SEIU: Obama Workplace Immigration Enforcement Flawed
Tuesday
December 15 ,10:19 am



By David Moberg

Last summer ABM Industries Incorporated, a big national building maintenance firm, began delivering letters to its janitors in Minneapolis and St. Paul demanding that they produce documents—such as Social Security cards, immigration papers or other identification—or be fired.

The company’s investigation, which eventually led to the firing of 1,200 workers–three times as many workers as involved in the notorious Postville, Iowa, meatpacking plant raid by the Bush administration, was prompted by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) audit of ABM’s records of employee immigration status, or I-9 forms.

The Department of Homeland Security has recently decided to escalate such audits of immigration status. But the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is pressing the department to reconsider, arguing that the audits are deeply flawed and ineffective.

The union’s Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina urges the Obama administration instead to push for comprehensive immigration reform, rather than punitive and unproductive enforcement strategies. With regard to workplace enforcement of immigration laws, Medina says DHS should work with the Department of Labor to focus on generally bad employers who exploit undocumented immigrants and lower labor standards for citizens and documented workers as well.

SEIU, which represented the Twin Cities ABM workers, says that many legal immigrants and citizens also lose their jobs in ICE audits. The audits, like the highly criticized and now-suspended Social Security “no matchâ€