Immigration Agents Put Heat on Employers
But with crackdown, some worry where new workers will come from
Congress tried and failed to pass immigration reform. But that hasn't stopped the Department of Homeland Security from pushing ahead with its own plan to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants inside the United States.
The department's focus: employers. New rules that go into effect in the next month increase the burden—and penalties—for companies that continue to employ illegal immigrants.
The heightened enforcement activity targeting employers is part of a broader DHS effort to crack down amid growing concern nationwide over the flood of migrants in recent years—and the failed congressional attempt to revamp the system. But the new rules could hurt companies in a wide range of industries as many are forced to lay off workers in the coming months—a move that could stir up tensions between business, law enforcement, and immigration advocates.
Since the creation of DHS, the number of workplace raids has soared. Last year alone, the department arrested 300 percent more workers and employers than in the previous year. DHS plans to continue these raids but the new rules forcing employers to take pre-emptive action are an acknowledgement that raids alone cannot reach all migrants.
The most significant concern for employers is the no-match letters, which the Social Security Administration sends out to companies if their employees' Social Security numbers appear inaccurate. The agency is expected to send out many new notices in the coming months; the new rules boost penalties by 25 percent for employers that fail to fire such employees—or validate their status—within 90 days. The rules also require that government contractors sign up for the Basic Pilot Program, a system that verifies whether a prospective employee's work documents match a legitimate Social Security number.
For DHS, the focus on employers is crucial tool to address the root cause of what draws illegal migrants to the United States: higher-paying jobs. "These guidelines will make it more difficult for illegal aliens to use a fraudulent Social Security number to get a job," Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said at a recent press conference. "And it will help employers take appropriate action to protect themselves."
Chertoff acknowledged that the department's enforcement options remain limited because of Congress's failure to pass immigration reform. But he said that the agency was trying to help businesses find legal labor by looking into ways to make the agricultural guest worker program less cumbersome.
That is little consolation to companies that could be forced to lay off a significant number of workers when the letters arrive; it is widely acknowledged that a hefty percentage of workers in industries like agriculture and hospitality are illegal. Immigration lawyers say companies are worried that it will be difficult to replace these workers with U.S. citizens or migrants here legally.
And they note that getting names checked through the Basic Pilot Program hasn't stopped all problems. Swift & Co., a meatpacking company that had 1,200 of its employees arrested in December, had already participated in the program before the raid.
"Until we get to the age of Jack Bauer and we have retina scans, there is no way for the employer to tell you who exactly is standing in front of them," says Eileen Scoefield, an immigrant attorney in Atlanta. "Employers still hold this vulnerability."
To understand the fear facing employers, just ask Maureen Torrey, an 11th-generation farmer in western New York. One morning last fall, her farm was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. She says they arrested 27 of her 400 farm workers. She wasn't able to rehire new workers for the harvesting season and lost an estimated $2 million in crops—20 percent of her usual revenues.
The raid worried local banking officials like James Fulmer, chairman of the Bank of Castile, based in Batavia, N.Y. Now that more farms could be forced to lay off more workers, he says he's going to require that companies create a backup plan in the event they receive no-match letters. But he's concerned rehiring won't be easy.
"We have very low unemployment here, so the fact is: Where are these people going to come from?" he says.
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