Illinois businesses prepare for possibility of dramatic immigration raids – Chicago Tribune
President Donald Trump's plans to aggressively enforce the nation's immigration laws haven't specified what that will look like inside the workplace, prompting some employee rights groups to dust off decade-old raid-training manuals.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, says it plans to target employers, just as it did under President Barack Obama. But whether workers will be targeted as well remains unclear.
The uncertainty is driving workers and employers to workshops to learn about their rights in case ICE comes knocking.
"Employers are really nervous," said Rebecca Shi, executive director of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, a group led by prominent CEOs and business leaders pushing for comprehensive federal immigration reform.
The group has held forums with employers across the state since Trump issued his immigration orders in late January, to help them prepare for more aggressive worksite enforcement.
Unlike the headline-grabbing workplace raids that rounded up thousands of workers suspected of immigration violations during the later years of the George W. Bush White House, the Obama administration focused on paperwork violations to penalize employers but largely left employees alone. Under the Trump administration, that strategy may continue.
"ICE's Homeland Security Investigations continues to focus its worksite enforcement program on the criminal prosecution of employers who knowingly hire illegal workers in order to target the root cause of illegal immigration," ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said in an emailed statement. "In addition to criminal prosecutions, we continue to fine employers who hire an illegal workforce."
But given Trump's hard-line stance on enforcement, "I would imagine that there would be a focus on both the worker and employer violations," said Bill Riley, a former special agent for ICE, who is now senior managing director at Guidepost Solutions, an investigative and compliance consultancy based in Washington, D.C.
Keren Zwick, managing attorney in the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center's litigation practice, believes a return to worker roundups is inevitable.
"We're preparing for Postville-style raids," Zwick said, referring to a 2008 raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, that was one of the largest single-site raids in U.S. history. That raid resulted in the arrest of 389 immigrant workers, many of whom were eventually deported.
In Illinois, workers without legal status make up an estimated 11 percent of the workforce in leisure and hospitality, 10 percent in manufacturing and 9 percent in construction, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center report. There are about 350,000 people in the state's labor force without authorization.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said during a visit with Mexican officials last month that "There will be no repeat, no mass deportations."
Nevertheless, Trump's toughened enforcement plans have raised concerns because his orders call for adding 10,000 immigration officers nearly tripling the current force as well as greatly expanding who is prioritized for deportation and who can be deported on an expedited basis without a hearing.
Obama deported a record number of immigrants but in recent years the vast majority were caught at the border or had been convicted of serious crimes, in line with a prioritization policy that focused on gang members and national and public security threats. Trump's plan casts a wider prioritization net to include noncitizens who have been charged but not convicted of a crime, abused public benefits programs or engaged in fraud before a government agency.
If agents seek out immigration violators at work, it tends to take one of two tacks.
The image that captures the public imagination is when ICE shows up without warning with a criminal search warrant that permits them to question anyone on the premises about their immigration status. Such raids were common a decade ago and prompted massive pro-immigrant marches to protest the system and the splitting of families.
Locally, high-profile raids nabbed 26 workers at a Southwest Side IFCO plant in 2006, part of a 1,187-worker nationwide sweep of the pallet-maker, and 60 people working for a cleaning company in Beardstown, Ill., in 2007.
They have happened elsewhere more recently. In October. ICE arrested more than 20 workers at a Mexican restaurant in Buffalo, N.Y., and charged the owner and two other defendents with "conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens," which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine.
In its training, the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition advises employers that they don't have to open the door to ICE agents unless the agents have a criminal search warrant signed by a judge or magistrate, though agents can enter public areas of worksites such as reception areas without a warrant.
If ICE only has an administrative arrest warrant signed by an immigration official, it doesn't have a right to enter private property, unless the owner grants it, and must arrest the individuals listed on the warrant in a public place.
Preparation materials from the National Immigration Law Center advise workers not to run away if ICE arrives at their workplace. People have a right to keep silent and insist on talking with a lawyer before answering any questions, and shouldn't volunteer information about immigration status or birthplace or sign any documents without speaking to an attorney first, the center advises.
In order for ICE to begin deportation proceedings, officers need to show the person's identity, where they are from and that they're not permitted to be in the U.S., said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the law center. Once ICE meets that burden, the detained person has to show they're eligible for some type of asylum or another form of immigration relief.
ICE officers have discretion over who gets detained and operational guidelines state that people with humanitarian claims such as those with health issues or with sole custody of young children can be released with an ankle monitor or another alternative form of custody, Riley said.
The agency says its strategy is to go after the most egregious violators, such as those suspected of human smuggling, fraud and worker exploitation, and employers conducting business in critical infrastructure and industries affecting national security.
But labor advocates argue that such raids make workers more vulnerable to abuses, such as wage theft and unsafe conditions. Workers in fear of arrest are less likely to complain or report labor violations to government agencies, and employers can use the threat of raids to quell worker grievances or organizing efforts, they say.
The surprise nature of raids makes people fearful that they could go to work and not return home. Shi, of the business coalition, said her group has advised families to create something like a will that sets out who gets legal guardianship of a child should a parent be deported, and states what should happen to a house or bank account.
While many people who are detained in a workplace raid eventually are released while they await an immigration hearing ICE officers are supposed to consider whether individuals are a flight risk or a risk to the community to determine whether to detain or release new guidelines under the Trump administration may allow more people to be deported without a hearing. A Homeland Security memo said anyone who can't "affirmatively show" they have been living in the U.S. more than two years can be subject to expedited deportation, a process that previously applied to people caught within 100 miles of the border within 14 days of entering.
"The expedited deportation can happen very fast, they may not even be able to place that phone call to create arrangements for their children," Shi said.
Another worksite enforcement tack ICE can take is to audit the I-9 forms employers are required to fill out to verify the identity and employment eligibility of their workers at the time of hire. Such audits, known to employers as "silent raids," were the focus under Obama.
ICE conducted 1,279 audits of I-9s last year, assessing employers $17.2 million in fines, a drop from the peak of 3,127 audits in 2013, according to ICE statistics, but much more than were done under Bush.
Meanwhile, criminal arrests of employees at worksites fell to 119 last year, from 968 in 2008, and administrative arrests for immigration violations plunged to 106, down from more than 5,100 in 2008.
ICE gets tipped off to questionable paperwork a number of ways, including when the Internal Revenue Service or Affordable Care Act databases catch Social Security number oddities. Employers receive notice of an inspection and by law have three days to produce their workers' I-9 forms.
If ICE finds suspect documents or discrepancies, such as a name that doesn't match a Social Security number, employers and the workers in question have an opportunity to make corrections or supply proper documents.
Scott Fanning, a Chicago attorney with Fisher Phillips who represents management in labor and employment cases, said he tells employers not to assume that a mismatch means there is a violation. Sometimes there's a typo, or a person's immigration status has changed after they got married or qualified for a work permit.
Fanning said he has been advising employers for years to conduct self-audits of their I-9 forms so that they are prepared but "people are listening more now." The self-policing "goes a long way toward lowering a penalty" if ICE later finds something amiss, he said.
Employer fines start at $216 per form for paperwork errors. Employers deemed to have knowingly hired a worker without legal status can be fined a minimum of $539 per worker and up to $21,563 per worker for repeat offenders.
Employers also face being unable to solicit federally funded contracts for a year or more.
Riley, the former ICE agent, said relying on audits alone has numerous shortcomings. It is difficult to prove that an employer knew workers were unauthorized, as many workers present fraudulent documents and employers are required to accept documents that appear valid.
They also fail to act as a deterrent, he said, as "the penalties against employer are low and are often considered a cost of doing business by egregious violators," and there are few consequences to the unauthorized workforce.
Audits usually lead to workers without legal status being fired, but some just find work at a competitor, Riley said.
aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @alexiaer
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Illinois businesses prepare for possibility of dramatic immigration raids - Chicago Tribune