant operations, were arrested by federal immigration agents.

Certain workers at the Mount Pleasant plant are believed to be key organizers in an identity theft ring, federal prosecutors and agents said.

False use of an authentic Social Security number is a felony – and growing in prevalence among illegal immigrants searching for ways to avoid detection.

But the tally, released Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, showed that slightly less than a third of the arrested workers had been charged with criminal violations. Federal officials said Wednesday that charges could be made more severe.

For the full story, click here.

Newsweek: Crossing The Line?

2008-04-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

A year ago Roberto promised to pay a smuggler $1,400 for safe passage from the Mexican border to Arizona, where he heard there was plenty of work. After a punishing three-day trek through the desert, the 30-year-old Mexican citizen arrived in Phoenix and quickly obtained two jobs, one as a baker and one as a dishwasher. With his $580 weekly earnings, he paid off the smuggler and began sending money home to his wife and two children. He expected to live and work in Phoenix for years.

Like many of the state's estimated 450,000 undocumented immigrants, Roberto (who asked that NEWSWEEK withhold his last name) is reconsidering his plans. The reason: in January a controversial state law went into effect that harshly penalizes the 150,000 businesses that employ illegal workers. First offenders face a 10-day suspension of their business license, and second offenders may have their licenses revoked permanently. Meanwhile, has been targeting illegal immigrants in a series of recent sweeps in the Phoenix area. The law—and the sheriff—have harsh critics. On April 4 Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the sheriff for potential civil rights violations. Arpaio's sweeps are "publicity stunts in an election year," Gordon tells NEWSWEEK. "But they endanger the welfare of citizens and policemen alike."

For the full story, click here.

Federal Immigration Agents Raid Arkansas Poultry Plant

2008-04-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Federal agents raided a north Arkansas poultry plant Wednesday morning over suspected immigration violations, authorities said.

Temple Black, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told The Associated Press that the arrests came as part of an ongoing criminal investigation that involved a Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant in Batesville. Black declined to say how many people were arrested or describe the nature of the investigation.

For the full story, click here.

Office of Special Counsel's Antidiscrimination Guidance for Employers Following the DHS Safe-Harbor Procedures

2008-03-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS's) Safe-Harbor Procedures for Employers Who Receive a No-Match Letter (“no-match rule”), as published in August 2007 and as modified by a Proposed Supplemental Rule that was announced by DHS on March 21, 2008, offers employers who receive no-match letters from the Social Security Administration (SSA) a safe-harbor in a related immigration enforcement action if those employers follow the series of steps set forth in the no-match rule to ensure that the information provided by affected employees to confirm their work eligibility is genuine. The no-match rule provides that an employer may terminate an employee whose work eligibility could not be confirmed after the employer has followed the procedures that the rule sets forth.

For full article, click here

Economic impact of HB 1804 estimated

2008-03-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

The state bankers association says the loss could be $1.8 billion.

If 50,000 immigrants leave Oklahoma, the state would lose about $1.8 billion annually in productivity and wages, according to a study released Tuesday by the Oklahoma Bankers Association.

The group does not take a position on HB 1804, the state's new immigration law, said President and Chief Executive Officer Roger Beverage.

The study was commissioned after the association began hearing stories about banks seeing impacts such as loan defaults and halted housing developments.

"Bankers asked the question, 'Can we afford to do this? Does this make sense?' " Beverage said. "That is a question for the Legislature or someone other than us. It is information we think makes sense to consider. Reasonable people will disagree whether it's worth the savings."

House Bill 1804 makes it a crime to knowingly hire, house or transport illegal immigrants and took effect Nov. 1.

For full story, please click here

Administration Announces New “No-Match” Regulations

2008-03-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

DHS Regs Pass Burdens to Social Security Administration, Small Businesses, and Citizens

On March 21, 2008, the Bush Administration announced proposed regulations that supplement its August 2007 final rule regarding an employer’s legal obligations upon receiving a letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA) stating that the information submitted for an employee does not match SSA records (otherwise known as an SSA “no-match” letter). Implementation of the August 2007 rule was preliminarily enjoined by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on October 10, 2007, after labor, immigrant, and business groups filed a lawsuit charging that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not have the legal authority to implement the rule, and that the changes DHS sought to make to immigration laws can be made only by Congress and not through an administrative procedure. While the 2008 supplemental rule purports to respond to findings underlying the district court decision, in fact, no significant changes were made from last summer’s regulations. Unfortunately, if implemented, it will be harmful to native-born and legal workers, and will prove inefficient, ineffective, and costly.

For full story, please click here.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT VISA BULLETIN

2008-03-21T10:45:00.001-07:00

APRIL 2008

Family Immigration - Note that there was some movement in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Preference categories for all countries.

1st Preference (USC unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 22 February 2002

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 22 February 2002

India: 22 February 2002

Mexico: 08 July 1992

Philippines: 01 March 1993

2A Preference (LPR spouses & unmarried children under 21)

Worldwide: 08 May 2003

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 08 May 2003

India: 08 May 2003

Mexico: 01 May 2002

Philippines: 08 May 2003

2B Preference (LPR unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 22 March 1999

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 22 March 1999

India: 22 March 1999

Mexico: 01 April 1992

Philippines: 01 February 1997

3rd Preference (USC married sons & daughters)

Worldwide: 22 May 2000

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 22 May 2000

India: 22 May 2000

Mexico: 22 July 1992

Philippines: 01 April 1991

4th Preference (USC brothers & sisters)

Worldwide: 22 July 1997

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 15 December 1996

India: 22 November 1996

Mexico: 01 December 1994

Philippines: 22 February 1986

Employment Based - Note that the 2nd preference category for foreign nationals from India now have visa numbers available.

1st Preference (EB-1)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

2nd Preference (EB-2)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 December 2003

India: 01 December 2003

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

3rd Preference (EB-3)

Worldwide: 01 July 2005

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 08 February 2003

India: 01 October 2001

Mexico: 01 October 2001

Philippines: 01 July 2005

Schedule A workers (RNs, PTs)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

Unskilled Workers (less than 2 years experience required)

Worldwide: 01 March 2002

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 March 2002

India: 01 March 2002

Mexico: 01 March 2002

Philippines: 01 March 2002

4th Preference (EB-4)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Religious Workers

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Iraqi & Afghani Translators

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

5th Preference (EB-5: Investors)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Targeted Employment Areas/ Regional Centers)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT
India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

House Republicans File Discharge Petition on SAVE Act (H.R. 4088)

2008-03-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

House Republicans today filed a discharge petition in a bid to force a floor vote on H.R. 4088, also known as the SAVE Act. This deportation-only bill, sponsored by Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), represents yet another misguided approach to solving our broken immigration system. If passed, the bill would mandate participation in the flawed Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS), increase funding for a number of enforcement measures, but do nothing to address the more than 12 million people in the US without status.

Republican leaders would need to round up a total of 218 signatures for the discharge petition to be successful and force the bill to the floor for consideration. The bill currently has 142 cosponsors. See the Take Action below to learn how you can make sure your Representative does not sign the discharge petition for this ill-conceived piece of legislation.

Cato Study Finds E-Verify “Ineffective, Intrusive, Expensive”

2008-03-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

(WASHINGTON) E-Verify, the program promoted by the Bush administration to reduce illegal immigration, would be ineffective, invasive and costly, finds a study by the Cato Institute.

"A full-fledged Electronic Employment Verification (EEV) system has many practical and technical problems-to say nothing of the question of whether it is appropriate for a free country-and would still fail to prevent illegal immigration" says Jim Harper, Cato's director of Information Policy Studies and author of "Electronic Employment Verification: Franz Kafka's Solution to Illegal Immigration."

To be done effectively, EEV would require an expensive national ID system which would greatly impinge upon the privacy of American citizens. "The things necessary to make a system like this really impervious to forgery and fraud would convert it from an identity system into a cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system," writes the author. This would increase the value of committing identity fraud, and the amount and type of information stored in the databases would expose Americans to grave security risks.

EEV would make applying for jobs a hassle for all American citizens and it would effectively deny some law-abiding individuals the ability to work. A study by the SSA Inspector General revealed an error rate of 4.1 percent in the data used to administer the Basic Pilot program, now renamed E-Verify. At that rate, 1 in every 25 new legitimate hires would receive a "tentative nonconfirmation," requiring the individual to go through a burdensome process to seek permission to work from the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security.

For the full report, please see: Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification: Franz Kafka's Solution to Illegal Immigration, Jim Harper

Utah Business Leaders Raise Voice On Immigration

2008-02-14T11:56:00.000-08:00

Coalition urges lawmakers to step back before enacting laws

Stating it is time for Utah's silent majority to be heard, a group of Utah business leaders has organized to urge the Legislature to hold off on enacting what they term "onerous and burdensome" immigration laws.

The newly organized Immigration Policy Coalition, formed by organizations that include the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, the Utah Manufacturers Association and the Utah Farm Bureau, wants legislators to step back, consider their efforts' negative effects on business and instead study immigration issues with an eye toward ensuring the availability of legal immigrant labor.

Although that rationale prompted a legislator who is pushing for immigration law reform to say the time is past to expect federal help, the coalition continues to believe that "immigration primarily is a federal issue."

"And we need to encourage them to act," Lane Beattie, president of the Salt Lake Chamber, said at a news conference Tuesday staged in the rotunda of the Utah Capitol. Utah "needs to act only in those areas where we can move forward" on a state level.

Beattie said a new array of different state laws would only add to the confusion and uncertainty that businesses already are facing, especially those operating in several different states. "We need to step back and make sure any laws that are enacted won't hurt Utah's businesses and the state's economy."

For full story, see "Business Leaders Raise Voice on Immigration," by Steven Oberbeck, The Salt Lake Tribune (02/12/2008)

U.S. Program to Verify Worker Status is Growing

2008-02-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES — The number of businesses taking part in a voluntary program that allows them to verify electronically their newly hired employees’ legal authorization to work in the United States is soaring, the federal government said Tuesday.

About 52,000 employers are now using a Web-based system, known as E-Verify, compared with 14,265 a year ago. The system has been growing in the past year by 1,000 employers a week, said the United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services, which runs the program with the Social Security Administration.

Although the tally is a small fraction of the 5.7 million employers nationwide, program officials said it proved the system was catching on.

About a third of the employers, 18,000, are in Arizona, where a new state law requires businesses to use the program to verify the right to work for new employees.

For full story, see "U.S. Program to Verify Worker Status is Growing," by Randal C. Archibold, NY Times (02/13/2008)

Immigration Raid in Lindon Nets 50 Undocumented Workers; Employer Indicted

2008-02-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

LINDON - Utah's simmering immigration debate shifted from the state Capitol to ground level in Utah County on Thursday.

More than 50 undocumented workers were arrested here during a morning raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on a metal factory.

The U.S. Department of Justice then unsealed indictments, charging the company, Universal Industrial Sales, Inc., with 10 counts of harboring illegal aliens, and its human resource manager, Alejandro "Alex" Urrutia-Garcia, with two counts of encouraging or inducing undocumented workers to remain in the U.S. illegally.

In doing so, the U.S. Attorney's Office of Utah and ICE appeared to signal a new strategy - one in which federal authorities are now targeting employers suspected of violating immigrations laws.

"This is a message to businesses. We're going after the ones actively participating in illegal hiring," said Brett Tolman, the U.S. Attorney for Utah.

The ICE sweep at Universal Sales, which has made metal highway signs and guard rails here for 30 years, comes at a time when Utah lawmakers are debating about 15 immigration-related measures during the Legislature. Some lawmakers say states need to start implementing legislation because Congress and the federal government have failed to do anything about illegal immigration.

For full story see, "Immigration raid in Lindon nets 50 undocumented workers; employer indicted," by Jennifer W. Sanchez and Pamela Manson, The Salt Lake Tribune (02/08/2008)

ICE Executes Federal Search Warrant at Van Nuys, CA Manufacting Plant

2008-02-12T15:11:00.001-08:00

8 Illegal Alien Workers Charged Criminally; 130 Others Arrested on Immigration Violations

LOS ANGELES - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents executed a federal search warrant yesterday afternoon at a Los Angeles-area computer printer cartridge manufacturing plant, arresting eight current and former company workers on criminal charges and another 130 employees on administrative immigration violations.

The search warrant, which remains under seal because the investigation is ongoing, was executed at the Van Nuys, Calif., headquarters of Micro Solutions Enterprises (MSE), a locally-owned manufacturer of computer imaging supplies.

The violations include making false claims to U.S. citizenship and misuse of identity documents, charges that carry maximum prison sentences of three years and five years respectively. The charges reflect an increasing trend involving illegal aliens who take Social Security numbers and personal information belonging to U.S. citizens and legal residents and use it to illegally gain employment.

"The employment magnet is one of the key forces fueling illegal immigration," said Jennifer Silliman, deputy special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles. "When illegal aliens use fraudulent documents to get work, they not only exploit a vulnerability, they also take jobs from U.S. citizens and legal immigrants."

In addition to the criminal arrests, ICE agents encountered 130 workers at the plant who were found to be in the United States illegally, including nationals from six countries - Mexico (87), El Salvador (24), Guatemala (8), Peru (4), Honduras (4) and Colombia (3). These individuals were interviewed by ICE, and in some cases by medical staff from ICE's Division of Immigration Health Services, to determine if they had any medical, caregiver, or other humanitarian issues. The interviews help ICE decide whether individuals will be detained, or released on humanitarian grounds, while they await an immigration hearing.

As a result of those interviews, 84 of the illegal aliens identified at the plant yesterday have been detained. The group includes 65 men and 19 women. The vast majority will be transferred to the ICE contract detention facility in Lancaster, Calif., operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

For the full story, see "ICE executes federal search warrant at Van Nuys, Calif., manufacturing plant in ongoing probe," U.S. ICE

Arizona Seeing Signs of Flight by Immigrants

2008-02-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

PHOENIX — The signs of flight among Latino immigrants here are multiple: Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients.

While it is too early to know for certain, a consensus is developing among economists, business people and immigration groups that the weakening economy coupled with recent curbs on illegal immigration are steering Hispanic immigrants out of the state.

The Arizona economy, heavily dependent on growth and a Latino work force, has been slowing for months. Meanwhile, the state has enacted one of the country’s toughest laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the county sheriff here in Phoenix has been enforcing federal immigration laws by rounding up people living here illegally.

“It is very difficult to separate the economic reality in Arizona from the effects of the laws because the economy is tanking and construction is drying up,” said Frank Pierson, lead organizer of the Arizona Interfaith Network, which advocates for immigrants’ rights and other causes. But the combination of factors creates “ a disincentive to stay in the state.”

State Representative Russell K. Pearce, a Republican from Mesa and leading advocate of the crackdown on illegal immigration, takes reports of unauthorized workers leaving as a sign of success. An estimated one in 10 workers in Arizona are Hispanic immigrants, both legal and illegal, twice the national average.

“The desired effect was, we don’t have the red carpet out for illegal aliens,” Mr. Pearce said, adding that while “most of these are good people” they are a “tremendous burden” on public services.

For the full story, see "Arizona Seeing Sings of Flights by Immigrants," by Randal C. Archibold, NY Times (02/12/2008)

A Note About Social Security Cards

2008-02-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

Social Security cards are not immigration documents but are used to establish employment authorization. Social Security cards have been issued since 1936 and Have been revised from than 20 times. Originally, the seal on the Social Security card read Social Security Bard. In May of 1980, it was changed to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In April 1995 it was changed to read Social Security Administration. Some counterfeiters have failed to notice these changes.

Additionally, there are Social Security cards that have been issued since 1982 with the annotation "NOT VALID FOR EMPLOYMENT," and beginning in 1992 with the annotation "VALID FOR WORK WITH INS AUTHORIZATION"which has now changed to DHS.

In October 1983, security features were added to the card. All Social Security cards issued since October 1983 have been printed with raised printing and the signature line consists of microline printing of the words "SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION" in repeating pattern.

ICE Worksite Enforcement Advisory (February 2008)

2008-02-11T13:56:00.001-08:00

Know Your Workforce: The Key to Immigration Compliance
A recurrent issue encountered in ICE worksite enforcement investigations today is the abuse of the Social Security (SS) card by individuals seeking to satisfy the work authorization requirements mandated by federal law. The SS card has long been a favorite of fraudulent document vendors. In fact, immigration fraud investigators have coined the terms "three pack" to refer to the frequently encountered fraudulent document combination of the SS card, the state driver's license or identity card, and a work authorization document.

A common SS card fraud theme is for individuals without work authorization to assume the identity of persons with valid identity and work authorization documents to establish employment eligibility during the I-9 process.

ICE is issuing this worksite enforcement advisory to make employers aware of significant fraud trends encountered by the law enforcement community so that employers do not inadvertently facilitate acts of identity theft within their own workforce.

Case Study: Know Your Work Force
ICE investigators have found that many aliens who are not authorized to work in the US claim to be US citizens when completing the Form I-9 and use authentic SS numbers that belong to US citizens. In one investigation, ICE conducted an I-9 audit of an employer and discovered that most of the workforce claimed US citizenship even though the industry historically employs a large percentage of non-US citizens.

Keying in on this anomaly, ICE determined that many of the workers had supplied the employer with SS numbers issued from one particular non-local jurisdiction. This fact is significant because prior immigration investigations have determined that "document mills" frequently use SS numbers that seemingly originate in one jurisdiction and that unauthorized aliens frequently use "breeder documents" such as the SS card and birth certificate as a stepping stone to obtain valid state identity documents as a means to escape detection by law enforcement and employers.

Things to look for: Notable changes in the claimed citizenship or immigration status of your workforce. When you customarily hire aliens with authorization to work in the US and you notice your employees claiming to be US citizens in numbers that strike you as abnormally high or atypical for your region and/or industry, you should consider contacting your local ICE office.

Also, if you notice that your new hires are suddenly presenting identical documentation (birth certificates, or driver's licenses, for example), from one particular state, possession or territory, this may warrant further inquiry by discussing with the employee his connection with the particular issuing entity, or be contacting ICE for further information.

Case Study: Middle Management is not Immune from Prosecution

During another ICE investigation, an employee reported to ICE investigators of an incidence when he noticed co-workers tearing up IRS W-2 records. When the employee approached a supervisor about what he saw, the supervisor stated that it did "not matter since those employees were illegal anyway."

Don't ignore relevant information! Indifference to the law by supervisors and employees is never a good business practice and may result in criminal charges against you, your company and your employees.

Things to look for: Social Security "Employer Correction Requests" or no-match letters. Respond to no-match letters. Check your records to ensure you have recorded the information correctly. Check with your employee to verify the information given to you is correct. Verify any corrections with SSA. Encourage the employee to resolve the issue with SSa and ensure any corrections are valid by checking again with SSA.

Any other discrepancies identified by the Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS). If a company finds inconsistencies after submitting a SS number to the SSA, employers should immediately check their records fro errors and discuss the issue with the employee and the SSA if the error cannot be identified.

Top 10 Tips for Employers Who Receive No-Match Letters

2008-02-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

#1 Don’t panic. The SSA is not an enforcement agency of either the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) tax requirements or the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration laws. The SSA’s goal in sending the letter is to update its database, which contains more than $500 billion in earnings that cannot be credited to an individual account. The SSA does not track the results of its no-match letter campaigns, and there are no reported instances of the SSA “turning someone in” to either the IRS or ICE where there are discrepancies. In fact, the SSA has no enforcement authority, and simply sends this educational correspondence through the employer for the benefit of employees. Moreoever, the IRS has a guidance making it clear that simply receiving a no-match letter does not mean that the IRS will issue a fine against an employer. All an employer has to show to avoid being fined is that is asked the employee for a social security number when the employee started work. It is the solicitation by the employer that is important, not necessarily the response by the worker.

#2 Post a general notice to all employees stating that in order to ensure that the Social Security taxes that are withdrawn from their wages are properly credited to their Social Security records they should compare the name and Social Security number that appears on their check stubs with that on their Social Security card, to ensure that the information is exactly the same. Include the same notice with all employee’s check stubs at least once a year.

# 3 Make a copy and give the letter to all listed employees and to their union representative, if there is one. Explain to them that the SSA is merely trying to properly credit each worker’s earnings account. Tell the employees you’re not going to take any adverse action against them, but that you suggest that they check themselves to see whether or not the name on their Social Security card or the number listed by the SSA has an error.

#4 Instruct employees to deal directly with SSA to make any necessary corrections. Give the employees time, including time off of work if necessary, to investigate or correct any errors they find either in their name or the SSN.

#5 Check your reports to the SSA to make sure there were no errors on your end. Sometimes employer wage reports have typographical mistakes. Checking the information provided to you on employee W-4 Forms is a quick way to check for those errors. Inform the SSA of any discrepancies you may have inadvertently caused.

#6 Suggest to your employees that they seek assistance from a trusted community organization if they need it. Or, better yet, have advocates trained in no-match letters and immigrants’ rights come provide a “know-your-rights” session for your employees to alleviate concerns.

#7 DO NOT fire, suspend, intimidate, or threaten any employee whose name is on the nomatch list with termination or any other adverse action. If you do, you may be in violation of federal and state laws prohibiting discrimination. The SSA letter itself states, “You should not use this letter to take any adverse action against an employee, such as laying off, suspending, firing, or discriminating against that individual, just because his or her Social Security number appears on the list. Doing so could, in fact, violate state or federal law and subject you to legal consequences.”

#8 DO NOT ask employees on the no-match list to bring in their Social Security card or other immigration-related documents. Immigration law requires employers to check new hires to ensure that they have work authorization, and to fill out an INS Form I-9. Employees may show employers any document listed on the INS I-9 form to comply with this requirement. Once this is done, employers are not permitted to re-check an employee’s immigration documents, as this can constitute unlawful discrimination and acts to intimidate workers.

#9 DO NOT assume that workers on the no-match list are undocumented or have
provided false information. There are many reasons why the employee’s name or number might not match the SSA database records. The SSA itself states in its no-match letter that the reasons include typographical errors, incomplete or blank names or SSN’s, or name changes.

#10 Promptly report any corrections to the SSA that you or your employees find to ensure that the personal earnings records of your employees are accurately reported and credited. Some no-match letters give employers and employees 60 days to respond, but the SSA has no enforcement ability regarding this deadline.

Resource: National Employment Law Project, "10 Tips for Employers Who Receive No-Match Letters"

The Impact of Immigration on Hiring

2008-02-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

Small business owners need to pay attention to immigration issues and closely scrutinize data offered by new hires to avoid suffering damages to their workforce, according to a panel of experts speaking at a conference Monday hosted by the National Association of Women Business Owners.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement office of the Homeland Security Department is focused on businesses dealing in construction, manufacturing, meatpacking, retailers and temporary placement agencies, among others, said immigration lawyer Nicole Lawrence Ezer.

"No one is safe at this point unless you're certain your I-9s are in order," she said. I-9s or "Employment Eligibility Verification" forms are required to be filed by all companies with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A new version of the I-9 (pdf) went into effect in January. The major change on the revised form eliminates five documents from a list of acceptable documents that would allow an individual to be employed in the United States .

No-match letters are notices sent by the Social Security Administration to employers and employees letting them know that an employee's name or Social Security number listed on a W-2 form does not match the agency's records. It is not a notice of wrongdoing.

There are 15 to 20 states that are considering immigration reform, said Mike Aitken of the Society for Human Resource Management, and small firms should be aware of what their states are doing. At least one, Wisconsin , is considering legislation requiring employers to act on no-match letters.

Additionally, on Jan. 1, 2008, Arizona joined Colorado , Georgia and Oklahoma in requiring all employers to use an online system called E-verify to confirm their employees' identity. However, as states develop a patchwork quilt of legislation, companies can encounter problems.

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga of CG2 Consulting noted that Illinois has a law that says employers can not use E-verify. The state had concerns over errors in the database and other issues, she said. The conflicting state regulations pose problems for states doing business in both Illinois and Arizona , for example. That is why business owners should push lawmakers to fix this mess, she said.

By Sharon McLoone

Man Providing False Documents to Employees Receives Stiff Penalty

2008-01-30T14:18:00.000-08:00

The final defendant from the 2007 ICE raid on a Monte Vista potato farm and processing plant was sentenced on Monday, January 28, 2008.

The defendant pleaded guily to two felonies: obtaining and having a counterfeited alien registration card and transferring five or more phony identification documents. The documents were counterfeit federal permanent resident cards, Social Security cards, and drivers' licenses.

For his guilty pleas, he was sentenced to 15 months in prison. After serving his time, the defendant, a U.S. legal permanent resident, will be removed from the United States, leaving behind his wife and nine children.

The other two defendants from the raid, the manager and foreman, were found guilty of misdemeanors.

For the entire story, see "Man gets 15 months in illegal alien scheme," The Pueblo Chieftain (January 29, 2008).

The Basics of E-Verify

2008-01-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

What is E-Verify?

E-Verify (formerly known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program) is an Internet-based system operated by teh Departm;e;nt of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA), that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees.

Is there a cost to use E-Verify?

No. E-Verify is free.

Is E-Verify mandatory?
No. Use of E-Verify is voluntary.

How does E-Verify work?
E-Verify provides participating employers an automated Internet-based resource to verify the employment eligibility of newly hired employees. Employment eligibility verification queries authorization checks on all newly hired employees, including U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens, against SSA and DHS databases

Employers use E-Verify by entering information captured on the Employment Eligibility Verification form (I-9). E-Verify then compares employee information against approximately 425 million records found int he SSA database and more than 60 million records stored in the DHS database.

Which employees must be verified through E-Verify?
Employers are required to verify all newly hired employees, both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens. Employers may not verify selectively and must verify all new hired while participating in the program.

The program may not be used to prescreen applicants for employment. Employers cannot go back and verify employees hired before the company signed the Memorandum of Understanding (see below). Employers cannot re-verify employees who have temporary work authorization.

How do employers participate in E-Verify?
The first step to participation is registration with DHS. (Click here to begin registration process)

After registration, the next step is filling out the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which is required to participate in E-Verify. The MOU provides the terms of agreement between the employer, the SSA, and DHS. The MOU must be signed by an employee of the company who has signatory authority for the employer (Designated Agent)

More information on E-Verify may be found at: E-Verify_Manual

Oregon Employers Take Immigrant-Rights Stance

2008-01-29T12:40:00.000-08:00

Oregon employers are planning to launch the Oregon Essential Worker Immigration Coalition in February 2008, as a means to make their interests heard in the State's immigration debate.

Jeff Stone, one of the Coalition's founders, said agriculture, construction, food service, hospitality, and other sectors of Oregon business want the Federal government to fix the immigration system. In part, that means fending off state and local laws that would restrict employers' ability to continue relying on foreign workers.

One proposed law, which is slated to take effect on February 4, 2008, will restrict the issuance of Oregon drivers' licenses to those who can document citizenship or legal residence in the United States. Stone said the Coalition was unlikely to push for such a proposal because he didn't "think that bill's time is right. It inflames too many people, frankly."

Ramon Ramirez, President of Oregon's Farm Workers' Union, said he was eager for employers to voice their concerns over the wave of excessively harsh anti-immigration proposals. With the voice of Oregon business, Ramirez hopes that politicians will be more willing to listen and give weight to immigrant rights.

For the full story, refer to: "Oregon employers launch immigrant-rights coalition" The Register-Guard (January 23, 2008)