Reason to believe employers not properly verifying immigrants’ legal documents…
(Kaylee McGhee, Liberty Headlines) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to quadruple the number of workplace inspections in the next year, according to a senior ICE official.
The agency, tasked with enforcing the U.S.’s immigration laws, said its Homeland Security Investigations office has opened 6,093 investigations since October 2017.
The official said many of these investigations are the result of employers refusing to turn over work eligibility documents to the Department of Homeland Security.
The official said ICE expects to hit at least 6,864 worksite investigations by the end of September — four times as much as last year’s 1,716 probes.
Recently retired ICE director Thomas Homan directed the agency to investigate and follow-up with employers who refused to hand over the proper verification forms.
This gave ICE the reason to believe these employers were not properly verifying immigrants’ legal documents, justifying the investigations.
“I want to see a 400 percent increase in work site operations,” said Homan during a press briefing last December. “We’re not just talking about arresting the aliens at these work sites, we are also talking about employers who knowingly hire people who are unauthorized to work.”
The dramatic uptick in workplace investigations is a result of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy.
Under former President Barack Obama, these inspections were rare.
In fact, Obama urged ICE to only focus on criminal offenders and discard worksite violations when the violations hit 3,127. The next year, the probes dropped to 1,320.
ICE said the inspections have been very successful, resulting in 675 criminal and 984 worksite arrests.
“Employers need to understand that the integrity of their employment records is just as important to the federal government as the integrity of their tax files and banking records,” Derek Benner, executive associate director for HIS, said in a statement. “All industries, regardless of size, location and type are expected to comply with the law.”
