Thread: More raids promised, but will they deliver?

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More raids over workers promised, but effect in question

Mike Madden
Republic Washington Bureau
Apr. 21, 2006 12:00 AM


WASHINGTON - Federal agents plan more raids on businesses that deliberately hire undocumented workers, like the sweeps this week in Phoenix and around the country, officials said Thursday.

But without more money from Congress and changes to existing laws, the Bush administration may not be able to meet promises to fight illegal immigration inside U.S. borders. Some critics called Wednesday's arrests a small step aimed more at politics than law enforcement.

Just how many businesses could face raids is unclear. The nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center says about 7 million immigrants are working illegally in this country, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they will concentrate on egregious violations.

The arrests by ICE agents at IFCO Systems sites in 26 states were the largest immigration-related enforcement actions against a single company in U.S. history, bigger than a high-profile bust of Wal-Mart in 2003 that led to $11 million in fines, but no admission of guilt by the company. ICE arrested 1,187 undocumented IFCO workers, including 35 in Phoenix, and seven current and former managers, none in Arizona.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the Bush administration hopes the raids and other arrests, as well as its determination to crack down on companies that deliberately hire undocumented workers, will scare other employers into obeying the law. A focus on interior enforcement is the second step in what officials call the "Secure Border Initiative," which started last fall by devoting more resources to border security.

"The fact of the matter is, we are looking at organizations that promote the harboring and the hiring of illegal, undocumented workers," Chertoff said Thursday. "What we're focused on is not just individual cases involving a single violator here or a single violator there, but actually looking at those people who adopt as a business model the systematic violation of United States law."

Timing is key
The focus on enforcement comes as Congress debates how to reform immigration and border security laws. Many conservatives say the administration hasn't shown much ability to enforce existing laws, much less any new ones. That is one reason the House passed a bill last December that increases border security and interior enforcement without addressing undocumented immigrants already here.

The Senate next week is to resume consideration of a bipartisan bill, backed by President Bush, that would establish temporary-work visas as well as let most of the estimated 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country get legal status.

"Politically, what this is intended to do is show enough senators on the Republican side that the president is serious about enforcement to get them to vote for the amnesty," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates reducing immigration. "It's a spoonful of enforcement to help the amnesty go down."

Critics questioned whether the administration would commit itself to rigorous enforcement of laws against hiring undocumented workers, which hasn't been a major priority until now. More undocumented immigrants were arrested in the IFCO raids than in all worksite enforcement actions during all of fiscal 2004-05.

Although Homeland Security officials said the raids were part of a new "comprehensive" strategy for interior immigration enforcement, Chertoff didn't announce any initiatives or proposals that the administration hadn't included in Bush's budget request to Congress earlier this year.

"There's not much there," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union for about 12,000 border agents. The union has lobbied for tougher crackdowns on employers of undocumented workers.

Enforcement strategy
The strategy and Bush's budget call for hiring about 200 new ICE agents devoted to workplace enforcement, adding to the 350 agents assigned to the job now. But Congress would have to approve spending $41 million.

Officials also want more agents to track down about 600,000 undocumented immigrants who are evading final orders of removal, also in Bush's budget request, and say they'll increase cooperation with state and local law enforcement agencies so deportation proceedings can begin against undocumented immigrants in jail on local charges.

The administration also wants to let ICE agents look through government databases so they know the companies employing workers who use fraudulent Social Security numbers, a possible sign the workers don't have legal permission to work. Immigration-reform legislation in Congress would allow that, with some protections for privacy.

More than half of the 5,800 workers on IFCO's payroll in 2005 used Social Security numbers that either didn't match their identity, were fake or belonged to children or dead people, ICE officials said. The company ignored at least 13 notifications from the government about the numbers, officials said.

A tipster contacted ICE after hearing a company executive say workers were ripping up their tax withholding forms because they didn't have legal permission to work in the United States and didn't intend to pay taxes.

The seven managers of the Amsterdam-based company were charged with conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants for financial gain, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each immigrant involved in the case.

By Thursday, more than 270 of the 1,187 undocumented workers arrested in the raids had agreed to be removed voluntarily from the United States, ICE said.

Experts said that if authorities target only flagrant offenders, most employers of undocumented immigrants still will escape detection.

"This (IFCO) is certainly not typical of U.S. employers; it's not even typical, I don't think, of employers of illegal workers," said Doris Meissner, who was commissioner of the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Clinton and now is a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.

The IFCO case, she said, "is the most effective way to use limited resources, . . . but it is still putting a finger in the dike."

Some lawmakers said the raids and the focus on enforcement could be a good sign.

"If this approach continues, the federal government might be on its way to actually getting at the heart of the illegal-immigration problem for the first time in memory," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who leads a House caucus that favors more border security and workplace enforcement.

But a statement from Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the arrests and the new strategy "a photo-op crackdown . . . to prove a political point."

But without more money from Congress and changes to existing laws, the Bush administration may not be able to meet promises to fight illegal immigration inside U.S. borders.

OH, That's what its about. And here I've been trying to figure out WHY they are all of a sudden enforcing the law. Its one of the little rich boy's extortion schemes to generate some more CASH - a skill, no doubt, learned during his formative years at Grandpa Prescott's knee.

The strategy and Bush's budget call for hiring about 200 new ICE agents devoted to workplace enforcement, adding to the 350 agents assigned to the job now. But Congress would have to approve spending $41 million.

No problem. Fine the employers of aliens for the court costs, deportation costs, and any other costs involved. The entire plan should fund itself without concern for approval of additional spending.