ESCONDIDO CA. becomes first in county to volunteer for immigration audit
ESCONDIDO: City becomes first in county to volunteer for immigration audit
10 minutes ago • By DAVID GARRICK dgarrick@nctimes.com
Escondido is the first city in San Diego County to voluntarily allow federal immigration officials to audit its hiring records to make sure all city employees are eligible to work in the United States, officials said last week.
The federal audit, which began April 23, is part of a new agreement between the city and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows ICE to check whether veteran employees turned in fake documents or stole someone else's identity when they were hired by the city.
The measures go beyond the E-Verify system, which Escondido was the first city in the county to adopt in March 2011.
E-Verify allows the city to determine worker eligibility for new hires only, but the new agreement allows ICE to scrutinize the employment documents of everyone on the city's payroll, including elected officials. The agreement makes Escondido a member of IMAGE, which stands for ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers.
City officials praised the program last week as a way to quickly root out fraud at City Hall; make sure coveted city jobs go to eligible workers instead of illegal immigrants; and set an example for private-sector businesses that Escondido has encouraged to crack down on illegal workers.
"It's more all-encompassing than E-Verify," said Councilwoman Marie Waldron. "If we're going to hope and suggest that other businesses do the same thing, we need to take the lead."
The IMAGE program also includes training for city personnel officials on proper hiring practices, detecting fraudulent documents and how to avoid discrimination when checking employee eligibility.
Mayor Sam Abed, who has said he was born in Lebanon but became a U.S. citizen in 1990, also praised the program, saying the city needed to do everything possible to help local residents struggling to find work.
"Lots of people just lost their unemployment benefits," said Abed, adding that Escondido has a higher jobless rate than neighboring cities. "We want every business in the private sector to do this."
But immigrant rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized IMAGE, which essentially combines two policies they've also opposed: E-verify and the Obama administration's decision to sharply increase the number of employer audits.
They say E-Verify, which is Internet-based, is prone to errors and encourages employers to discriminate against foreign-looking job applicants, especially Latinos who are citizens or legal immigrants.
And they say the audits, which led to the dismissal last fall of more than 50 employees at Escondido Disposal, encourage the creation of an underground economy and often displace veteran employees navigating their way through the complicated process of acquiring proper documentation.
"We urge the city to exercise caution in the use of this program so that it does not unfairly impact low-income workers and immigrant workers alike," Cynthia Buiz, policy director of the local ACLU chapter, said last week.
Escondido and immigration
Escondido has faced similar criticism for several other efforts to fight illegal immigration, including a failed attempt in 2006 to prohibit landlords from renting to illegal immigrants, an abandoned 2007 proposal to restrict overnight parking in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, and a day-laborer ordinance discussed in 2008 but never adopted.
The city, where Latinos outnumber whites 49 percent to 40 percent, has also been criticized for frequently staging traffic safety checkpoints, which some call a veiled attempt to target illegal immigrants who can't legally obtain driver's licenses or register vehicles.
Escondido also forged a separate partnership with ICE in 2010 that has drawn criticism.
Under that agreement, ICE agents help Escondido police officers determine whether suspects of crimes are in the country illegally or are wanted for deportation. Records show that the partnership, which both agencies call the first of its kind in the nation, has led to 819 arrests in the city.
A frequent critic of the checkpoints has been Councilwoman Olga Diaz, the only Latino on the council and the only council member to vote against joining the E-Verify program last year. Diaz declined last week to comment on IMAGE, saying only that she was disappointed her colleagues were continuing to pursue policies that might divide the community.
Audit under way
The ICE official handling the IMAGE audit, Special Agent John Murakami, declined through a spokeswoman to estimate when the audit of Escondido's employment eligibility documents would conclude.
Sheryl Bennett, the city's personnel chief, said she was told by ICE that completion dates and timelines vary based on circumstances.
Escondido has processed 147 new full-time and part-time employees since beginning to use E-Verify 14 months ago, and the city hasn't fired any of the new hires based on such eligibility checks, Bennett said.
The city has about 700 full-time workers and roughly 200 part-timers.
When the audit is complete, Escondido will be promoted from an IMAGE "partner" to IMAGE "certified," according to the ICE website. Other IMAGE participants in Escondido include Unicel Corp., Betz Concrete, Bergelectric and S&H Contracting.
And elsewhere in North County, IMAGE participants include Fluid Components International in San Marcos, Body Beautiful Car Wash in Poway and two businesses in Rancho Bernardo: Bernardo Heights Country Club and Symcoat Metal Processing.
ESCONDIDO: City becomes first in county to volunteer for immigration audit : Escondido
