Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?

10:58 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor

20 Jan 2011

This morning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E) is set to announce the creation of a new office with the express job of auditing companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers. While the alleged purpose of these efforts to is to insure that companies use workers eligible to the work in the U.S. and to find those that don’t, the effects increase the number of unemployed overall.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Morton [head of I.C.E] said the new center would have the “express purpose” of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. “We wouldn’t be limited by the size of a company,” he said.

The audits, which have affected garment makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of everyundocumented immigrant on a company’s payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can’t attract American workers even during an economic downturn.

Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees’ hiring documents were suspect.

The important thing to note here is that suspect does not automatically mean fake. Immigration Impact points out the high error rate in programs like E-Verify, which are being pushed as a solution for companies.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a mandatory E-Verify program without legalizing the existing undocumented workforce would decrease federal revenue by more than $17.3 billion over ten years, primarily because workers and employers would take their taxes off the books.

Mandatory E-Verify won’t just hurt our economy; native-born and immigrant workers alike stand to lose their jobs if this system incorrectly identifies them as not authorized to work in this country. Recently, a U.S. citizen in Florida lost her job due to an E-Verify database error. Despite pleas to government officials to remedy her situation, she has been unemployed for several months.

This U.S. citizen’s case is not unique: using error rates reported in a DHS-funded study, approximately 32,800 workers were erroneously fired in Fiscal Year 2009 due to E-Verify. This number would conservatively grow to 617,148 workers in a mandatory system, and independent employers have reported much higher error rates from their own experience.

Something not mentioned in either the WSJ or the Immigration Impact post is the human cost. What isn’t mentioned is what happens to some of the undocumented workers once they are fired or caught in a workplace raid or “audit”. What happens to the families in the U.S. and the families in the home countries that depend on that income? What is the cost of deporting and breaking apart a family? That is a sum that is hard to quantify in terms of dollars and cents but a sum that continuously is emptying the moral wallets of the U.S.

Tags: E-Verify, I.C.E., Immigrant labor, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, Workplace raids

16 Responses to Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?

Tom

January 20th, 2011 at 11:43 am

The government is foolish not to realize one little important detail; many of these undocumented have relationships or close friendships with American citizens. If the government succeeds in “cleansing” this country of the undocumented, how many productive Americans will also leave in disgust? The media likes to portray the undocumented as a sort of feral animal existing on the fringes of society. In reality, many are loved and have deep friendships with American citizens. Personally, my opinion of this country (I am a US citizen) is reaching an all time low, and my allegiance to this country is suffering for it. It appears the government, and people of a certain bigoted opinion, really do want this country to become a wasteland.

Maegan La Mala

January 20th, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Hola Tom and thanks for commenting. I think it benefits the deportation and enforcement heavy policies of the U.S. to make the undocumented seem like isolated “others” with no ties to the anything in the U.S. And just to add to your point, there are families that so-called “mixed-status” families, that is some are undocumented and some are documented. So how does that reality go along with what you are saying, especially in terms of Latino mixed-status families who see policy going out of it’s way to tear families apart.

Chicano future tense

January 20th, 2011 at 1:10 pm

The government is catering to the racists and xenophobes.
intensified deportation,raids,laws and programs coupled with sophisticated computer and database technology will eventually result in the significant reduction in the numbers of undocumented workers in the US by the millions.
They will succeed.

But their success will leave a legacy of resentment,bitterness and anger in it’s wake that will not go away.

I predict that it will not be the Democratic Party who will bring about some type of change in immigration policy.Rather,I think it will happen in some lesser form sponsored by conservative GOP elements.

Here’s an interesting news article I read from Utah which gives us an idea of which direction immigration policy could possibly take which has not yet appeared on the Latino “radar”.This could very well be the form of future of immigration policy in this country.

Utah Bill Looking to Create Work Permits for Undocumented

Notitas de Noticias

With help from the conservative Sutherland Institute, Utah State Senator Luz Robles has begin work on a new bill that would offer the state’s undocumented immigration population the chance to legally work.

Robles definitively states that the bill will in no way grant amnesty or a path to citizenship, but rather, it is a work program in which undocumented immigrants would be given permit cards to work legally providing their criminal background passes inspection, they pay taxes, and enroll in English and civics classes.

The Sutherland Institute’s president, Paul Mero, says this bill will hold undocumented immigrants accountable with a conservative approach.

“Immigration is a federal issue and we all recognize that, but the federal government has failed to take care of this issue and it has been an issue for at least decades,” said Robles. “The state have been working on reactionary and proactive solution and we believe this is a Utah solution.”

Maegan La Mala

January 20th, 2011 at 1:59 pm

Hola Chicano Future Tense. I think we are seeing that already by some elements of the GOP (like Jeb Bush) pero no se if at this point I trust anything coming from either side of the aisle.

Tom

January 20th, 2011 at 3:21 pm

Hola! I also think the policy makers (or morons… take your pick), are guilty of distilling people into categories for their own petty convenience. The human element of these groups of people is completely, maybe purposefully, stripped. People become numbers and statistics, not ruined families…ruined relationships…ruined futures. The very people we look to make laws that guide society, are also complete removed from society they affect by their “ivory tower” existence. Only rarely are they personally ensnared by their own laws and policies.

Tweets that mention Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed? | VivirLatino -- Topsy.com

January 20th, 2011 at 3:47 pm

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vivir Latino, ken montenegro and RI4A, Dani Martinez-Moore. Dani Martinez-Moore said: RT @VivirLatino: Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed? | VivirLatino http://bit.ly/hmK1Jk [...]

Karen

January 20th, 2011 at 11:05 pm

Is anybody here gong to vote for Obama again? Just wondering.

Bryan J,

January 21st, 2011 at 1:05 pm

The only candidate for presidency who is not fake is Ron Paul. That’s not to say that Paul should be President, given his nativist tendencies.

Then again, Paul’s position on many other issues could lessen demand for immigration. But politicians outside of the two-party monopoly have no chance.

Tom

January 21st, 2011 at 4:07 pm

I’m very curious what the government response to “the illegal immigration problem” has cost the taxpayer to date (say in the past five years), versus the cost of the undocumented living here (and “leeching” the system as is often hysterically commented).

Here we have the government creating yet ANOTHER, I’m sure highly efficient, office to deal with an imagined problem. What are we at in total? Several hundred million?? Several billion?? More?? If every one of the “illegals” were in the emergency room daily, would the total be as great?

Maybe we should deport the government…

la Macha

January 22nd, 2011 at 1:22 pm

i think we’ve all even stated numerous times who we voted for and the reasons why–repeatedly.

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January 25th, 2011 at 9:27 am

[...] in the administration to do anything on immigration remotely looking like reform, this is including the alleged new push to pressure employers instead of the employed (more on that later). Instead of how continued raids and increased enforcement have broken more [...]

Attacks on Immigrant Workers Cross Party Lines | VivirLatino

February 9th, 2011 at 7:51 pm

[...] last month, I wrote about how I.C.E., a division of the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was st… This announcement, which really was just an official announcement of what I.C.E. has already been [...]

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Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?

16 Responses to Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?

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