ICE focusing on businesses and not illegal aliens

"If people are not willing to work the jobs available"

I hear that there are 5 job seekers for every 1 job available. The other 4 can rot under cardboard on the street.

boutons part deuce part corn.

U.S. Shifts Strategy on Illicit Work by Immigrants
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 2, 2009

Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.

But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees. Instead, the federal immigration agency sent American Apparel a written notice that it faced civil fines and would have to fire any workers confirmed to be unauthorized.

The treatment of American Apparel, which has more than 5,600 factory employees in Los Angeles alone, is the most prominent demonstration of a new strategy by the Obama administration to curb the employment of illegal immigrants by focusing on employers who hire them — and doing so in a less confrontational manner than in years past.

Unlike the approach of the Bush administration, which brought criminal charges in its final two years against many illegal immigrant workers, the new effort makes broader use of fines and other civil sanctions, federal officials said Thursday.

Federal agents will concentrate on businesses employing large numbers of workers suspected of being illegal immigrants, the officials said, and will reserve tough criminal charges mostly for employers who serially hire illegal immigrants and engage in wage and labor violations.

“These actions underscore our commitment to targeting employers that cultivate illegal work forces by knowingly hiring and exploiting illegal workers,” said Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE, said it had sent notices announcing audits of hiring records, like the one it conducted at American Apparel, to 652 other companies across the country. Officials said they were picking up the pace of such audits, after performing 503 of them in 2008.

The names of other companies that received notices have not been made public. American Apparel became a window into the new enforcement tactics because, as a publicly traded company, it issued a required notice on Wednesday about the hiring audit.

The Obama administration’s new approach, unveiled in April, seems to be moving away from the raids that advocates for immigrants said had split families, disrupted businesses and traumatized communities. But the outcome will still be difficult for illegal workers, who will lose their jobs and could face deportation, the advocates said.

Immigration officials have not made clear how they intend to deal with workers who are unable to prove their legal immigration status in the course of inspections, but they said there was no moratorium on deportations.

Executives at American Apparel were both relieved and dismayed after receiving the warning from the immigration agency of discrepancies in the hiring documents of about one-third of its Los Angeles work force. The company has 30 days to dispute the agency’s claims and give immigrant employees time to prove that they are authorized to work in the United States, immigration officials said. If they cannot, the company must fire them, probably within two months.

But no criminal charges were lodged against the company and no workers have been arrested, American Apparel executives and immigration officials said.

The fines followed discussions over 18 months between federal officials and American Apparel, after immigration agents first inspected the company’s files in January 2008, said Peter Schey, an immigration lawyer representing the company. Mr. Schey said a raid had been averted because the company cooperated with the audit and because immigration agents had not found any labor abuses.

“There is no evidence of any exploitation of workers or violation of labor laws,” he said. “And there is not a single allegation that the company knowingly hired an undocumented worker.”

American Apparel and its outspoken chief executive, Dov Charney, have waged a campaign, emblazoned on T-shirts sold across the country, criticizing the immigration crackdown of recent years and calling on Congress to “Legalize L.A.” by granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

Most garment workers in American Apparel’s huge shop in Los Angeles work directly for the company, not for subcontractors, its records show. They earn at least $10 to $12 an hour, well above minimum wage, and receive health benefits.

At a news conference last year, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles publicly lauded Mr. Charney for helping the city with its faltering economy by providing “the dream of a steady paycheck and good benefits for countless workers.”

While it has been no secret that American Apparel’s largely Latino work force probably included many illegal immigrants, Mr. Schey said the company had been careful to meet legal hiring requirements. Many illegal immigrants use convincingly forged Social Security cards or other fake documents when seeking work.

In a statement, Mr. Charney said that many of his workers cited by the immigration agency were “responsible, hard-working employees” who had been with the company for more than a decade. Mr. Charney, an immigrant from Canada, said he hoped they would be able to prove their legal status. But because of the recession, the company said, it will not be hurt financially if it has to replace them.

Mr. Schey said the hiring audit at American Apparel had been “professionally done.” By contrast, Mr. Schey has brought more than 100 damage claims against the immigration agency on behalf of American citizens who said they were illegally arrested last year in Los Angeles in an immigration raid at a different company, Micro Solutions Enterprises.

Immigration officials, who asked not to be identified because the case is continuing, said the fines to American Apparel so far were about $150,000.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, said it had taken steps to limit negotiations with employers that in the past had resulted in steep reductions in fines the employers ultimately paid.

Representative Brian P. Bilbray, a California Republican who heads an immigration caucus in the House, said the amount of the fines was crucial.

“If this is a truly conscientious effort to get tough with employers to say the days are over of profiteering with illegal immigrants, that’s fine,” said Mr. Bilbray, who opposes any effort to give legal status to illegal immigrants. “But if the fine will be so low that it’s just part of doing business, there’s no deterrent.”

Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, an advocacy group, said she welcomed the end to “showboat enforcement raids.” But in the end, Ms. Salas said, “there is still enforcement of laws that are broken,” adding, “The workers will still lose their jobs.”

LINK

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Originally Posted by ElNono

U.S. Shifts Strategy on Illicit Work by Immigrants
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 2, 2009

Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.

But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees. Instead, the federal immigration agency sent American Apparel a written notice that it faced civil fines and would have to fire any workers confirmed to be unauthorized.

The treatment of American Apparel, which has more than 5,600 factory employees in Los Angeles alone, is the most prominent demonstration of a new strategy by the Obama administration to curb the employment of illegal immigrants by focusing on employers who hire them — and doing so in a less confrontational manner than in years past.

Unlike the approach of the Bush administration, which brought criminal charges in its final two years against many illegal immigrant workers, the new effort makes broader use of fines and other civil sanctions, federal officials said Thursday.

Federal agents will concentrate on businesses employing large numbers of workers suspected of being illegal immigrants, the officials said, and will reserve tough criminal charges mostly for employers who serially hire illegal immigrants and engage in wage and labor violations.

“These actions underscore our commitment to targeting employers that cultivate illegal work forces by knowingly hiring and exploiting illegal workers,” said Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE, said it had sent notices announcing audits of hiring records, like the one it conducted at American Apparel, to 652 other companies across the country. Officials said they were picking up the pace of such audits, after performing 503 of them in 2008.

The names of other companies that received notices have not been made public. American Apparel became a window into the new enforcement tactics because, as a publicly traded company, it issued a required notice on Wednesday about the hiring audit.

The Obama administration’s new approach, unveiled in April, seems to be moving away from the raids that advocates for immigrants said had split families, disrupted businesses and traumatized communities. But the outcome will still be difficult for illegal workers, who will lose their jobs and could face deportation, the advocates said.

Immigration officials have not made clear how they intend to deal with workers who are unable to prove their legal immigration status in the course of inspections, but they said there was no moratorium on deportations.

Executives at American Apparel were both relieved and dismayed after receiving the warning from the immigration agency of discrepancies in the hiring documents of about one-third of its Los Angeles work force. The company has 30 days to dispute the agency’s claims and give immigrant employees time to prove that they are authorized to work in the United States, immigration officials said. If they cannot, the company must fire them, probably within two months.

But no criminal charges were lodged against the company and no workers have been arrested, American Apparel executives and immigration officials said.

The fines followed discussions over 18 months between federal officials and American Apparel, after immigration agents first inspected the company’s files in January 2008, said Peter Schey, an immigration lawyer representing the company. Mr. Schey said a raid had been averted because the company cooperated with the audit and because immigration agents had not found any labor abuses.

“There is no evidence of any exploitation of workers or violation of labor laws,” he said. “And there is not a single allegation that the company knowingly hired an undocumented worker.”

American Apparel and its outspoken chief executive, Dov Charney, have waged a campaign, emblazoned on T-shirts sold across the country, criticizing the immigration crackdown of recent years and calling on Congress to “Legalize L.A.” by granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

Most garment workers in American Apparel’s huge shop in Los Angeles work directly for the company, not for subcontractors, its records show. They earn at least $10 to $12 an hour, well above minimum wage, and receive health benefits.

At a news conference last year, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles publicly lauded Mr. Charney for helping the city with its faltering economy by providing “the dream of a steady paycheck and good benefits for countless workers.”

While it has been no secret that American Apparel’s largely Latino work force probably included many illegal immigrants, Mr. Schey said the company had been careful to meet legal hiring requirements. Many illegal immigrants use convincingly forged Social Security cards or other fake documents when seeking work.

In a statement, Mr. Charney said that many of his workers cited by the immigration agency were “responsible, hard-working employees” who had been with the company for more than a decade. Mr. Charney, an immigrant from Canada, said he hoped they would be able to prove their legal status. But because of the recession, the company said, it will not be hurt financially if it has to replace them.

Mr. Schey said the hiring audit at American Apparel had been “professionally done.” By contrast, Mr. Schey has brought more than 100 damage claims against the immigration agency on behalf of American citizens who said they were illegally arrested last year in Los Angeles in an immigration raid at a different company, Micro Solutions Enterprises.

Immigration officials, who asked not to be identified because the case is continuing, said the fines to American Apparel so far were about $150,000.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, said it had taken steps to limit negotiations with employers that in the past had resulted in steep reductions in fines the employers ultimately paid.

Representative Brian P. Bilbray, a California Republican who heads an immigration caucus in the House, said the amount of the fines was crucial.

“If this is a truly conscientious effort to get tough with employers to say the days are over of profiteering with illegal immigrants, that’s fine,” said Mr. Bilbray, who opposes any effort to give legal status to illegal immigrants. “But if the fine will be so low that it’s just part of doing business, there’s no deterrent.”

Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, an advocacy group, said she welcomed the end to “showboat enforcement raids.” But in the end, Ms. Salas said, “there is still enforcement of laws that are broken,” adding, “The workers will still lose their jobs.”

LINK

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this dude's company's website is borderline porno

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

There are a lot of jobs that simply wouldn't get done if employers depended on hiring locals. Picking strawberries is one of them. Don't try to tell me that "if they paid enough" they could get someone to do it...maybe they could, but then they couldn't sell their strawberries for enough to break even...

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DJT cracking down on employers even harder than Obama, who hit the previous high-water mark:

Quote:

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There were 2,282 employer audits opened between Oct. 1 and May 4, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday, nearly a 60 percent jump from the 1,360 audits opened between October 2016 and September 2017. Many of those reviews were launched following the January ICE audits and employee interviews at about 100 7-Eleven franchises in 17 states.


There were 594 employers arrested on criminal immigration charges from Oct. 1 to May 4, up from 139 during the previous fiscal year, and 610 civil immigration charges during the same period, compared to 172 in the preceding 12-months.
Derek Benner, head of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, told The Associated Press that another nationwide wave of audits planned this summer would push the total “well over” 5,000 by Sept 30. ICE audits peaked at 3,127 in 2013.

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https://apnews.com/4f6ebb97fd294c898d81737882816f22

anti-business immigration policy good now, apparently

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

anti-business immigration policy good now, apparently

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The only way they will ever stop illegal immigration, wall or not, is to enforce the use of everify and prosecute employers that dont.

The same undocumented immigrants could still do the same jobs, just required to get a time limited work permit by their employers

There should even be a path to citizenship after a given amount of time with specified requirements.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

The only way they will ever stop illegal immigration, wall or not, is to enforce the use of everify and prosecute employers that dont.

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when Obama was doing it you complained about the hardship to businesses; what a difference a day makes.

Good. They are making poor Americans lives worse. Get in line to become legal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

when Obama was doing it you complained about the hardship to businesses; what a difference a day makes.

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We need a sane immigration system that allows hard working, assimilated people in. Not a pourous border and our current dysfunctional system.

You guys think you are so smart. Propose an immigration solution.

I think it makes sense to to have enforcement at the border and in the workplace.

I don't think it's desirable or possible to seal the border, nor do I think it's realistic to expect total prevention of undocumented immigration -- we just have to do the best we can.

We aren't doing the best we can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

I think it makes sense to to have enforcement at the border and in the workplace.

I don't think it's desirable or possible to seal the border, nor do I think it's realistic to expect total prevention of undocumented immigration -- we just have to do the best we can.

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My point was if you make employers part of the solution (through fear of fines, etc) and there was a system for work visas those same undocumented workers could become documented. This would create a data base of workers who deserve assimilation and permanent status of some kind. The existing system is just as stupid as the "war on drugs".

that's a reasonable point

With birth rates at historical lows, we have to have immigrants.

The goal would be to come up with a system that provided for a high percentage of productive immigrants capable of assimilation and not uneducated, illiterate immigrants with limited oppotunity for success that immediately become burdens on our existing safety nets.

Its a sad fact that a lot of the world are shitholes but we shouldnt be obligated to take in everyone just because it sucks where they are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nathan89

We aren't doing the best we can.

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evidence?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

With birth rates at historical lows, we have to have immigrants.

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so it would seem. there's also the matter of the USA getting older.

how to pay for social services for elderly folks will be a problem. letting more young people immigrate and naturalize is an ostensible solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

so it would seem. there's also the matter of the USA getting older.

how to pay for social services for elderly folks will be a problem. letting more young people immigrate and naturalize is an ostensible solution.

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True, but we need a immigration policy that gives workers legal status, identifies them, and gets them in the system. This will never work without cutting off or limiting illegal employment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

My point was if you make employers part of the solution (through fear of fines, etc) and there was a system for work visas those same undocumented workers could become documented. This would create a data base of workers who deserve assimilation and permanent status of some kind. The existing system is just as stupid as the "war on drugs".

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Actually there are a lot of choke points when dealing with illegals compared to drugs. Employers is one of them. Just not a good comparison.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy

True, but we need a immigration policy that gives workers legal status, identifies them, and gets them in the system. This will never work without cutting off or limiting illegal employment.

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Not sure how the latter precludes the former. Can you explain how?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nathan89

Actually there are a lot of choke points when dealing with illegals compared to drugs. Employers is one of them. Just not a good comparison.

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Its a good analogy. We spend billions trying to stop drugs at the border and criminalize users once the drugs are in. The only difference in immigration is we also criminalize drug dealers, but not employers of illegals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Winehole23

Not sure how the latter precludes the former. Can you explain how?

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Hmm. Lets say we have "employment centers" where non citizens can register for work with a resume of skills available. Say an employer goes to the Texas Workforce commision to fill a job requirement. No locals want the job. The employer becomes responsible for the immigrant employee as long as he is registered and works for him. The immigrant could move to another employer as long as he was registered through the new employer. Its a rough outline of how it could work, but if work without documentation wasnt available then undocumented immigration would be limited.

I sure dont have all the answers but what we have sucks.