Business Immigration Compliance

Congress Must Fix Before Expanding Employment Verification Programs Programs Should Only Be Discussed in Context of Wider Reform

2009-07-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

July 23, 2009

Washington D.C. - As Congress holds hearings and introduces plans for expansion of an Electronic Employment Verification System (EEVS) like E-verify, it has become clear that some version of employment verification will be part of comprehensive immigration reform. However, much remains to be done before EEVS is ready for prime time. The following is a statement from Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center:

"E-Verify received a lot of attention on Capitol Hill this week, but the radically different approaches to its implementation considered by Congress reinforces our observation that it is not ready for prime time. The Senate Immigration Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, held a hearing that looked at an expanded E-Verify program as part of an integrated component of comprehensive immigration reform. In contrast, Congressman Heath Shuler announced the reintroduction of a previously failed bill, the SAVE Act, which calls for mandatory expansion of E-Verify without fixing our broken immigration system.

Senator Schumer understands that we can't implement a mandatory electronic employment-verification system like E-Verify in its present form, without serious protections and revisions to it. While there remains significant disagreement over what those protections should look like, there is a clear understanding that the gravity of implementing a mandatory program that has the potential to affect every individual's ability to work - citizen or immigrant - requires thoughtful consideration and analysis.

We mustn't forget that employment verification affects every person who works in the U.S. - not just undocumented immigrants - and Congress must move forward carefully. Any expansion of E-Verify must be part of wider reform which requires current unauthorized workers to legalize their status and gives employers legal channels through which they may hire needed legal workers. Attempting to implement a mandatory E-Verify program without such reforms, as Congressman Shuler envisions, is a recipe for disaster.

Mandatory E-verify could put thousands of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants at risk of losing their jobs, will be expensive for small businesses at a time when the economy is weak, places additional pressures on the already overburdened Social Security Administration, and does not guarantee that undocumented workers will not get jobs. Every effort must be made to ensure that a new and expanded EEVS program will actually serve its intended purpose."

View IPC's Fact Check on the Key Components of Employment Verification Systems:

* 10 Key Components for Workable and Effective Electronic Employment Verification System, (IPC Fact Check), July 23, 2009

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For press inquiries contact Wendy Sefsaf at 202-507-7524 or wsefsaf@ailf.org

Nervous Employers Turn to ID Check for Workers

2009-03-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

By Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff / March 6, 2009

A federal system that lets employers check the legal status of their workers is soaring in popularity across the country, growing by 1,000 companies a week, fueled by anxiety over workplace raids and uncertainty over the future of the nation's illegal immigrants.

Get a state-by-state breakdown of E-verify searches for the past three years.

Leading the trend are Arizona and Mississippi, which have made the system mandatory for all employers, and 10 other states that require it for state agencies and contractors. But the system is also ballooning in states where it is optional, such as California, Texas, and Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, enrollment quadrupled to 1,712 businesses over the past three years, from Boston's exclusive Algonquin Club to the Papa Gino's restaurant chain to the law firm Ropes & Gray, according to a list provided by the federal government. Individual employers and private households may also use the system: Ann Romney, wife of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, signed up last year after a Globe investigation found that the family had twice hired a landscaping company that used unauthorized workers.

Known as E-Verify, the system is up for renewal in Congress and igniting debate across the United States. Federal officials are waging a publicity campaign to turn the once-obscure service into a household name, while advocates for immigrants say it contains erroneous information that could lead to some workers being unfairly denied jobs.

But employers, rattled as business owners are going to jail and paying million-dollar fines for hiring illegal workers, say the system offers peace of mind.

"God knows we check everything," said Lassaad Riahi, general manager of the Algonquin Club, which signed up for E-Verify more than a year ago. "We don't want to hire anybody that doesn't have the proper identification or the proper IDs or the proper number or the proper something."

Nationally the number of businesses in the system has risen 10-fold since 2006, to more than 113,000 this week, with checks on 6.6 million workers last fiscal year, double the year before.

Congress established E-Verify, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, in 1996 as a pilot program for a handful of states.

But the system expanded significantly in 2007, amid national debate over illegal immigration, and government officials predict that it will become even more widespread if Congress legalizes the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

All federal agencies began using E-Verify in 2007, including the office of Barack Obama when he was a US senator, and it will be required of all federal contractors starting in May.

E-Verify works like this: Companies and individual employers must first enroll in the free system, pass a tutorial, and sign a memorandum of understanding with the government. Then they enter all new employees' Social Security numbers and other information into an Internet program to verify their identities. The system searches federal databases and typically confirms the worker within seconds.

An unconfirmed employee has eight days to appeal. Companies can use the system for new hires only, under the rules, and do not automatically flag rejected workers for deportation because it is not used for enforcement.

Some employers are forced to use E-Verify - Rhode Island mandates it for state agencies - while others sign up voluntarily. Still other companies have signed up after something went wrong.

Eagle Industries started using the service in New Bedford after buying Michael Bianco Inc., the leather-goods factory raided by immigration agents two years ago. Former Bianco owner Francesco Insolia was recently sentenced to a year in prison and a $1 million fine.

Dunkin' Donuts made use of E-Verify mandatory for all stores in 2006 after a Connecticut franchise holder, Jose Calhelha, was arrested and charged with illegally hiring Portuguese workers. He was later sentenced to 10 months in prison, two years of probation, and a $1 million fine.

Business executives say the system is working overall, even as some grumble that it is time-consuming to learn and that problems can be costly to fix.

The Winchester Country Club, which has a long history of hiring seasonal landscapers from Honduras to groom the golf course, signed up last summer to improve hiring practices. Club officials immediately noticed that some of their best workers did not reapply.

"We don't intentionally hire illegal workers," said club general manager Paul Lazar. "Obviously, the reality is there's some really good people out there in the workforce and we'd love to be able to hire them. They show up every day and try to do a good job, and they don't sit around and try to call their girlfriends on their cellphones."

Critics of the service are anxious about E-Verify's rapid expansion. They say the existing databases contain inaccurate and sometimes fraudulent information. And they caution that enrolling in the system is no guarantee against immigration raids: The Swift & Co. meat packing company was enrolled in E-Verify when federal agents raided several plants in 2006 and arrested more than 1,200 people.

In addition, they say, legitimate workers are unfairly rejected because companies are wrongly screening them before they are hired, without giving them a chance to solve the problem.

"We think that an expansion of E-Verify without immigration reform makes no sense whatsoever," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. "We're not fixing the problem."

Government officials say they have boosted resources to significantly reduce errors. Last year, 3.9 percent of queries did not match, which is similar to the roughly 5 percent of the workforce that is estimated to be here illegally. Only 0.4 percent of those who were rejected had the finding overturned and were declared authorized to work.

"The system is working," said Kathy Lotspeich, deputy chief of verification for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Homeland Security agency that operates E-Verify. "We rarely get criticism from people who actually use the program."

The use of E-Verify is still tiny relative to the general workforce. Less than 2 percent of the nation's companies are enrolled, but more states and companies are considering using the service.

"Let's face it, the vast majority of employers want to do the right thing," said lawyer Susan Cohen of the Boston law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, which advises companies on the issue.

"With the increased emphasis over the last couple of years on workplace raids," she said, "the Department of Homeland Security has really put fear into the hearts of employers across the country about what could happen at their companies.

Farm Jobs Go To Residents, Not Guest Workers

2009-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

by Ted Robbins

February 20, 2009 · The U.S. agricultural industry has long complained about a labor shortage in the fields. The work force is aging and it is frequently too difficult for new farm workers to get visas. So, the federal government has just begun implementing new rules to ease the H-2A temporary agriculture worker program.

At 5 a.m., nearly 10,000 Mexican lettuce pickers wait to enter the U.S. at the port of entry between San Luis, Sonora, in Mexico and San Luis, Ariz., near Yuma. It's a daily scene during the winter season, but Anadina Cardenez Alvarez is here for the first time.

She is part of a group getting their H-2A visas. It took three months and cost $400, but she says it was worth it.

"People have told me here you can make $50 to $70 a day," she says. "There, you can barely make $50 to $70 a week. That's a big difference."

On that day, though, there was no work. The grower needed only half the number of visa workers as he thought he would.

"Due to the economic situation in the country, the farmers in this area have planted up to 40 percent less," says Janine Duron, executive director of the Independent Agricultural Workers' Center, a nonprofit that connects workers with growers. "So there's been less of a demand for farm workers. And there was just about enough demand to be met with the local domestic farm workers."

In this case, local domestic farm workers means Mexican citizens with U.S. green cards, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. These workers could legally live in the U.S., but they choose to live in Mexico because it's cheaper. In the last few years, green-card holders have made up about 15 to 20 percent of crossers, according to one customs officer's estimate. This winter, he says, that number has shot up to about 60 percent.

Paul Muthart, general manager of Pasquinelli Farms in Yuma, says it's one more effect of the recession.

"These folks who would otherwise be on a roof or in a kitchen or making a bed are back in the ag field," Muthart says.

From Farming To Construction, And Back

Such is the case of Felix Valdez, who got his green card in 1985 when the federal government offered illegal workers amnesty. He worked in the fields, but then he found a better job in construction. That's the typical pattern for immigrants. But now he's back in the fields he once left.

"I changed because there's no more construction," Valdez says. "Maybe in March … Maybe."

University of California agricultural economist Phil Martin says what's happening now is not just immigrant labor moving back to the fields, but fewer immigrants leaving agriculture in the first place.

"During the Depression, a lot of Americans who had left the farm returned to the farm," Martin says. "I like to think of the farm labor market as a revolving door in a big department store. People enter, on average they stay less than 10 years, and they leave. I think that the major thing that's happened is that door is turning slower."

But that door may not be turning at all. By the time it's light out, the Yuma workers have been taken by bus to the fields. They start picking the seemingly endless rows of romaine, butter leaf and iceberg lettuce, stooping to pick the heads then using knives to chop off the root. It's obviously hard work, and Duron, the nonprofit director, says that's a problem. Most of the domestic workers here — the green-card holders — are at least 50 years old.

"And mostly with 30-40 years or more working in the fields," she says. "They're not able to produce as well as a younger work force, and there is no younger work force in the United States."

More H-2A visa workers will likely be needed when the recession ends. But for now, older so-called domestic farm workers and former construction workers will take the jobs — unless things get so bad that U.S. citizens are willing to move across the country for five months' work in these lettuce fields at $350 a week.

Restaurant Worker Sentenced for Employing Illegal Workers

2009-02-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

Owner of San Pablo restaurant sentenced for employing illegal workers

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 02/09/2009 05:33:16 PM PST

Updated: 02/10/2009 06:15:20 AM PST

SACRAMENTO — A restaurant owner convicted of employing illegal aliens and mail fraud was sentenced Friday to pay $49,000 in fines and spend 36 months on probation and eight months in home confinement.

Prosecutors said Rui Tao Lin, 53, was the owner of King's Buffet in Vacaville, one of a group of affiliated family-owned restaurants that included Empire Buffet in San Pablo. The restaurants used a Los Angeles employment agency to recruit undocumented Asian workers, prosecutors said, while also hiring other undocumented workers who responded to classified advertisements.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided two of the restaurants in September, but did not hit the San Pablo restaurant because it never opened the day of the scheduled raid. Agents also made arrests at several homes, including one in Hercules, where the owners allegedly housed an illegal workforce.

Rui Tao Lin's brother, Rui Yang Lin, and co-defendant Bi Xia Ni were each sentenced last month to 36 months probation and a $36,000 fine. All pleaded guilty to charges in the fall.

Milk will cost a lot more without foreign workers

2009-01-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Ag economist: Labor issues could affect food prices
Dairy Herd news source | Monday, January 05, 2009

Migrant or foreign labor is a must for the dairy industry and other parts of agriculture, and a reduction in the workforce could cost consumers considerably, says David Anderson, AgriLife Extension economist in College Station, Texas. Labor and immigration are tied together, and it includes both legal and illegal immigration, he adds.

While immigration can be from another state or another region of the U.S., many minds turn to illegal immigration coming from other countries.

“We’ve always restricted immigration through the number of visas, which are much fewer than the demand, and so that encourages illegal immigration,” he says. “But the whole issue is a lot more complex that just illegal immigration. It is one that is important to the overall economy of the U.S. and other countries. The past pace of economic growth is not possible without immigration. We could not have had the economic growth of the past if we had not had as much immigration.”

Agriculture has much at stake in this issue, he says. It needs to get the debate away from the big issues and establish that there is a legitimate need for these workers. “We have to get away from the macro debate on open borders, security, citizenship and no immigrants,” he notes.

Foreign labor represents an estimated 43 percent of the nation’s dairy workforce, Anderson says.

The value of milk production is $28.7 billion and this part of the dairy industry alone provides 147,000 jobs nationwide, he says. If the related industries are added in, it is a $55 billion industry with 363,000 jobs.

If you had a foreign labor reduction of only 20 percent, you would lose 33,000 employees, $5.5 billion in sales and $1.5 billion in income, Anderson explains. Total elimination would be a lot higher, he adds. Illegal immigrants make up 50 percent of agriculture’s workers.

“What if we lost that production, what happens to retail prices?” Anderson asks. “We could see as much as a 30 percent increase.”

With dairies, labor is the second largest expense next to feed, he said. Large dairies pay higher wagers because they need specialized labor and can afford it because they have a lower per unit costs and are better able to bid higher for labor, on average.

Anderson says turnover averages 15 percent across all dairies. The rate of turnover can impact production per cow, death loss and feed efficiency, meaning it is costly for dairy operators. “That’s the hidden effect,” he says. “There is a cost of finding and training another person.”

About 20 percent of the dairy owners said they see labor shortages and are increasing wages to attract workers, he said. Wages are higher where competing jobs are located.
There is a vacuum of available workers, in part caused by the failure to pass immigration reform and the movement of penalties from civil to criminal, Anderson said.

The oil and gas industry in the High Plains has been very competitive for laborers, pulling them away from where they were working, he said. People move for higher paying jobs. “We also have a changing economy right now that is going to affect things,” Anderson says. “When the economy is poor, fewer come and more go back because the opportunity is not here.”

Since the economy has faltered, there is evidence of migrants leaving, he says. The amount of money being sent back to Mexico is down.

“Labor is a commodity and the market has to equilibrate,” Anderson adds. “This may mean workers moving to opportunities and higher wages. The wages must become relatively equal.”

The people will go where the jobs are and where there is economic growth, he says.
More than 7,000 people work in the livestock industry in the High Plains, Anderson said, and an estimated 3,000 more will be needed by 2027 in the Panhandle.

There are about 1.2 million people in the High Plains, including parts of Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. That figure remains fairly stable. The average individual wage is $25,000 annually for different types of employment, but 70 percent of that in agriculture.

“It’s going to be hard to find workers,” Anderson concludes. “They must come from one of three sources: current young residents, steal them away from another job or recruit them in.”

Source: Texas A&M University

Bush Unveils New Rules for Guest Worker Hiring

2008-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12farm.html?_r=1

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Published: December 11, 2008

LOS ANGELES — The Bush administration announced new rules on Thursday that it said would lessen the bureaucratic burden on employers seeking to hire foreign farm workers. Advocates for the workers, however, contended the changes would depress wages and working conditions.

The Labor Department released the changes in a document of more than 500 pages, the culmination of reviewing 11,000 comments since it proposed new regulations in February.

The changes apply to a guest worker program known as H-2A, after the visa that allows farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis for field jobs they cannot fill with Americans.

Most farmers ignore the program because of red tape and delays that could cost them precious harvesting time. In California, the 5,000 H-2A workers are a fraction of the peak agriculture work force of 450,000, according to the California Farm Bureau.

But, after Congress failed to revamp immigration laws and come up with a new guest worker program in 2007, the administration, seeking to attract more farmers to the program, moved forward with revisions not requiring Congressional approval.

The changes, the first major ones in 20 years, include eliminating duplication among state and federal agencies in processing applications, putting in place a new wage formula the department said would be fairer to workers, and increasing fines for willfully displacing United States workers with foreign ones.

An assistant secretary of labor, Leon R. Sequeira, said in an interview that while the changes would make the program “more predictable and timely, the program is still far from simple and easy to comply with.”

Growers agreed, and suggested the new rules would fall prey to litigation and perhaps reversals by the new administration.

“This is a program everybody acknowledges needs an overhaul,” said Craig J. Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a trade group. “Even if regulatory reform were wildly successful and carried on to the next administration, it can’t even begin to solve the agricultural labor crisis. The bottom line is Congress is still on the hook.”

Farmer and worker groups have backed long-stalled legislation that would make more sweeping changes.

Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, a major proponent of that legislation, denounced the revisions and said the senator “feels strongly that they should be withdrawn.”

Worker advocates said the Bush administration was seeking to put its stamp on the guest worker program instead of more rationally waiting for the next president. The regulations will be published next Thursday in The Federal Register and would take effect on Jan. 18, two days before President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated.

Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, an advocacy group based in Washington, said of the changes, “The intent is a massive expansion of the guest worker program by enticing employers into a program with low wages and poor working conditions.”

Cleaning Firm Used Illegal Workers at Chertoff Home

2008-12-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003524_pf.html

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 11, 2008; A01

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.

The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants.

Now, owner James D. Reid finds himself in a predicament that he considers especially confounding. In October, he was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees, five of whom he said were part of crews sent to Chertoff's home and whom ICE told him to fire because they were undocumented.

"Our people need to know," said the Montgomery County businessman. "Our Homeland Security can't police their own home. How can they police our borders?"

Reid admits he made mistakes but called the fine so excessive that it may put him out of business. Several of his workers moved after ICE agents showed up at their homes, he said.

Raising a common objection among employers as ICE cracks down on illegal hirings across the country, Reid said it is unreasonable to expect businesspeople to distinguish between fake and real driver's licenses and Social Security cards.

Immigration laws are unevenly enforced, he added, allowing big companies to stay in business while crushing small-business owners and workers. He said the rules punish "scapegoats" such as him while inviting people at every level -- customers, subcontractors and contractors -- to look the other way while benefiting economically from cheaper labor.

"No one wants to put the blame on the head; they'd rather put the blame on the business owner," said Reid, who owns Consistent Cleaning Services. "Damned if I should be fined for employees that I took over to their house."

Chertoff declined to comment. "We're very constrained in what we can say about anybody who has any kind of issue with the department," he said.

The Secret Service uses workers' ID information to conduct security checks, not immigration checks, much like most police departments do when they pull over people for traffic stops.

Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the service, which is part of Chertoff's department, declined to discuss specific screening practices. But he said agents protecting the secretary "would have run the appropriate checks, screened and escorted people as appropriate in order to maintain the security of the residence and our protectee's security."

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said that in this type of investigation, ICE focuses on the employers, not where employees are dispatched. He said that contractors have the responsibility of ensuring that their workers are legal, and that the Chertoffs were assured by Reid that workers sent to their home were legal. Upon learning that Reid might have hired illegal immigrants, the Chertoffs fired him, and the secretary recused himself from the department's subsequent enforcement actions, Knocke said.

"This matter illustrates the need for comprehensive immigration reform and the importance of effective tools for companies to determine the lawful status of their workforce," he said.

The Bush administration has pushed to expand employers' use of E-Verify, for instance, an electronic system that can confirm new hires' work documents against federal databases.

In addition to the Chertoffs' house, Reid said, his service once cleaned the Washington home of former president Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), now secretary of state-designee, as well as homes of another Bush Cabinet member and Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. In those cases, he said, his company worked as a subcontractor and billing was done by a larger contractor firm.

ICE investigated Reid's company under a 1986 federal law barring employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. It provides for civil and criminal penalties against employers who do not examine workers' documents and keep completed I-9 forms.

In February, ICE agents singled out Reid's company, and they subpoenaed two years of payroll and I-9 records this summer, a U.S. official said. Reid was fined $2,750 for hiring violations and $20,130 for not completing paperwork.

His offenses included failing to ask for IDs from or fill out I-9 forms for several workers who turned out to be in the country illegally. Reid said he also did not verify the eligibility of people he knew were native-born U.S. citizens, including himself, his stepbrother, his sister and his sister's friend.

ICE policy states that companies are not randomly selected for scrutiny and that all investigations are based on tips or intelligence. ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said Reid was targeted under a year-old initiative called Project Safe Harbor, in which field offices pursue employers in the service, agriculture and fast-food industries.

Nantel declined to say when the Chertoffs learned of the investigation. She likened the couple to restaurant or hotel customers who take the owner's word that its workers are legal.

Reid said he was referred to the Chertoffs in 2005 and worked mainly with the secretary's wife, Meryl J. Chertoff, an adjunct professor and director of the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law School. Reid's calendar shows that the Chertoffs paid $185 per visit for his company to clean their suburban Maryland home.

Reid said he routinely asked workers to give personal information to Secret Service agents and assumed the workers were authorized because they were cleared.

Chertoff's situation appeared to be different from a case announced last week in which federal prosecutors arrested Lorraine Henderson, the Boston port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another part of Chertoff's department, on charges that she repeatedly hired illegal immigrants to clean her condominium.

Staff researcher Julie Tate and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Going Home to Guatemala - Aftermath to the Postville ICE Raid

2008-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

The aftermath of an immigration raid.
By Eliza Barclay
Posted Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008, at 10:27 AM ET

SAN MIGUEL DUEÑAS, Guatemala—One year ago, Freddy Granados said goodbye to his wife, Hilda Gil, and their two small children here in a shack tucked between volcanoes and coffee plantations. With job prospects in Dueñas grim even for Granados, a skilled baker, he departed on the standard illegal-border-crossing odyssey of poor Latin Americans chasing el sueño Americano.

Five months later, on May 12, 2008, Granados rose early and left the small apartment he shared with five other Guatemalan men to report for work on the cow-skinning line at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. That day, he and the 389 other illegal immigrants who arrived for the early shift fell prey to an expansive immigration crackdown, called "military-style" by a local priest. To make arrests at a plant with around 800 employees, the U.S. government dispatched 900 immigration agents and two helicopters. It was the second-largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, and it cost taxpayers $5.2 million, according to an October report by the Des Moines Register.

Within eight days, about 300 of the workers, including Granados, were coerced into pleading guilty to charges of identity theft and misuse of Social Security numbers, according to a court interpreter, Erik Camayd-Freixas, who penned a searing account of the trials. Granados was then sent to federal prison in Louisiana, where he served a five-month sentence before being deported back to Guatemala.

In the last two years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has begun to deploy the workplace raid with greater force. During that period, work-site enforcement arrests increased 41 percent from 3,667 to 5,173, while criminal arrests (mostly involving business owners, managers, or human-resource employees) increased 34 percent from 716 to 1,101.

But beginning with the Postville raid, ICE devised a way to use identity-theft laws to criminalize immigrants for working. Identity-theft laws are intended to prosecute people who steal identities to defraud others of money and property, not for people who use false papers to get a job. In the majority of the Postville cases, according to Camayd-Freixas, the immigrants were unaware that the Social Security number they were using belonged to a real person.

Entering the country outside the ports of entry and without proper documentation is certainly a crime, but a civil trial and quick deportation should be sufficient punishment. After months of lawyers, human-rights activists, and even some members of Congress kicking up a fuss over the application of identity-theft laws to immigrants, the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a case on the issue.

"It's very unfair what they're doing," Granados told me over the phone recently, his voice squeezed by tears. "We're not criminals. We're workers." Granados was deported on Oct. 11, and he arrived home three days later. He says he is deeply pained by his experience and particularly by the treatment he received in the federal prison.

Granados said one of his lowest moments came when he spoke to his wife in July to tell her that he was in jail and would not be sending any more money. (According to Granados, federal prison officials did not let him communicate with his family for three months after the raid, nor did he ever receive his personal belongings from Postville.) Word of the raid had reached Dueñas, but Gil knew nothing of Granados' whereabouts and was gravely worried.

I met Gil in early October through her neighbor Mirna Jerez and a string of other women whose husbands and sons once worked in the Postville plant. In Dueñas, the summer brought a shared suffering for the women—the end of the remittances sent every 15 days from Postville. Most women had received about $265 a month from their husbands—enough to cover the electricity bill, keep an extended family nourished, and buy school supplies for the children. "These months have been very difficult," Gil, a timorous 32-year-old with a soft, round face, told me.

The women were perplexed by the charges; none of their husbands were troublemakers. They had gone to the United States for no other reason than to make life a little easier for their families in the shanties.

For the men, the process seemed even more opaque. "We didn't have any options," Granados recalled. "The only option was to plead guilty for stealing, when we never stole anything."

Prosecutors in the fast-tracked trials told the arrested workers that if they did not plead guilty, they could receive as much as a 10-year sentence. Such a possibility was inconceivable for Granados, with Gil and the small children at home in Dueñas depending on him.

By early October, Gil and the other women knew their men would be arriving home soon. But the prospect was a bittersweet one. Though Gil missed her husband, she knew he would be returning to a more difficult life in Guatemala than the one he left a year earlier. Fuel prices were up, and the price of a pound of beans had doubled from 40 cents to 80 cents. A global financial crisis would mean nothing good for a small, poor country like Guatemala.

Although it is little comfort to Granados, news that Agriprocessors had also suffered from the raid recently reached Dueñas. On Oct. 31, ICE arrested Agriprocessors CEO Aaron Rubashkin on allegations of harboring undocumented workers for financial gain and aiding and abetting workers in stealing identities. A few days later, Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy, having lost half its work force and having suffered a massive PR disaster.

If President-elect Barack Obama manages to move swiftly on immigration reform, the Postville raid may go down in history as a low point in using enforcement to try to fix a broken immigration system. But ICE may not be finished with its large-scale raids. At least a few members of the U.S Congress, including Joe Baca, a Democrat from California, have called on President George Bush to put a stop to them.

"Enforcement alone, no matter how well formulated or funded, is doomed to fail," Baca wrote in a letter to Bush in October. "We cannot deport our way out of this problem."
Eliza Barclay is a writer based in Washington, D.C., who reports on Latin America and Africa.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2205960/

Illegal staff may bring arrest, fine: Letters would warn employers if IDs didn't match database

2008-11-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

November 17, 2008

Illegal staff may bring arrest, fine

Letters would warn employers if IDs didn't match database

By Janell Ross
THE TENNESSEAN

When Nashville immigration lawyer Linda Rose holds a seminar for business owners, there are usually questions about worksite immigration raids.

But at a seminar this month, much of Rose's audience wanted to talk about immigration enforcement that comes in the mail, not through the door: the no-match letter.

After nearly 2½ years of litigation delays, the Department of Homeland Security announced in late October plans to revive an effort to put employers with suspected illegal workers on notice. If they don't act, they'll be penalized or even prosecuted.

No-match letters actually come from the U.S. Social Security Administration. The letters advise employers information submitted about workers does not correspond with information in the Social Security Administration's database. Under the new effort, the employer and employee would have about 90 days to address the problem.

Homeland Security announced in October the letters will include a list of actions employers must take. If an employer fails to follow the steps or fire the worker, the employer would be engaged in "knowingly employing" someone the agency considers an illegal worker.

Some first-time offenses — those that are a matter of a clerical error and those involving illegal workers but no evidence of a pattern — are considered civil violations. They carry fines that range from $110 to $3,200 per worker, Rose said.

But in cases where the government believes that there is a pervasive pattern of hiring illegal workers, criminal charges can be filed.

Penalties can range as high as six months in jail and or $3,000 fines.

A suit filed by the AFL-CIO in 2006 and joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups initially stopped Homeland Security from moving forward with its plans.

The groups said the measure would disrupt business operations, force employers to provide new training and, because of the 18 million errors the Social Security Administration estimates exist in its database, mistakes were likely.

Lawsuit pending on plan

The errors haven't been corrected, but Homeland Security wants to move forward. Officials will find out whether they can after a Friday federal court hearing on the lawsuit.

The Social Security Administration hasn't decided "due to the pending litigation whether it will be mailing the letters (to employers) or not," said Patti Patterson, an agency spokesperson based in Atlanta.

Some suspect the burden of proving a legal right to work in the U.S. will fall to employees.

"They are the ones who will be at risk of not being able to work when they are legally and fully able to do so," said Stephen Fotopulos, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. "I think there are a lot of people who want an employment system that works. But it will never work better than the data."

Tom Negri, the general manager of the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, said new workers there are run though an existing Department of Homeland Security database and must pass a background check and drug test. He said he doubts the plans would affect him, but they will other companies.

"They have to spend the money to have the kinks worked out," Negri said. "If they don't … well, with unemployment as high as it is, do you want it to affect millions of people, employable U.S. workers? I would think not at this period in time."

At: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008811170330

Migration - New Thinking - International Migration

2008-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

October 1, 2008

SECTION: IMF WORLD BANK

LENGTH: 1905 words

HEADLINE: Migration - New Thinking - International Migration - Time
To Go Home -
Figures From The World Bank And The United Nations Reveal How Migratory Trends
And Remittance Are Affected By The Global Economic Climate.

Only three out of every 100 people on earth is an international migrant,
according to the latest United Nations report on population and
development, and
the surprising aspect is that this figure has not changed since 1990. But while
the number of international migrants may have risen by 36 million (as the
world's population has increased) to reach 191 million by 2005, the irony is
that in this era of globalisation the growth of the migrant population has
slowed down. Also, in contrast to some perceptions that migration is spiralling
out of control it is interesting to examine in the current shifting global
economic circumstances how increasing numbers of migrants may be returning home
to improved domestic circumstances.

Migration patterns have changed but in different ways. The increase in the
global number of migrants between 1990 and 2005 was five million lower than
between 1975 and 1990. In 1970, in only three countries with populations in
excess of 10 million (Australia, Canada and France) did the proportion of
international migrants surpass 10%. But by 2000 that number of countries had
increased to nine (Australia, Belarus, Canada, Cote d'Ivoire, France,
Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the US), with those nine accounting for
40% of the world's migrant stock.

Today, not surprisingly, the more developed countries are hosting 60% of the
world's migrants with one in three migrants living in Europe and one in four
living in North America. In 2005, according to the UN, three quarters of all
migrants were hosted by the 28 largest receiving countries. The UN also notes
that since 1990, 72 countries registered an absolute decline in their migrant
populations as a result in large part to the successful repatriation of some 21
million refugees, particularly to developing countries.

Gulf booms

Reflecting the resolution of some long-standing conflicts,
migration patterns
have changed as millions of refugees have been able to return home.
The UN notes
that the global refugee population dropped from 20 million in 1990 to less than
14 million in 2005. Also, demographics and economic necessity are driving
change. Europe's population, for example, would have been declining since 1995
had it not been for migration. Also, one of the largest concentrations of
migrants is found in the oil-producing countries in the Middle East, where by
2005 the Gulf states were hosting 13 million migrants, mostly
temporary workers.

The oil-rich Gulf states have proved particularly useful to
migrants from the
Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially amid the Gulf's current
economic boom.

According to a World Bank report on remittances in July, the Gulf Co-
operation Council (GCC) states have among the highest number of migrants as a
share of population in the world, with Qatar at 78%, UAE at 71%, Kuwait at 62%,
Bahrain at 41%, Saudi Arabia at 26% and Oman at 24%. Remittances to the
Philippines and Pakistan are continuing to grow robustly by between 15% and 20%
in the first nine months of 2007, while Bangladesh has experienced a steep
increase in the first half of 2008 compared with the previous three years.
Remittances from migrants to these areas are said to be helping mitigate the
impact of high food and oil prices on the poor in many developing countries.

Remittance trends

The latest World Bank data reveals that remittance flows to developing
countries reached $251bn in 2007, up 11% on 2006 and more than double those of
2002. Mexico and the Philippines, which are among the top four remittance
recipients in the developing world, reported remittance inflows for 2007 of
$25bn and $17.2bn, respectively, with Poland reporting actual inflows of $11bn
in 2007, or 2.5% of GDP, twice earlier estimates. This change makes Poland the
fifth largest remittance recipient among developing countries with Romania also
significantly higher at $9bn in 2007. India and China were the top
remittance-recipient countries in 2007, with an estimated $27bn and $25.7bn in
remittances, respectively.

So what factors affect migration trends and remittances? And what impact do
events such as the credit crunch have? Last month, Mexico's central bank, Banco
de Mexico, announced that remittances have fallen for the first time in a
decade. A 6.93% decline was reported for July compared with the same period a
year ago. Remittances are Mexico's second largest source of income after oil,
and in 2007 reached $25bn, compared with $13.6bn from January-July 2008.

This fall has been influenced by high inflation in the US, stricter border
controls reducing the influx of immigrants into the US, and the currently
troubled US economy. After remittances more than doubled between 2002 and 2007,
the slowdown in the US economy, especially the construction sector,
has affected
the employment and incomes of Mexican migrants in the US.

The World Bank says: "The stock of Mexican migrants may not have
changed much
but the recent (US) enforcement efforts appear to have reduced the number of
seasonal migrants and their ability to send remittances, especially through
formal channels."

Why people migrate

Are economic changes the prime cause behind migration moves?
Clearly the boom
in the GCC states creates job opportunities, but Michelle Mittelstadt,
spokesperson for the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute (MPI), is
adamant that major moves are not affected by the short-term business climate.

"We believe decisions to migrate are long-term life decisions that have far
less to do with the destination countries than the country of
origin," she says.

But much also has to do with skills and levels of government
support. The MPI
emphasises the role of circular migration programmes by governments
to encourage
and support mobility patterns and also what governments, such as that of the
Philippines, can do to better manage migration.

According to the World Bank's Neil Ruiz: "More than 8.2 million native
Filipinos work or live abroad, equivalent to almost 25% of the total labour
force. About 75,000 Filipinos are deployed for overseas employment every month.
Filipinos also comprise 30% of all sea-based workers in the world. Remittances
from these migrants amounted to about $17bn or 13% of GDP in 2007."

For example, prior to departure, all Filipino overseas contract workers must
undergo the Philippine government's mandatory deployment process, two key
components of which are pre-departure orientation seminars and the issuance of
identification cards. Creating an institutional framework helps better manage
international migration.

India, China and Mexico were the three largest recipients of remittances in
2007 and, with $77.7bn, they account for nearly one third of remittances
received by the developing countries. But migration issues cover more than just
remittances, and new markets are opening up in various geographies for various
skill sets.

Not only are 300,000 so-called 'sea turtles' returning to new opportunities
in China (see box) but areas such as the Gulf are now attractive places for
senior bank executives from major financial centres, not just for construction
workers. With the global financial focus moving east, the Gulf, India and China
are taking on new perspectives and luring back many expatriates who have gained
valuable experience abroad. Also, immigration structures are changing
significantly. In late 2007, Europe created an expanded 'free-travel area',
known as the Schengen Area, with the addition of nine EU member states to the
area.

"This amounts to a 'big-bang' expansion of an internally borderless Europe,"
says Demetrios Papademetriou, president of MPI. "In this age of mobility, the
Schengen expansion demonstrates a real commitment on the part of the EU to
creating a union free of internal borders." Global people flows in all
directions are now more of a reality.

The Return of the sea turtles

Expanding markets from China to Brazil and the Gulf, especially banks,
require talented management and the market for that talent is undoubtedly
global. As the credit crunch exposes weaknesses in Western markets, new
geographies operating on different economic cycles are attracting new prospects
keen to find the next boom and ride a new wave of prosperity.

For institutions everywhere hiring the right talent is critical to their
success and in China the group most sought after are 'sea turtles' - English-
speaking Chinese "returnees" with international banking experience ('sea
turtles' and 'returnees' have the same pronunciation in Mandarin).

As China opened up and foreign bank branches expanded in the 1990s, growing
by at least 20 a year and almost doubling assets under management every year,
there was huge demand for sea turtles with middle and senior banking
experience,
but demand for them far outstripped supply. Grace Cheng, country manager for
executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates in Greater China, says:
"First, this was because there weren't significant numbers of overseas Chinese
people with banking experience, as most of the early generations of overseas
students were government-sponsored scientists and academics.

"Second, China wasn't seen as attractive enough to lure back those who were
doing well on Wall Street or in London. A former New York based Merrill Lynch
Chinese banker told us that his friends thought he was crazy when he left his
$400,000 pay vice-president position in 1997 to return to China."

Since China's entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2002, foreign banks
have exploded as has demand for sea turtles. Fourteen foreign banks are now
incorporated in China, competing directly with Chinese counterparts. They are
seeing incredible growth. In 2003, Standard Chartered had just 300 people in
China, it now has more than 3500. Citibank has about 4000 people in
China and 14
branches in Shanghai and Beijing alone.

Sea turtles remain the most sought after people, says Ms Cheng, particularly
those with experience in advanced Western management and products.
One driver is
foreign banks' increased targeting of domestic Chinese enterprises. Another
interesting development is that, increasingly, retail banks are hiring sea
turtles to be branch managers instead of non-Chinese ex-pats.

As China's economy continues to grow rapidly, albeit at a slower rate than
historical levels, the number of overseas Chinese returning to the country will
grow steadily. According to the Chamber of Commerce of Western
Returned Scholars
Committee, 300,000 sea turtles had returned to China by 2007. The committee
expects that number to be 500,000 by 2010. They will be needed by the foreign
and Chinese banks as they increase their spread across the country.
The question
is whether there will be enough of them with the right relevant
experience to go
round.

Attracting the right talent in China or anywhere comes at a price and in the
Hay Group's latest World Pay Report, Global Management Spending Power, the
average salary of a management level employee is examined in order to reach a
ranking of the relative spending power in countries across the world (see
table). The ranking of the 20 highest management spending power countries uses
the US as the base point of measurement or 100 on the index.

The oil-driven Middle East economies top the table with Qatar's spending
power, at 241.7 on the index, almost two and a half times that of US managers.
The demand for top talent in the Gulf continues to drive salaries higher.

Copyright 2008 Financial Times Business Limited
All Rights Reserved
The Banker

Constitutional Rights

2008-10-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

Immigrants have the rights under the 4th and 5th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

1. You do not have to speak with, or answer any questions by, or give any documents to any immigration or Ice agent. (5th Amendment)

2. You do not have to let any immigration or ICE agent enter your home unless they have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate, with your name on it. (4th Amendment)

3. You do not have to give permission to any immigration or ICE agent to search your belongings. (4th Amendment)

E-Verify Use Fails to Protect Raided Miss. Company

2008-09-02T14:38:00.001-07:00

The biggest immigration raid in U.S. History and the company used E-Verify!

E-Verify Fails to Cover Company From Immigration Raid

Feds arrest 595 suspected illegal workers of a Mississippi company in a raid that likely will add fuel to business opposition to the government verification system.

September 2, 2008

Workforce Management

E-Verify Fails to Cover Company From Immigration Raid
Howard Industries, a Mississippi manufacturer of electrical products, is the latest example of a company being targeted for immigration enforcement despite using a government-run employment verification system.

The incident, however, is unlikely to derail legislation to extend the program’s authorization or to affect a proposed federal regulation to make the government system, called E-Verify, mandatory for federal contractors, some say.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 595 Howard workers suspected of being illegal in an August 25 raid that likely will add fuel to smoldering opposition to the government verification system by business groups.

“Howard Industries runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for jobs,” the company said in a statement. “It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.”

The 595 workers were charged with identity theft and fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.

“What this will do is focus employers on compliance in general, but E-Verify is an ineffective compliance tool because it doesn’t protect against identity theft,” says Eric Bord, a partner at the law firm Morgan Lewis in Washington. “It has the perverse effect of encouraging identity theft.”

A raid at Swift & Co., a large food-processing firm, in December 2006 resulted in the arrests of nearly 1,200 suspected illegal workers on identity-theft charges. Swift was using E-Verify at the time.

E-Verify, which checks information from I-9 forms against Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases, cannot tell if a worker is submitting a stolen Social Security number. That is one of the primary criticisms leveled against the system by the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce.

The organization, led by the Society for Human Resource Management, also cites a Social Security database error rate of 4.1 percent that could wrongfully declare millions of people ineligible for work. E-Verify backers say it has demonstrated an error rate of less than 1 percent.

Howard Industries has been using E-Verify since 2007. It is one of about 78,000 companies that have signed up for the system. Almost all of the corporate participation is voluntary, but Mississippi is one state that has mandated companies to use the system.

The law that authorizes the program is set to expire in November. On July 31, the House approved a five-year extension of E-Verify as a voluntary program. Senate action hasn’t been scheduled.

Many Democrats and some Republicans want to overhaul or junk E-Verify. Most Republicans and some conservative Democrats praise it for helping reduce the “jobs magnet” that fosters illegal immigration—and want to make it permanent and mandatory for all employers.

Democratic leaders and Republicans agreed that there is not enough time left in this year’s congressional session for the wider verification debate. Congress can modify E-Verify at any time during the five-year extension.

The Department of Homeland Security has made E-Verify the cornerstone of its compliance efforts and is encouraging companies to sign up.

That will be a tough sell, according to Bord, because there’s no upside to participating in E-Verify.

“Employers who have effective I-9 compliance programs derive no additional benefit in defending themselves against an investigation by ICE,” he said.

In addition to pushing voluntary E-Verify adoption, Homeland Security is working on a regulation that would require federal contractors to use it to check existing employees and new hires. It is compiling public comments on the rule.

One organization that has filed a negative assessment of the regulation is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“The E-Verify system is not ready for prime time,” said Randel Johnson, the chamber’s vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits.

Johnson contends that Homeland Security is overstepping its authority by trying to make the program mandatory.

“We think that’s contrary to the congressional statute,” he said. It’s not clear whether the regulation will become final before the Bush administration leaves town.

No matter the outcome, Bord said E-Verify would continue to be central to federal work-site enforcement until comprehensive immigration reform was revived on Capitol Hill.

Companies should ease their transition to E-Verify by establishing an electronic I-9 process to ensure immigration compliance, Bord said.

“If you get it wrong, the damage is critical,” he said.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

ICE Raids Mississippi Electrical Equipment Plant - Arrests 350+ Workers

2008-08-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

ICE raids Miss. plant seeking illegal workers

By HOLBROOK MOHR

LAUREL, Miss. (AP) — Federal immigration agents said they rounded up 350 suspected undocumented workers in a raid on a Mississippi electrical equipment plant Monday, after sealing all entrances and questioning employees.

Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, confirmed the raid at Howard Industries Inc. of Laurel. Suspected illegal workers were loaded into white vans with shaded windows and driven away. Gonzalez wouldn't say where they were headed other than to say they were being taken to a holding facility.

"This is ... part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed that illegal aliens are employed at Howard Industries," Gonzalez said.

She said agents were acting on a tip from a union worker and were still interviewing plant employees late Monday.

The raid was executed based on "evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant for individuals illegally in the United States," ICE said in a statement.

Agents were talking with all workers at the sprawling plant to determine their residency status, said agency spokesman Brandon Montgomery.

A statement on the Web site of the Laurel Leader Call newspaper, attributed to Howard Industries, said the company "runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for its jobs."

"It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants," the statement said.

Chief Executive Officer Billy Howard did not respond to a message left by The Associated Press.

A recording at Howard Industries said the telephone switchboard was closed. A man who answered the phone at the security station said reporters would have to call back Tuesday.

All plant entrances were blocked and a tent was set up at one checkpoint to keep agents out of a steady rain. Officers in an unmarked vehicle stopped motorists traveling on roads behind the factory and told them to leave.

People exiting the plant told The Hattiesburg American newspaper that so many workers were stopped that operations shut down. It wasn't clear how many workers the plant employed.

Rodolfo Galicia said his 22-year-old brother was detained.

"Everybody's crying, worried about what's going to happen to him," he said in Spanish.

The ICE spokeswoman said 50 people were given alternatives to detention for humanitarian reasons, meaning they could be fitted with a tracking device and order to report to a case worker later.

Howard Industries was founded in the 1960s. In 2002, state lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan aimed at helping to expand its operations. The company produces dozens of products, including electrical transformers and medical supplies, according to its Web site.

The raid is one of several nationwide in recent years.

On May 12, federal immigration officials swept into Iowa's Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human resources department, court records showed.

Note: ICE says people whose relatives were detained can call for information: 866-341-3858.

Immigrants Rights Group New ICE Raid Coming

2008-08-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

HattiesburgAmerican.com

August 25, 2008

Immigrants' rights group knew ICE raid coming

An immigrants' rights group based in Jackson knew for the last eight or nine days that more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were in the state.

“We saw a growing presecne of ICE agents in the area. It was apparant they were going after somebody,” said Bill Chandler, executive director of Mississippi Immigrants’ Rights Alliance.

Chandler said they didn't know where in the state a raid might occur. Federal warrants were served at a Howard Industries plant in Laurel this morning and also at the business's corportate offices in Ellisville.

Chandler said his group had sent lawyers to Laurel and and Hattiesburg.

Those arrested or detained this morning are expected to be processed at the Federal Courthouse in Hattiesburg this afternoon.

CA9 Finds No-Match Letter Does not Provide Constructive Knowledge of Immigration Violations

2008-08-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

See http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=26248

If you cannot access this link, please contact The Law Office of Randall Caudle for a hard copy of the 25 page decision or a summary of the decision.

Defective E-Verify Expands Despite Flaws

2008-08-11T11:14:00.000-07:00

Immigration Policy Center (IPC)
...providing factual information about immigration and immigrants in the United States.
For Immediate Release

Defective E-Verify Expands Despite Flaws
Experts' Comments Slam Employment Authorization Program

August 11, 2008

Washington, DC--Final comments are due today on a rule that would make E-Verify mandatory for approximately 200,000 public and private federal government contractors and their 4 million employees. Employers, labor unions, privacy experts, and immigrant advocates are all submitting comments that express deep concern about the impact of E-Verify on American workers. The Department of Homeland Security should heed their advice before a vast new expansion of E-Verify is considered.

For months Congress has heatedly debated the merits of E-Verify -- a small, voluntary electronic employment authorization program run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in collaboration with the Social Security Administration (SSA). Several bills have been introduced to expand E-Verify and make it mandatory for all employers. Groups ranging from employers to unions to immigrant advocates and privacy specialists have warned against the expansion of the program until significant improvements are made, citing the problems a mandatory system would create for employers and U.S. workers alike. Most notably, during hearings that highlighted the massive drawbacks of E-verify, witnesses described the huge burden that an expanded E-Verify would put on SSA, resulting in longer waiting times for American workers seeking their benefits. Analysis of the program and evidence coming from those who have used it indicate that the current program is seriously flawed, ineffective, and could potentially cost thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents their jobs due to database errors.

On July 31, 2008 the House of Representatives voted to extend E-Verify for another five years, keeping it a voluntary program. The House also mandated reports on the program's usage and effectiveness, and reimburse the Social Security Administration for expenses they incur. Similar legislation is now being considered in the Senate. Meanwhile, several states, including Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have made E-Verify mandatory. The experiences in these states offer a cautionary tale. In Arizona, employers have already been erroneously notified that native-born U.S. citizens are not authorized to work, businesses have decided not to invest additional dollars in the state, industries are unable to find enough workers, and the state economy may lose as much as $10 billion.

Before any new expansion of the deeply flawed E-Verify program is considered, the Department of Homeland Security must scrupulously review today's comments and address these troubling concerns.

###

The Immigration Policy Center has produced numerous reports and analyses of E-Verify and the various bills introduced in Congress to expand the program. For more information on E-Verify and other timely issues, please see IPC's webpage, www.immigrationpolicy.org.

For more information contact Andrea Nill, 202-507-7520 or email anill@ailf.org

Biggest Immigration Law Firm in U.S. Suing U.S. Dept. of Labor

2008-08-10T14:07:00.001-07:00

See http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/08/08/green-card-lovin-law-firm-fights-labor-department/

August 8, 2008, 6:34 pm
Green Card Lovin’ Law Firm Fights Labor Department
Posted by Nathan Koppel

An ongoing battle between the Labor Department and a prominent law firm just got nastier.

Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, a prominent New York immigration firm, is being audited by the Labor Department for possibly giving too much assistance to clients that seek green cards for foreign workers. Today, the firm fired back with a suit claiming that some of the department’s rules are unconstitutional.

At issue are controversial Labor Department rules that require a company, as a condition for sponsoring a foreign worker for a green card, to certify to the Labor Department that the company has not been able to find a “minimally qualified” U.S. worker to fill the job. Lawyers are limited from advising companies as to whether an American worker can be deemed qualified, according to Labor Department regulations. These regulations are aimed at preventing lawyers from helping clients find reasons not to hire qualified Americans.

In June, the Labor Department announced it was auditing green-card applications filed by Fragomen, because of a concern the firm may have improperly helped companies review the qualifications of American workers. Fragomen has denied wrongdoing. Here’s a law blog backgrounder on the audit.

The Labor regulations have been criticized widely by immigration lawyers, who say companies need their help in navigating a complicated area of law. The regs also violate clients’ First Amendment and due process rights to seek the advice of counsel, Fragomen claims in its suit. “As a result of the Department’s unlawful actions,” the suit asserts, “Fragomen has lost business from clients as well as opportunities to compete for new business.”

David James, assistant Secretary of Labor for public affairs, said that the department is “confident that it’s reasonable interpretation of its rules will be upheld.” The department previously has said that it’s not trying to limit legal advice but says that determining whether an employee is qualified typically shouldn’t require attorney input.

Immigration Enforcement Causing Employers Headaches

2008-08-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-olivera_09met.ART.North.Edition1.4dcd188.html

For employers, immigration has a bottom line

Saturday, August 9, 2008

The no-match rule, the border fence and enforcement raids – these topics seem to dominate most public discussions on immigration these days.

Too often, though, the discussions generate lots of heat and little light, leaving the public in the dark about the impact of immigration on our economy.

But ask an employer, and a different story emerges, one with real human consequences.

That's the story the Texas Employers for Immigration Reform will be sharing when it has its fourth immigration summit later this month at the Dallas Marriott Las Colinas in Irving.

The Aug. 25 meeting is open to the public.

Speakers will review some of the main concerns of employers, many of whom are small-business owners who feel they're bearing the brunt of federal efforts to curb immigration.

The Social Security Administration's latest no-match rule remains a major concern for many employers, said Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business. He said 60 days is not enough time to determine whether an employee's Social Security number matches the name the government has on file.

"Divorce, marriage, transposition of digits – there's too many variables for mistakes," he said.

The program could result in employees who are U.S. citizens also losing their jobs, he said.

"When the workload increases dramatically [for the Social Security Administration], it could be disastrous for us and our economy," he said.

Mr. Hammond remains optimistic, however, that things will improve. Both presidential candidates have expressed support for immigration reform, he said, and the business community is doing a better job of getting organized to bring about pragmatic solutions.

For Eddie Aldrete, a bank executive in San Antonio and a member of the Texas employers coalition, the concern over Social Security numbers is overblown and a distraction.

He's worried over another set of numbers.

"The biggest threats to our economy are baby boomer retirements and our dropping fertility rates," he said.

His presentation on how fewer babies translates into fewer workers draws crowds every time he gives it, and he expects no less at the immigration summit.

"We've become too focused on keeping people out," he said, when we should be doing the reverse.

Almost every industrialized nation is experiencing falling birthrates, including the U.S.

The nation's birth rate now stands at 2.1 children per woman and is expected to fall below replacement level in seven years. Mexico's birth rate is 2.4.

He looks at key U.S. industries and how they are facing unprecedented levels of retirements in the next several years. He compares the looming economic impact to a meteor crash.

"At the end of the day, we should be recruiting people from Mexico to come."

Companies Implement Assimilation Programs for Immigrants

2008-08-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Hats off to Marriott! (Randall)

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/08/08/ST2008080803431.html

Companies Take Lead in Assimilation Efforts
Programs Aid Immigrant Workers

By Pamela Constable and N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 9, 2008;

Jose Trivelli, a graying engineer from Peru, spends his days fixing Internet connections at a Tysons Corner hotel and his evenings listening to a laptop computer program with cartoon characters and a chirpy voice that helps him pronounce such phrases as, "I'd like to open an account" and "Let me call my manager."

At 52, he admits to being slightly embarrassed by the simplistic instructional program, but he says his U.S.-born children, who speak perfect English, are so enthusiastic about his efforts that they help him with difficult words and dream of the day he will be promoted to manager.

Trivelli's employer, Marriott International, has a more ambitious motive for offering thousands of foreign-born housekeepers, cooks and maintenance workers its no-cost "Thirst for Knowledge" program, which simulates conversations in banks, hospitals, shops and schools as well as in hotel kitchens and lobbies.

Marriott and another Bethesda-based company, Miller & Long Concrete Construction, are among several dozen major U.S. corporations spearheading a campaign to turn the divisive national debate about immigration in a more positive direction.

"This is a mission for us," said Andy Chaves, a human resources manager for Marriott and a member of the White House Task Force on New Americans. "When our employees become proficient in English and assimilate into our society, it benefits the company, the community and the individual. Everyone gains."

Amid increasing public hostility to immigrants and intensifying efforts by local and federal authorities to crack down on illegal immigration, these business leaders hope to counter criticism that immigrants steal jobs and burden public services by highlighting the contributions they make to the U.S. economy and improving their ability to integrate.

The initiative is supported by a bill recently introduced in Congress. Sponsored by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and three representatives from California, Florida and Texas, it would provide $350 million for immigrant family literacy programs, individual tax credits for teachers and corporate tax breaks for firms that offer educational workplace programs like "Thirst for Knowledge."

In addition to support from private firms that employ thousands of immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere, the bill is backed by the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, which recently issued a report called "U.S. Business and Hispanic Integration: Expanding the Economic Contributions of Immigrants."

The report points out that Hispanics make up more than 14 percent of the U.S. workforce, own more than 2 million businesses and have a collective purchasing power of more than $800 billion a year. It says foreign-born workers have much to offer but need more help to master English and become more invested in American society.

It concedes that many Hispanic immigrants arrive with limited educations and that the immigration wave of the past two decades has slightly depressed wages among unskilled American workers. It also argues that immigrants "complement" the overall labor force as more native-born Americans earn degrees and seek higher-level jobs.

The report also asserts that if immigrants are given more opportunities to learn, earn and engage, they will repay the investment as better workers, parents, consumers and participants in public life. Although not endorsing illegal immigration, the report accepts it as a fact of life that needs to be addressed through legislative reforms.

The report lists corporations that have offered their large immigrant workforces a variety of skill-building programs. These include scholarships at Wal-Mart, English classes at United Parcel Service, financial literacy programs at Western Union and bilingual skills development at Northrop Grumman shipbuilders.

Some companies that employ immigrants have been reluctant to associate themselves with the effort, however, citing fears of public criticism and government scrutiny amid increasingly aggressive federal efforts to track down illegal immigrants and punish their employers.

"Businesses feel cowed by the rhetoric," said Christopher Sabatini, a policy director at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. "There is a fear of being labeled as aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants." He said some companies have curtailed programs aimed at helping immigrant workers because of community disapproval.

One company that has taken a strong public stance in favor of helping immigrant workers is Miller & Long. Myles Gladstone, the firm's personnel director, said that it once hired mostly African Americans but that since the early 1990s, fewer U.S.-born workers have applied, and they have been largely replaced by immigrants. Today, the firm employs more than 2,000 Hispanics, mostly foreign-born.

Gladstone said the firm started offering safety instruction in Spanish but gradually expanded into "broader life skills" for workers and their families. Today, it offers 65 free classes, including English, Spanish literacy, job safety, lifesaving, financial skills and health promotion. He said there are plans to expand the program to help immigrants keep their children out of trouble, with seminars on gangs and substance abuse.

He noted that not all immigrants are able to learn English and that of about 500 who have taken the company's language classes, "not a lot" have become truly bilingual. He said that if construction workers are trained well and understand safety, "they don't really need to have fluency in English," although without it they cannot become foremen or crane operators.

Antonia Diaz, 42, has advanced steadily at Miller & Long since she emigrated from Honduras six years ago. She began as a laborer, earning $10 per hour and speaking almost no English. Now, after taking corporate English classes for several years, she is a construction site safety worker and earns $18.50 an hour.

"If I had known I would be talking like this, I wouldn't believe it," Diaz said yesterday in passable English as she built wooden safety barricades around a construction site in Silver Spring. Although she converses with her mostly Hispanic crew in Spanish, she said learning English had other merits. "It helps me in my personal life," she said. She said she loves her job and plans to stay with Miller & Long but added: "If I know English and I get laid off, I can find other work. I am prepared for anything."

At Marriott, where some hotels have employees from as many as 25 countries, Chairman Bill Marriott calls immigrants the backbone of his business and frequently talks about the virtues of diversity and assimilation in his personal blog.

"We would hire a native-born person any day, but in most cases they don't want to do the lower-level labor we need in our business," he said in a telephone interview this week. "Probably the most important thing we can do is offer our employees the opportunity to learn English and grow and become part of our society."

At the Tysons Corner Marriott, much behind-the-scenes work is conducted in Spanish among immigrant employees. Most who have taken the "Thirst for Knowledge" class do not speak perfect English; Trivelli still confuses "chopping" with "shopping" and tends to drop his consonants. But he and the others said they have gained something else: a stronger sense of confidence and belonging in their adopted environment.

"Until now, I was always working too hard to study," said Trivelli, who was practicing vocabulary on his laptop in a workroom filled with tools and wires. "Now my kids are so happy I am learning. They help me with my pronunciation, and they tell me if I learn enough English, I can replace my boss one day."

USCIS States that new Passport Card Acceptable for Employment Eligibility Verification and I-9s

2008-08-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

See USCIS official announcement at http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2008,0811-passportcard.pdf

August 2008 Visa Bulletin

2008-07-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Significant changes between the July and August Visa Bulletin occurred in the Employment-based visa priority dates. As stated below, the EB-3 category no longer has any visa numbers available. Furthermore, the unskkilled workers category has also become unavailable. Finally, on the Family-based immigration side, the only significant change can be seen in Mexico's 4th Preference category - jumping forward a year.

Family Immigration - Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act sets an annual family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000.

1st Preference (USC unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 15 March 2002

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 15 March 2002

India: 15 March 2002

Mexico: 08 August 1992

Philippines: 22 March 1993

2A Preference (LPR spouses & unmarried children under 21)

Worldwide: 01 October 2003

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 October 2003

India: 01 October 2003

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: 001 October 2003

2B Preference (LPR unmarried sons & daughters over 21)

Worldwide: 01 November 1999

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 November 1999

India: 01 November 1999

Mexico: 15 April 1992

Philippines: 15 March 1997

3rd Preference (USC married sons & daughters)

Worldwide: 08 June 2000

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 08 June 2000

India: 08 June 2000

Mexico: 08 September 1992

Philippines: 01 April 1991

4th Preference (USC brothers & sisters)

Worldwide: 08 September 1997

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 22 February 1997

India: 22 February 1997

Mexico: 08 January 1995

Philippines: 08 March 1986

Employment Based - Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act sets an annual limit for employment-based preference limit of 140,000

1st Preference (EB-1)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

2nd Preference (EB-2)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: 01 June 2006

India: 01 June 2006

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

3rd Preference (EB-3)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

Schedule A workers (RNs, PTs)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

Unskilled Workers (less than 2 years experience required)

Worldwide: UNAVAILABLE

China (PRC) - Mainland born: UNAVAILABLE

India: UNAVAILABLE

Mexico: UNAVAILABLE

Philippines: UNAVAILABLE

4th Preference (EB-4)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Religious Workers

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Iraqi & Afghani Translators

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

5th Preference (EB-5: Investors)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT

India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

Targeted Employment Areas/ Regional Centers)

Worldwide: CURRENT

China (PRC) - Mainland born: CURRENT
India: CURRENT

Mexico: CURRENT

Philippines: CURRENT

McDonald's Fined $1 Million Dollars for Employing Unauthorized Workers!

2008-07-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

Reno McDonald's owners plead guilty to employing illegals

July 16, 2008

Reno McDonald's owners plead guilty to employing illegals
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New property tax question to be on ballot
Immigration sweep nets 42 in Lake Tahoe area
New Yucca Mountain cost estimate over $90 billion
Reno engineers are surveying damage from Sparks flood
Wanted man on the loose for first degree murder
American Indians rep: "Native Americans' vote could make a difference"
Family escapes garage fire in south Reno
New Fossett search now on foot

One current and one former top executive for a franchisee that owns 11 McDonald's restaurants in and around Reno, and the corporation itself pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas Wednesday to federal felony immigration offenses for encouraging illegal aliens to reside in the United States.

These charges stem from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into allegations the company knowingly hired illegal alien workers

In September 2007, ICE agents executed federal search warrants at the 11 McDonald's restaurants owned by Mack Associates in the Reno area and at the franchisee's corporate office.

During the operation, agents encountered 58 illegal aliens who were working illegally at the McDonald's restaurants. The illegal alien workers were arrested on administrative immigration violations and processed for removal.

Approximately 30 of those workers have been returned to their native countries. The remaining illegal workers were provided with documentation allowing them to remain in the United States pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.

The government and Mack Associates agreed that the corporation will pay a $1 million fine -- $500,000 for each count, the maximum allowed - and be placed on probation during the period that the fine is outstanding.

The court accepted this agreement and sentenced Mack Associates to one year of probation and ordered the corporation to pay the agreed upon $1 million fine, with $300,000 payable immediately and the balance to be paid within nine months.

The plea agreement details how Mack Associates' management employed individuals they knew were in the country illegally, including two restaurant managers, by furnishing them with names and Social Security numbers belonging to other individuals.

In addition, Jimmy Moore, 47, the franchisee's former vice-president, pleaded guilty to one felony count of inducing an illegal alien to remain in the United States. At sentencing, Moore faces a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A third defendant in the case, Anntoinette Richmond, 44, the corporation's controller, has been charged with one misdemeanor count of continuing employment of an unauthorized alien.

USCIS Hiring Surge to Clear out Cases

2008-07-15T15:04:00.001-07:00

I hope this helps improve processing times and that the new officers are customer service oriented. (Randall)

Dallas center at heart immigration hiring surge

By ANABELLE GARAY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 15, 2008;

DALLAS -- Some 48 students fill each of the auditorium-style classrooms, their bulky Immigration Law Handbooks tabbed with dozens of colorful stickies and laptop computers within reach.

For the next six weeks, the men and women who make up each class will study topics such as logic, ethics, legal decision-making, discretion, immigration history and trends.

Their classes are part of a nationwide effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to recruit and train hundreds of new employees who will help tackle the agency's mountainous backlog of cases.

Awaiting each of the students upon graduation will be a pile of petitions, some more than a year old. One by one, these adjudicators, as they are called, will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of people anxiously waiting to come to the U.S., to remain here and work or to become citizens.

Since October, the agency has added 830 adjudication officers to its ranks, bringing the total working at immigration offices nationwide to 3,775. Another 590 are expected to be trained by the end of the year.

It's all part of a renewed push to clear pending cases and to approve or deny most applications within six months. It has not been uncommon for some immigrants, who pay hundreds of dollars in filing fees, to spend a year or more awaiting a decision on their status.

About 1.4 million people applied for naturalization in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2007, nearly double the number of petitions filed the previous year. Driving the surge was a rush to file petitions before a planned fee increase took effect last summer and the upcoming presidential elections.

Overwhelmed, the agency warned that anyone who had applied after June 1, 2007, would likely wait 15 to 18 months to attain citizenship. That alarmed many applicants, who had hoped to become citizens in time to vote in November.

The agency has since said the waits will be shorter, but it won't say by how much.

Several CIS offices around the country have only just finished processing citizenship applications filed last July. Others are even further behind. The Miami field office recently completed naturalization petitions filed in April 2007 and Phoenix was still backlogged to June of last year.

The agency is confident the infusion of new adjudicators will help it handle the surge of immigrants. Costs are covered by the fee increase that took effect last year.

"Looking at the numbers, the vast majority of offices ... are going to meet their six to nine months" goal, said Stella Jarina, director in residence of the USCIS Academy Training Center in Dallas.

The center has graduated 479 adjudicators since opening in January, Jarina said.

Those who have been pushing the agency to speed up the petition process say they've seen improvements, but for many hoping to become citizens it may be too little, too late.

"My sense is there is going to be a dent, but not a significant dent in the process of applications in time for a majority of those who applied last year to be able to vote in this presidential election," said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at NYU School of Law. "There has been some catching up both in terms of resources and recruitment but not enough to meet the response of the challenge that the surge presented."

The agency points out, however, that more adjudication officers are still being hired and trained. About 285 are enrolled in classes now under way in Dallas, Jarina said. Another 290 are registered for future sessions.

Most of the future adjudicators have college degrees in such fields as communications, prelaw, sociology, psychology and international studies. Some are naturalized citizens and many speak a language in addition to English.

They spend each eight-hour day digesting immigration statutes, understanding naturalization and learning the various classifications for immigrants.

As part of their coursework, students also take the same citizenship test that their future customers must pass in order to become citizens.

After graduation, each class travels to the National Benefits Center at Lee's Summit, Mo., where students get at least a week of on-the-job training under the supervision of seasoned adjudicators before taking up cases on their own at USCIS offices throughout the country.

Prosecutors to seek indictments

2008-07-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5881300.html

HOUSTON — Prosecutors can seek criminal indictments against the owner of a rag exporting company and three managers accused of knowingly hiring unauthorized workers after a magistrate found the government had enough evidence to support the federal charges.

Authorities believe Mabarik Kahlon, 45, owner of Action Rags USA, and three supervisors conspired to conceal and harbor unauthorized workers and induced them to stay in the United States illegally. Officials also allege the owner and managers engaged in a pattern of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

The others who could face indictments are human resources manager Valerie Rodriguez, 34; manager Cirila Barron, 38; and warehouse supervisor Mayra Herrera-Gutierrez, 32.

During a hearing Wednesday, attorneys for the defendants questioned the role of four confidential informants who prompted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to raid the company. Three of the informants were paid a total of $13,200 and given immigration benefits, said defense attorney Paul Nugent.

Critics of immigration raids say the government is quick to exonerate company leaders.

"I think ICE is under political pressure to make arrests of management, and I think they may have rushed this case because of political considerations," Nugent said after the hearing.

ICE agent Calvin Bradford testified that only one of the four informants was told beforehand that money would be paid for their undercover work. The agency has not decided how much it will pay the informant who provided the original details of activities at the company.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Davis said 85 percent of plant workers were undocumented, showing sufficient evidence of a conspiracy.

More than 160 suspected illegal immigrants working at the hot, cluttered factory in north Houston were detained on June 25. At least 74 have been released by ICE officials for humanitarian reasons.

2 supervisors at raided meatpacking plant arrested

2008-07-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080705/ap_on_re_us/immigration_raid_3;_ylt=AlA3REkIDnNGN9z4iWt7v6BQuk0A

By AMY LORENTZEN, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 4, 9:06 PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa - Two supervisors at an Iowa meatpacking plant that was raided by federal immigration agents in May were arrested and charged with encouraging people to live in the United States illegally.

Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43, were also charged Thursday with and aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identification. Guerrero-Espinoza was charged with aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft.

Federal immigration officials raided Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, on May 12. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human resources department, court records said.

Since the raid, critics had asked federal officials why no top executives at the plant had been arrested even though more than a third of the plant's employees faced immigration charges.

"I'm still waiting to see whether federal officials will pursue an investigation into Agriprocessors itself for apparent workplace safety and immigration law violations," U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley said. "As I've said before, until we enforce our immigration laws equally against both employers and employees who break the law, we'll continue to have a problem with illegal immigration."

Agriprocessors spokesman Juda S. Engelmayer said the company and its attorneys were reviewing the paperwork from the federal action on Thursday and couldn't comment on the matter.

According to the complaints, sources told federal officials that Guerrero-Espinoza and De La Rosa-Loera were plant supervisors.

A person who worked in the human resource department told authorities that Guerrero-Espinoza would bring them resident alien cards for new job applicants who were to be hired in the beef kill department, one of the areas he supervised, the complaint said.

A week before the raid, Guerrero-Espinoza instructed a group of workers to get new IDs and Social Security numbers in order to keep working at the company, another source at the plant told authorities.

A number of sources said a couple of weeks before the raid that De La Rosa-Loera told them they needed new documents to work at the plant, the complaint against him said. When they got the new documents, they reported that De La Rosa-Loera handed them back but allowed them to continue working at the plant.

Detention hearings for both men were ordered for Monday in Cedar Rapids. Court documents did not list attorneys for the men, and officials with the U.S. Clerk of District Court's office did not know whether attorneys had been appointed.

___

Associated Press writer Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.