In Immigration Cases,
Employers Feel the Pressure
But Critics Fault Laws as Ineffective
By Spencer S. Hsu
The
Monday, July 21, 2008; Page A01
A three-year-old enforcement campaign against employers who
knowingly hire illegal immigrants is increasingly resulting in arrests and
criminal convictions, using evidence gathered by phone taps, undercover agents
and prisoners who agree to serve as government witnesses.
But the crackdown's relatively high costs and limited
results are also fueling criticism. In an economy with more than 6 million
companies and 8 million unauthorized workers, the corporate enforcement effort
is still dwarfed by the high-profile raids that have sentenced thousands of
illegal immigrants to prison time and deportation.
Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the
Homeland Security Department, recently told immigration experts the disparity
can be traced to ineffective policies that need to be addressed by Congress.
"Companies tell me, 'We have an immigration system that
allows us to hire illegal workers, legally,' " Baker said. Asked to defend
President Bush's track record, he said, "Why are employers not punished
more often? Because the laws we have don't really authorize that."
In the first nine months of this fiscal year, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 937 criminal arrests at
The arrests have led to several convictions, including a
union official at a Swift meatpacking plant; three executives of a Florida
janitorial services company; a temporary-staffing agency manager for a Del
Monte Fresh Produce plant in Oregon; two supervisors of a Cargill pork plant
cleaning contractor in Illinois; and seven managers of IFCO Systems North
America, a pallet services company, among others.
But Baker's comments acknowledged criticism by labor union
leaders, immigrant rights' groups and Democrats about the limits of employer
enforcement. His remarks also illuminate why the White House, Congress and some
states have scrambled recently to adopt new steps to compel companies to
identify illegal workers, and why such efforts will probably remain ineffective.
Political opposition from big business, labor and immigrant
and civil rights interests has diluted immigration law for two decades,
according to analysts in both parties.
"If you want law enforcement, you have to have laws
that are enforceable," said Doris M. Meissner,
who headed the former Immigration and Naturalization Service under the
Raids against Swift packinghouses in six states in December
2006 highlight the administration's strategy to seek criminal indictments and
felony convictions against corporate violators. An earlier approach that relied
on administrative fines and forfeitures was increasingly dismissed by
executives as a cost of doing business.
The tactics used now are similar to law enforcement
techniques honed in developing cases against mobsters and drug lords. In June
2007, federal agents wired a Mexican slaughterhouse worker who had been
arrested on immigration charges and sent him to call at the home of his former
boss at a meatpacking plant in
The informant, nicknamed "Memo," carried a false
ID. He told Christopher Lamb, now the plant's human resources manager, that he was free pending a hearing and wanted to
return to work.
Lamb, 38, coached Memo but seemed to realize he was walking
into a trap, court records show. "Where's the migra?"
he asked later, using the Spanish term for immigration agents.
The informant's tapes led Lamb to plead guilty in March to
one charge of harboring an illegal immigrant. In a deal with prosecutors, he
agreed to serve a year's probation, pay $300 in fines and cooperate against
others targeted after immigration raids in 2006 against meatpacker Swift, now
JBS Swift.
An undercover agent taped union official Braulio
Pereyra advising new employees at an orientation
speech on how to protect false identities.
"You can lie to your boss or whomever, but not to the
police," Pereyra was recorded as saying.
"That's a federal offense."
He was convicted in May on one charge of harboring illegal
immigrants, and faces as much as five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Pereyra's lawyer, Keith Rigg,
said his client committed no crime and had a First Amendment right to give the
speech. He is seeking a retrial.
Enforcement disparities were displayed vividly May 12 when
ICE agents swept into an Agriprocessors Inc. kosher
meatpacking plant in
By contrast, ICE agents arrested two supervisors and issued an
arrest warrant for a third man on July 3. The firm remains in operation.
Frank Sharry, executive director
of
"There's no question this administration is coddling
unscrupulous employers while arresting undocumented immigrants in order to make
their statistics look good," Sharry said.
But he echoed Baker's frustration at politicians who seek to
look tough on immigration and yet do not provide effective law enforcement
tools or address the nation's labor needs and underground population. "The
dysfunctional immigration system really is the fault of Congress, for failing
to lead," Sharry said.
Piecemeal measures to combat illegal hiring are under way
this year, but the moves remain controversial and their effects uncertain.
In March, the White House attempted to jump-start a campaign
to notify 140,000 employers about workers' use of suspicious Social Security
numbers, seeking to force businesses to resolve questions or fire workers
within 90 days.
If companies do not respond to "no-match" letters,
ICE could use that failure as evidence of illegal hiring. But the plan remains
stalled by a federal lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO
and the American Civil Liberties Union, which allege that it will disrupt
businesses and discriminate against legal
Also in dispute is another effort to expand use of a
voluntary online system that checks whether new hires are eligible to work in
the
Still, 12 years after Congress mandated that such a tool be
piloted in 1996, the change will enroll about 2 percent of
Critics warn that the system has a high error rate that will
exclude legal workers, cannot detect the fraudulent use of stolen Social
Security numbers, and will permit some employers to harass workers.
Frustrated by the stalemate,
The conflicting moves show how opposition has frustrated
enforcement of the ban on hiring illegal immigrants. In 1986, Congress required
law enforcement agencies to show that an employer knowingly violated the law,
but provided few tools, agents or dollars to do so.
Under the law, employers need only to verify that a new hire
present at least one "facially valid" form of identification. The
overhaul simply created a huge fake-ID industry, while granting unscrupulous
employers a ready defense since the government had no system to validate a
document's authenticity. At the same time, employers face discrimination
complaints if they unduly scrutinize new hires.
Few expect the situation to change soon with this fall's
elections looming. Some GOP congressional campaigns are talking tough, but the
party is wary of further alienating its traditional business base. Democrats in
turn rely on labor and immigrant support, leading the House to propose a $40
billion DHS budget bill that would require ICE to prioritize $800 million in
enforcement funding next year to deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records,
not workers.
At a
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling
contributed to this report.
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