Targeting employers

Over the past five years, the number of investigations initiated by ICE of employers suspected of illegally employing workers who are unauthorized to work in the US has been extremely low, and falling.  Similarly, criminal charges filed against such employers were quite low.

Recent events seem to auger a possible reversal of that trend.  On Saturday, Bill Hing posted information about the case of U.S. v. Witt, the case involving the supervisors at Fischer Homes,  a construction company.  Today, the New York Times reports on another case against an employer – Garcia Labor Company, a temporary worker contractor.  Julia Preston writes:

The criminal charges against Mr. Garcia and his company were brought by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security.  The campaign has included at least five other federal indictments of business executives in Ohio and Kentucky and has sent payroll managers rushing to re-examine their workers’ papers and rethink plans for their work force.

It also created a new environment of fear in Ohio’s immigrant communities.

The full story is here.

At the moment, investigations of employers remains a tiny fraction of overall immigration enforcement measures.

-jmc