An immigration raid on 40 wooden pallet manufacturing plants across the United States resulted in federal agents nabbing 1,187 undocumented workers but it is what happened Thursday to seven of the company's managers that has some Utah business operators nervous.
Along with the arrests of the undocumented laborers, including 13 in Tooele, Homeland Security agents took into custody seven managers of IFCO Systems North America for allegedly hiring workers who they knew lacked the proper work papers. Three of the managers were in New York, two in Texas, one in Ohio and one in Massachusetts.
"I'm sure a lot of business owners now are taking a step back and rechecking to make sure all the needed documentation is in place," said Steve Lindburg, past president of the Utah Hotel and Lodging Association and general manager of the Salt Lake City Hilton. "A cautious person would say that it's time to be careful, and [the raid] is just one more reason."
Although hiring undocumented immigrants has been a crime since 1986, there has been virtually no enforcement of that law. The raid Thursday, though, is a sign that such actions could become a more regular feature of life for businesses, especially if public unhappiness over the immigration problems grows. The business community, while favoring a program that would assure the supply of foreign workers, has kept a relatively low profile in the controversy. The arrest of the IFCO managers served notice that its stake in the issue was more than economic. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the operation marked a new commitment to enforcing immigration laws in the workplace and, with the use of tough criminal penalties against managers, a new strategy for dealing with employers who hire undocumented workers. "Americans are rightly concerned about the need to enforce immigration law," said Chertoff, who pledged to ramp up efforts to pursue businesses that hire workers who are in the country illegally.
Still, almost all business owners and managers would testify that they never knowingly hire undocumented workers and follow closely the regulations spelled out on Form 1-9, which makes all employers responsible for verifying whether their workers are eligible to work in this country.
The I-9 form spells out what documents employers can accept to establish a worker's identity and employment eligibility.
Some documents, such as a U.S. passport, a certificate of U.S. citizenship or an unexpired employment-authorization card, can be presented to employers and will, by themselves, establish that the holder is eligible to work in this country. Others, such as a Social Security Card, must be presented along with other supporting documents such as a driver license, a voter registration card or a school identification card with a photograph.
"As long as businesses make a good-faith effort to comply with the law, and the documents they accept appear reasonably genuine, they should not have any problems," said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Laguna Miguel, Calif.
Business owners are required to accept any valid documents that meet the requirements spelled on on the I-9 form. They cannot, however, demand to see specific documents, such as a so-called green card or a birth certificate, if those documents haven't been presented voluntarily.
The government contends that the IFCO managers who were arrested stepped far over the line and intentionally violated immigration laws.
Using an undocumented immigrant as an informant, a government contends agents learned that the company reimbursed workers for obtaining fraudulent documents, used the informant to recruit other undocumented workers and advised them on how to avoid law-enforcement detection. More than 1,100 undocumented immigrants were taken into custody during the operation, which was conducted in 26 states.
Most businesses are looked upon by the government as the first line of defense against those who try to use bogus papers to work illegally in this country. And many businesses report that they take that responsibility seriously.
Arctic Circle Restaurants, for example, conduct frequent seminars with its managers showing them what forged social security cards look like and what types of identification they can accept, said Bill Schoen, a vice president at the Utah-based restaurant chain.
If a worker's fraudulent papers initially escape detection, they will still get caught eventually, Schoen said. "It might take nine months to a year for Social Security to catch up with them and eventually tell the employer, but they're not going to get away with it forever."
The Social Security Administration, though, won't tell everyone.
In 2004, for example, it informed only those businesses where 10 or more employees provided incorrect numbers or information that didn't coincide with the data on file, Social Security spokeswoman Jan Foushee said. "But in every case we'll try to get in contact with the employee" to let them know there is a problem, she said.
If a business owner finds out that an employee is working illegally in this country, he or she is required to terminate that worker, said Chris Bentley of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employers are not required to notify the government when they have terminated an undocumented worker, Haley said.
Since 1997, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been working to roll out its "Basic Pilot" program, a database that employers can use to determine if the worker they have hired is eligible to work in this country. The program was implemented in all 50 states in December 2004.
The program is voluntary, but a business that signs up with us and uses it wouldn't be sanctioned" if the database indicates they've hired someone who is in the U.S. illegally, provided they fire them, spokeswoman Sharon Rummery said.
"Employees are given eight days to make contact with the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to clear up any problems," she said. |