Protesters demonstrated against the immigration policies of the parent company for Dunkin Donuts on Madison Avenue in Midtown Wednesday.

They said that the Carlyle Group, an $81 billion firm which owns hundreds of companies, is using a flawed system to identify and fire workers suspected of being in the country illegally, and that the system has left employees living in fear.

"Employers should not be the ones that are responsible for checking the immigration status of people in this country. That is the job of the federal government," said Zahida Pirani of the New York Civic Participation Project.

"We know that these federal databases are extremely flawed, and that workers regardless of immigration status are facing a grave risk of being fired because of errors in these databases," said Milan Bhatt of the New York Immigration Coalition.

"If they discriminate, if they only fire Latinos who are the subject of that letter, or if they only fire people who are trying to organize unions, they could be violating the law," said Amu Sugimori of La Fuente.

The Carlyle Group has yet to respond to NY1.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.js ... &aid=80835